I've only heard the PM-3, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Putting aside the mid to treble balance, which the Panda has resolved to some degree (if the pre-hype is to be believed), the only EQ this headphone might need is a small boost below 100Hz, imo. There's a small bump in the response right around there and to me it sticks out. Not to mention that without active noise cancelling, sometimes a little extra bass on a portable can really come in handy.
@WillBright After joining the June perk I am curious how much info you can provide on how far along things are given all of the shutdowns/delays/etc because of Covid.
Do you foresee any delays in design/production pushing deliveries back?
Yup, EDM head here: I think the potential highly
Likely there for audiophile basshead.
I’ve learned that low distortion drivers are especially friendly to EQ shaping. The Panda is both low distortion at the driver and high powered in the amp. It would be an ideal tone shaping platform.
Oh yeah: yes, I’ve heard them. My biggest niggle is that the sub bass needs more attention.
Right.
I'm on that road too.
But my advantage is owning a PM-3 myself, so i can guess very well how the panda will sound.
And that'll be worth every cent, imo and for me.
Just joined... we'll see. I never really liked the PM3, it was just too boring to me. I hope the slight changes in this model may alleviate this, plus I hope that my short test just showed that signature which I normally consider long-term ready: a bit boring on first contact, but on the other hand no upfront features that stress me out a while later.
When I tried these I found them to sound better than the PM3. Better sub bass extension, mids were more focused and lifelike (mids are their best feature). Highs were very clear, showing the benefits of low distortion. The PM3 highs were clear but these are better balanced, while the PM3 was brighter than I'd prefer (despite their slight roll off above 10k).
Sony has the WH-1000XM3 and the WH-H900N which both are geared towards audiophiles with advanced driver tech(aluminium or titanium coated diaphragms, extreme wide frequency response) and LDAC, both are affordable and both sounds pretty good.
Im not so sure if the xm3 are geared towards audiphiles. I would say they are premium, but everybody describe the sound signature as too dark and bassy.
Im not so sure if the xm3 are geared towards audiphiles. I would say they are premium, but everybody describe the sound signature as too dark and bassy.
Both are made to be used out on the streets, like when commuting, bass is usually drowned out by surrounding low freq noise so you need some extra bass for the music to still sound balanced compared to the silence in a home environment. They doesn't sound dark and bassy in a public environment. They are not intended for relaxing at home, at all.
When I tried these I found them to sound better than the PM3. Better sub bass extension, mids were more focused and lifelike (mids are their best feature). Highs were very clear, showing the benefits of low distortion. The PM3 highs were clear but these are better balanced, while the PM3 was brighter than I'd prefer (despite their slight roll off above 10k).
this gives me hope I made the right decision. Butt I guess I'll have to wait until July to verify...
I don't care much about ANC, and I don't like electronically corrected drivers. To me a wireless headphone should be acoustically tuned and include a generic amp so that I can use it wired when the battery dies without any degradation in sound quality. Beyerdynamic does that for their Amiron and Aventho models (as do others as well), while the first gen Sony 1000-whatever sounded really bad without active electronics (and still not good with running DSP). From this stand the Panda ticks all my boxes.
if Drop later decides to add an App, I very much hope that the EQ etc is stored on the headphone and can then be used with every source. But I really don't need that, a proper integration to show the battery level on my iPhone and to synchronize volume settings between device and headphone (so that I don't have to max out volume on the phone) is enough for me.
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