[kamikazeing]

I picked up a pair of EMU Teak Bamboo on black friday from Drop and just got them in today. Straight up, these sound like ass. Seriously, what the hell happened here?

I bought these after having gotten a CAL on sale for like 30 bucks and having been super impressed with them. CAL’s had so so technicalities but a solid rock out kind of tuning, so naturally I looked to these as a more refined upgrade to the CAL. Hell no. They sound muffled, like there’s cotton stuffed in the opening of the pad.

Mud, stuffy. Hifiman HE-R9 is what these make me think of. These are nothing like the TH-X00 that I owned either. Back they go.

 

[gr4474]

Highly recommending JM Audio custom made. I'm content.

 

[DenverW]

I picked up a pair of EMU Teak Bamboo on black friday from Drop and just got them in today. Straight up, these sound like ass. Seriously, what the hell happened here?

I bought these after having gotten a CAL on sale for like 30 bucks and having been super impressed with them. CAL’s had so so technicalities but a solid rock out kind of tuning, so naturally I looked to these as a more refined upgrade to the CAL. Hell no. They sound muffled, like there’s cotton stuffed in the opening of the pad.

Mud, stuffy. Hifiman HE-R9 is what these make me think of. These are nothing like the TH-X00 that I owned either. Back they go.

I haven’t heard the bamboo but I know that it was not as well received as the teak cups.

Everyone has different tastes, but is it possible that something was off on the unit? I find the teaks better than all three variants of the x00, and I’m not on an island there. Perhaps it’s the bamboo cups, some weird unit variance, or preference, but the teaks had the best bass of any of the fostex I heard; not muddy at all.

 

[kamikazeing]

I haven’t heard the bamboo but I know that it was not as well received as the teak cups.

Everyone has different tastes, but is it possible that something was off on the unit? I find the teaks better than all three variants of the x00, and I’m not on an island there. Perhaps it’s the bamboo cups, some weird unit variance, or preference, but the teaks had the best bass of any of the fostex I heard; not muddy at all.

It could very well be my specific unit, given there's some very noticeable channel imbalance in the ear gain region. The left side is just louder in that area and in general these just sound bizarrely different to what other people describe and what the Th-X00 sounded like. Poor driver matching/bad QC? who knows. But I also noticed that the gap between the left bamboo cup and the frame is larger than the right side, almost as if the left cup wasn't screwed in all the way. All of this straight out of the box.

Anywho, I already contacted drop about a return/possible exchange, just gotta decide on If I want to roll the dice again.

 

[oqvist]

Not a big fan of my teaks. If you listen to music that is more then just bass its very unbalanced. Though its not as crazy as my x00:s its at least consistent.

 

[DenverW]

It could very well be my specific unit, given there's some very noticeable channel imbalance in the ear gain region. The left side is just louder in that area and in general these just sound bizarrely different to what other people describe and what the Th-X00 sounded like. Poor driver matching/bad QC? who knows. But I also noticed that the gap between the left bamboo cup and the frame is larger than the right side, almost as if the left cup wasn't screwed in all the way. All of this straight out of the box.

Anywho, I already contacted drop about a return/possible exchange, just gotta decide on If I want to roll the dice again.

If they’ll exchange I’d look at the teak cups if possible.

 

[kamikazeing]

Got a replacement pair. Still bamboo, but there was definitely something wrong with my first one. These are actually pretty good! Better than CAL now at least.

These :

Have more bass than the first pair I got

No weird upper mid dip, resulting in clearer sound/voices

No muddyness/muffled sound

Have some semblance of detail

Liking them a lot now.

 

[CorvetteGarage]

Big fan of the Teaks.
Had all three variants of the x00, they have come and gone, but the Teaks remain.

And with Roons parametric eq, they get even better. I guess that can be said about any headphone with eq...

 

[DenverW]

Got a replacement pair. Still bamboo, but there was definitely something wrong with my first one. These are actually pretty good! Better than CAL now at least.

These :

Have more bass than the first pair I got

No weird upper mid dip, resulting in clearer sound/voices

No muddyness/muffled sound

Have some semblance of detail

Liking them a lot now.

That's good to hear! I sometimes question if I'm crazy or have bad taste with headphones, so it's good know I wasn't off thinking you got a bum unit. Cup rolling is a nice touch with these too. Perhaps a pair of teak cups will pop up in the market. I wish drop would have another run of cups for sale!

