[Ihasanafro]

[size=11.0pt]Hello let me give you an overview of what I have been listening to over the past year.

CX400 II (I broke them) -> Brainwavz M2 (I broke these too) -> Beyerdynamic DTX 101IE (Guess what, I broke these as well). The DTX was the best sounding headphone I have ever listening to. I listen to a lot of Drum n Bass so the bass on these were just out of this world.

I bought the Creatives because I wanted a change from IEM's and venture into the world of full size headphones, after contemplating whether to get Superlex HD668B or these I took the dive for the Creatives, my reasoning. More bass, closed headphones (isolation both out in and in out) and comfort

A terribly detailed and written review on them

I first bought them and I was extremely pleased with my purchase, the bass was amazing, mids nice and warm and highs present, overall very impressed with these headphones.

After a week of listening to them my initial thoughts on them dropped, the bass was nice but on songs which I know had a very deep sub bass to them could not be heard on the Creatives.
An excellent example of this is Warehouse Dayz by Bachelors of Science. The DTX's provided this deep rumble bass that I have never heard on that song by any other headphones/speakers. I listened to that song on various systems including a several grand Naim system which still couldn’t reproduce the bass that was present on the DTX's (off topic)

The mids was not anything special (I did not expect them to be) just average to my ears

The highs were good but often the amount of sibilance on some rock songs would drive me mad Metillica's Death Magnetic was the worse (I listen to the GH3 version, no distortion that way)

Now don’t get me wrong, they still are very good headphones just with the rave reviews everyone seems to be giving them after a while they seemed to not be so good as people make them out to be. (This is coming from a £70 IEM user bare this in mind!!!!)

>> Why I am disappointed with them <<

Outside kills these headphones

People say that the isolation isn’t so good on these, imo they’re fine once you crank the volume up. But when walking along a busy road or on a bus/train the bass is just non-existent. I’m not talking about the low bass, ALL the bass is gone.

Nobody has mentioned this in any reviews. Going outside with these headphones absolutely kills them.

I'll rank the levels of bass removing environments here (first being no bass, last being some bass):

Train (-100/10, absolutely no bass what so ever can be heard)
Busy road (1/10 on the bass scale)
Buses (2.5/10 Some bass on some songs such as Vanishing Point by Deadmau5)
Quite Road (4/10 on the bass scale)
Park, no noise, just wind (6/10 on the bass scale, its somewhat there but nowhere near what can be heard when inside)

I travel every day and having headphones which have no bass when I am outside is pointless for me. 

Closing words

I was super pumped to get these headphones after reading about the reviews, I would recommend them to people only, ONLY, if they were going to use them for indoor use. Outside kills them

If you have made it this far my God bless you for having to put up for my terrible writing skills ):[/size]

[size=11.0pt]TLDR; Good headphones inside, the worst headphones outside[/size]

 

[Darkbeat]

They're not the worst headphones outside, but almost every review does mention the poor isolation. They are still fantastic, if not the best, headphones for the price, but their mediocre isolation is certainly their biggest limitation.

 

[Ihasanafro]

Quote:

They're not the worst headphones outside, but almost every review does mention the poor isolation. They are still fantastic, if not the best, headphones for the price, but their mediocre isolation is certainly their biggest limitation.

I must have misunderstood what they mean by isolation, I thought that when they said that it has poor blocking of outside noise it was just that, I did not realise that poor isolation leads to losing bass 

 

[jackwess]

Amping does change the situation a bit. Did you try that? 

 

[Ihasanafro]

Quote:

Amping does change the situation a bit. Did you try that? 

I do not have a portable amp so I can't try this ):

 

[jackwess]

Quote:

I do not have a portable amp so I can't try this ):

 
I see. 
You should try at least a cheap e5 sometime. Or a Digizoid Zo. 

 

[Ihasanafro]

Quote:

 
I see. 
You should try at least a cheap e5 sometime. Or a Digizoid Zo. 

The thing is, my phone has no problems powering the headphones whilst I am inside, it is only once I am outside that all these problems occur

 

[Dyaems]

everytime the CAL! is mentioned and isolation is the question, most, if not all people say that they are very poor in isolation. including me.

 

[Ihasanafro]

everytime the CAL! is mentioned and isolation is the question, most, if not all people say that they are very poor in isolation. including me.

It looks like I misunderstood what reviewers meant by isolation