Sound Eq
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2013
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Sure, I'm here to help!
I will be posting an in-depth review on them, but let's start with my first impressions:
- CZ1 is fairly hard to drive, so you'll need some power for them. They are not high impedance, but they are low senstivity.
- The build quality is excellent, they are very sturdy, and the earpads are really soft. Everything feels premium, and they feel well built.
- The comfort is actually one of the most surprising things, for a new product, and for something that is quite heavy on paper (almost as heavy as LCD-MX4 on paper!), they are really comfortable, feel very light, the padding is soft, both in the headband, and on the earpads, and the whole headphone feels just really nice. There's nothing I can complain about when it comes to comfort! The earpads have a very different mechanism from most headphones, instead of being adjustable in the headband, the cups swivel outwards, making those stay at juuust the right amount of pressure to stay fit, but to be really comfy. If your head is very large, so they become. Also, the earpads are really spacey, they have a lot of space, even for the largest ears in the world.
- There are multiple drivers inside to simulate soundstage in a larger size. To their defense, this works better than advertised, what you get is a HD800 Huge soundstage, but with much better instrument separation and instrument definition. I am pleased with it.
- So, the main direct comparative headphone is HD800S, and CZ1 feels like someone really wanted to like HD800S, but felt they were a total letdown for their price, and for actually listening to music. To explain, HD800 can be a great headphone, because it is clear, analytical, detailed, wide, and airy, but it is also pretty harsh, peaky, thin, and fatiguing
- Here, CZ1 is also a bass-light headphone, but with a much more gentle midrange than HD800S, a thicker, deeper, quicker bass than HD800S, less peaks, but with similar bright treble , but which is never harsh, rather being simply well expressed, and just as comfortable and wide.
- CrossZone never implies that CZ1 is any similar to HD800S, and it really isn't that similar, this is just a personal observation, because, in all fairness, itr is more of a headphone of its own. Kinda like how a well balanced flagship should sound like, wide, airy, well separated, dynamic. This being said, they are on the neutral - light side, so not a lot of bass (nowhere near LCD-2 or 4Z levels of bass), and they aren't thick or lush, CZ1 is what HD800S should have been,
- CZ1 is not overly analytical, just like a flagship should, it presents details in an organic way, without exposing the details in a way that's fatiguing, imagine they sound exactly like you'd expect a Japanese Headphone to sound like, gentle, detailed, airy, well separated, everything that high-end should be is there.
- The main complain I do have about them, and which I think you will have, is how hard they are to drive. This ain't a joke, and they require some power to reach their absolute best, but man, do they sound good when they reach that point .
- The package is also a but frugal, nothing fancy, just the headphgones, a storage box with a really nice material, and two cables.
- All in all, those are an excellent purchase, and if you can hop in the massdrop 1K USD deal, it is something I wouldn't miss, if you were looking for a HD800S headphone, but better made in terms of how things are presented. Where HD800S was still too harsh, too mature, too bright, too hot in the treble, and too lean in the bass, CZ1 is juuust right in every of those chapters.
- The bass may not be the fastest out there, it is not a very tight bass, more like a natural to slow one. The overall sound works well for metal music, but slower music may comliment them a bit better.
- Please ask if you have any questions until I finish my review (planned among the next 2-3 reviews actually)
thanks so much you always give amazing feedback, can you confirm mids are rich and full, or are they recessed
