D-Boy
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2007
- Posts
- 29
- Likes
- 11
I just recently obtained my e500s from ebay. Very recent. If you want to just see my question go to the last paragraph, else the rest is background information building the base so that those with high experience might be able to troubleshoot for me.
I am not very experienced with amps and headphones but generally appreciate good sound. So in short words you can say I am probably still quite a novice in the head-fi community.
I try to become too influenced by other reviews and biased opinions causing myself to not judge directly with my bodily senses, in this case ears only. However, I'm not even sure what contributes to the so called "highs" that people refer to. To me I only take it as the higher frequencies, and it has become the common jargon when reviewing headphone sound quality. I'm assuming Bass Drums and lower response are the so called "lows", "highs" are vocals, parts of melody and mids are something in between (I'm least experienced with what exactly are the mids).
My music consists of some a lot of Trance, and Classical as well as some game music, Rock, and a little bit of pop.
My main concern right now is that the e500s really do not satisfy the highs for me. My reference is the Sennheiser HD555s through a Cmoy amp with burrbrown OP2134. The first time I listened to Pachebel's Canon in D by Palliard and Andre through my HD555s in lossless format through my Audigy 2 ZS or my iPod Nano Lineout with the Cmoy amp I could only explain that as the big O for my ears.
After getting the e500s, when I first put them on, although the clarity and isolation were noticeably apparently, I did not get the eye opener feeling I expected. I also have heard that the e500s don't really need burn in compared to other headphones/IEMs. I am using the yellow foams for a good fit and isolation. The main concern is this observation that the e500s has lacking highs... although this is the opinion of others and I assume the general idea is that "although the highs are a bit rolled off" it does not mean the highs are bad, they are still well represented. However, for me, compared to value headphones, HD555s, I find the e500s does not do "Justice for the Violins" in something like Pachebel's Canon in D. The bass is well defined and the mids, if i'm stating them correctly, are strong, but the violin which I'll correlate with highs are really lacking. The HD555s made the violins sound so alive and not blocked by anything. On the e500s the violins sound almost shoved into the background or just not as up front, instead, using my reference track, the Harp plucks are sharp, almost painful, the bass is well defined in and I can definitely focus on them and appreciate the smoothness of the bass. However no matter how I try to listen, I can't really feel that the Violins are being brought up front. I have tried putting the settings on Rockbox to add up to 5dBs of treble and it sounds slightly better but it's a bit artificial with equalizer treble input. I continued torture testing my headphones with my ears, and some of my vocal trance didn't give me the impression of "wow her voice is beautiful" or the upfront feeling of trailing high notes in anything including screaming high notes from Toshi on my X-Japan tracks.
Is this the so called result of "rolled off highs"? Any discussion would be welcomed, I don't really have much option to switch but maybe I will get used to it is how I feel. I have bad tendency to expect a fair amount on something that is hyped, and in this case quite expensive.
I am not very experienced with amps and headphones but generally appreciate good sound. So in short words you can say I am probably still quite a novice in the head-fi community.
I try to become too influenced by other reviews and biased opinions causing myself to not judge directly with my bodily senses, in this case ears only. However, I'm not even sure what contributes to the so called "highs" that people refer to. To me I only take it as the higher frequencies, and it has become the common jargon when reviewing headphone sound quality. I'm assuming Bass Drums and lower response are the so called "lows", "highs" are vocals, parts of melody and mids are something in between (I'm least experienced with what exactly are the mids).
My music consists of some a lot of Trance, and Classical as well as some game music, Rock, and a little bit of pop.
My main concern right now is that the e500s really do not satisfy the highs for me. My reference is the Sennheiser HD555s through a Cmoy amp with burrbrown OP2134. The first time I listened to Pachebel's Canon in D by Palliard and Andre through my HD555s in lossless format through my Audigy 2 ZS or my iPod Nano Lineout with the Cmoy amp I could only explain that as the big O for my ears.
After getting the e500s, when I first put them on, although the clarity and isolation were noticeably apparently, I did not get the eye opener feeling I expected. I also have heard that the e500s don't really need burn in compared to other headphones/IEMs. I am using the yellow foams for a good fit and isolation. The main concern is this observation that the e500s has lacking highs... although this is the opinion of others and I assume the general idea is that "although the highs are a bit rolled off" it does not mean the highs are bad, they are still well represented. However, for me, compared to value headphones, HD555s, I find the e500s does not do "Justice for the Violins" in something like Pachebel's Canon in D. The bass is well defined and the mids, if i'm stating them correctly, are strong, but the violin which I'll correlate with highs are really lacking. The HD555s made the violins sound so alive and not blocked by anything. On the e500s the violins sound almost shoved into the background or just not as up front, instead, using my reference track, the Harp plucks are sharp, almost painful, the bass is well defined in and I can definitely focus on them and appreciate the smoothness of the bass. However no matter how I try to listen, I can't really feel that the Violins are being brought up front. I have tried putting the settings on Rockbox to add up to 5dBs of treble and it sounds slightly better but it's a bit artificial with equalizer treble input. I continued torture testing my headphones with my ears, and some of my vocal trance didn't give me the impression of "wow her voice is beautiful" or the upfront feeling of trailing high notes in anything including screaming high notes from Toshi on my X-Japan tracks.
Is this the so called result of "rolled off highs"? Any discussion would be welcomed, I don't really have much option to switch but maybe I will get used to it is how I feel. I have bad tendency to expect a fair amount on something that is hyped, and in this case quite expensive.