 

[AT Khan]

Emu teak is leaking like crazy just use the cups to get epic bass boost. No true open back can achieve that just get emu teak if you want emu teak

True that - in fact, EMU can, interestingly, still achieve all that - with open back mods. I'm using them open back now. Even less claustrophobic, and more natural overall. Like giving them a little breather. I've done several open back mods to them in the past. This is my latest rendition - so far, so good.

 

[antdroid]

I've been wanting to try these out for a long time now, and had some left over Drop credit for a while, and decided to get the Emu Walnut while it was on sale in December.

I detached the stock cable and put in 3.5mm connectors to have detachable cables. After doing this, I noticed the bass went up slightly, and it became a little more v-shaped. To get the jack to sit/fit in, I had to remove the bracket that holds the stock cable in-place in the cup. I didn't realize this in my brief look at it, that the fastener attaches to this bracket too, so there is a slight seal break on the lower half here, however, with pressure from the headband/head coupling, I cant imagine that there is a lot of differences between having it fastened down and not, but maybe just enough to change the FR a bit.

It's a fun headphone regardless and treble tuning is quite good, though overall, it lacks resolution and staging. Good value overall though, and I like how it looks and how incredibly light it is.








The graph shown is:
Blue - out of the box (right channel)
Green - after 3.5mm detachable jack mod (right channel)

Here's how it compares to Emu Rosewood (TR-6XX with emu rosewood cups), and the Denon D5200, which is a similar biodyna driver-based headphone.

 

[Darksoul]

I got back to the regular non perforated pads, I haven't enjoyed a pair of headphones so much as these ones. If there's anything "up there" that I will like more, I don't care I'm keeping these, if they break, I'll buy them again.

Circle jerking aside, does anyone have any info about the material of the hinge? I read somewhere that they're of a magnesium-aluminum alloy. But I don't know for sure.

 

[NexusOne]

Does anyone know Where you can get a Short Cable for the Teak? Because at the Emu Shop you only get the 3m Version?

And I am Right that the Most of you which Compared the 610 with the Teak prefer the Teak because it is the more fun headphone with Less harshness and more airyness? I think the reason why you buy such a headphone is the subwoofer sound and the frequency curve Shows that the Teak delivers it more than the 610?

 

[plmon]

Does anyone know Where you can get a Short Cable for the Teak? Because at the Emu Shop you only get the 3m Version?

And I am Right that the Most of you which Compared the 610 with the Teak prefer the Teak because it is the more fun headphone with Less harshness and more airyness? I think the reason why you buy such a headphone is the subwoofer sound and the frequency curve Shows that the Teak delivers it more than the 610?

This cable worked for me when I had an E-MU Teak removable cable version.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Replac...PM-1-PM-2-headphones-/311353851834?nav=SEARCH

I haven't heard the TH-610 itself, but I've heard the TH-900 with TH-610 pads. AFAIK, the main difference is the wood type for the cups (they even seem to have the same dampening material inside the wood cups). I've also tried the TH-610 pads on the E-MU Teak.

I found it to be a more "neutral" sound, but in exchange the tonality was not as smooth and natural-sounding. The upper mids in particular sounded a bit rough to me. The bass is cleaner, but didn't thump as hard as the Teaks. And the presentation was a little less intimate. IMO, the Teaks would deliver more on the bass, but I also wouldn't necessarily say it's "subwoofer-ish" since the subbass is not quite as prominent as the midbass to my ears.

But maybe someone who's tried the actual TH-610 would have more accurate comparisons.

 

[kith86]

Does anyone know Where you can get a Short Cable for the Teak? Because at the Emu Shop you only get the 3m Version?

And I am Right that the Most of you which Compared the 610 with the Teak prefer the Teak because it is the more fun headphone with Less harshness and more airyness? I think the reason why you buy such a headphone is the subwoofer sound and the frequency curve Shows that the Teak delivers it more than the 610?

I have both 610 and 900 but never heard teak yet, its hard to find them here, 610 also hard, im lucky finding one, the sound profile is somehow neutral and smooth with bass boost (not too much though), it has less resolution than 900 resulting less engaging and less detail sound but less fatigue and very easy to listen (not for analytical lover) because mid and treble somehow just neutral smooth (maybe quite boring if you dont like laidback smooth sounding), based on some user i read, i have a feeling that 610 and e-mu have same charateristic with e-mu has more treble and bass present, if that true then i think e-mu will be more fun but not neutral like 610, i dont agree about less harness part, this 610 already so soft, i couldnot imagine if less harsness than this then = muffled sounding, about less airy is debatable, but 900 with same v-shaped as emu is airier.