[Viber]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psiga /img/forum/go_quote.gif Overall I am happy with the RP-21, though I still find it to be physically uncomfortable to wear after a little while -- the interior presses against my ears, leading to a slight ache. Sound is nice for the price, but I'm already plotting the "gee, let's spend a few hundred dollars on the next one" upgrade.

What do mean when you say "the interior"?? do you mean the pads or the drivers on your ears?

I'm going crazy consdering these phones! i even tried them at the store for 15 minutes and i still can't decide! i was looking for them to get uncomfortable and they just felt weird, i mean i can imagine them being comfortable on my ears for hours but they felt weird - like there's nothing around my ears except a pressure at the back of my head (nothing touching the ears though).
I wonder if they will start to hurt my ears\head after an 1Hour+...really frustrating to buy a cat in a bag like this.

The combination between the Bass and the Treble (HiHats) felt also weird in some tracks...like something is not perfectly right.


But im so tired from my K26P and i cant buy the D1000

 

[pdennis]

Viber, from previous posts it seems that some people's ears touch the drivers (or the foam covering them).

It seems lots of folks have put the leatherette Beyer pads on their RP-21. Has anyone tried the Beyer gel pads? Risk of too much bass, perhaps?

 

[Psiga]

Oh god, my RP-21s are breaking again. Same weak point along the headband. It must be stressing when I put them on and take them off. I am deliberately careful when doing that, since the first ones broke at the headband, but I must be doing it wrong anyway.

I wear the things for several hours a day, taking them off and putting them back on 6 to 10 times throughout the day as I take breaks. Even though I don't yank, drop, or pull inordinately hard, that's still a lot of on-and-off.

Now I'm not sure what to do, since I've already gotten a replacement before (first one snapped within a month), and have mixed feelings about contacting Equation again. On one hand, I'll feel like a jerk if I try to get another replacement, and on the other hand I am tired of dealing with this model.

Honestly not going to recommend the RP-21 at this point. Not a happy puppy, here.

 

[denl82]

Hi

Well I just got my brand new rp-22x from the head-fi user Jaw007 today, and would love to discuss my audio journey with them so far. I'll be indirectly comparing them to my hi-end reference 'phone the dt880'05, and the closed/mid-fi reference dt770/80's. I say indirectly comparing them because I've recently sold the dt880's, and have long gave away the dt770s. BUT, I believe my experiences with those two are sufficient enough, as I've listened to both cans everyday for about a year each. All the phones I've heard for a decent period of time are listed in my profile.

Summary: Great bass volume and detail, full mids, so-so highs, great soundstage width and depth but lacking soundstage height(so far). Excellent leakage outwards(almost none at normal volumes), decent leakage inwards. Overall, well worth the price($122).

To start, I had low expectations of the rp-22x's for some reason, so when I opened up the box, I was expecting anything. And to my surprise, I was still disappointed, but only temporarily. First, the phone seemed shaky in my hands compared to the stiff feeling of the dt880s in my hand. When I plugged them into the laptop, my heart almost dropped as I was hearing very flabby, out of line bass and shouty mids.

So I brought them down to my room and hooked it up to my receiver, and tuned into bassdrive.com. Ahh, things were a little better. As I continued to listen and time passed, I had a better chance to judge the sound. First, I saw that the volume had to be VERY high for the rp-22x's soundstage to be around the same size as the dt880's, but on its own, the soundstage is natural and transparent. Second, as the DJ spoke in the middle of songs, I was pleasantly treated to mids that didn't hide itself behind the bass. But it was the bass that pleased me the most.

As I've grown to love drum and bass, I started to yearn bass output that the dt880's just couldn't produce. It was either the dt880's bass was too low in volume(for this genre), or, when increased, the soundstage and sense of air suffered. With the rp-22x, the bass was loud enough for me, but without sacrificing the rest of the sound qualities. And for the price of these cans, the bass is relatively detailed too. This is what I've been looking for all along. The highs, as of right now, seem pinchy, or cut off prematurely. But nothing fatal.

Compared to the dt770's, I'd say the rp-22x's bass isn't as subwoofery, nor as, hmm, begging-for-all-your-attention? So in that sense, the rp-22x's imo are for people who like bass a lot, but not for bass-heads.

Comfort wise, the earpads are very comfortable, but heat does gather around my ears after a few minutes or so--nothing show-stopping. The clamping force has decreased in the hour and 1/2 that I've used the can for, so things are looking up.

I'll be making my reference assessment of the rp-22x's soundstage size and depth once I can play video games during the weekend(school work and music for the week, free to do whatever during the weekend

). Hopefully I won't be disappointed.

So that's my not-so-mini review of the rp-22x, hope I didn't make any headphone mentioned sound bad in any non-relative way. Most of all, hope this review helps!

~on to burn-in

 

[Geir]

Now that was a thread to read through "drying sweat".
Bottom line after what I've read here, is that the 21 is good value in their category, but have some flaws in that they break easily and seems to have a vice-like grip on your head in the beginning.
The 22's I have not seen to have had any defaults except that the sound may not be for everyone.
Would anyone recommend the 22's instead of 21's if one is not going to do some modding?

 

[denl82]

Hey=]
I tested the rp-22x with gaming this weekend, paying attention to how its imaging and soundstage were. Some discoveries I made have showed how good the dt880s really were in gaming. As a disclaimer, though, my following opinions are only relative ones, and certainly doesn't mean that the rp-22x is bad per se.

I noticed that the rp-22x lacked a certain layer of air surrounding the soundstage. This layer made everything in the soundstage sound like it took place in its own world. Ever read some head-fi'ers mentioning that listening to a certain headphone sounds like the music is taking place in a small room, and the listener can hear the sounds bouncing off the walls? Well, that's what this layer of air was.

Also, the rp-22x has a smaller center+front image that I'd hope for. Let's say that the x axis goes through my ears, and the z axis goes through the front of my face. There were gaps around 45º between those two axis'. So, if something was to blow up directly in front of me while I turned left or right, the sound would jump from the center to the side faster than it would on the dt880s.

I guess to say that these traits are to be expected from a headphone costing half that of the dt880s, lol. Overall, despite my discoveries, the imaging and soundstage(and the ability to hear a bunch of stuff going on at the same time) are still both excellent, and I had fun both listening to music and playing video games this weekend. In fact, listening to music has been quite addictive with the rp-22x. The bass goes very deep, and I find that this can has the ability to evoke my emotions more than any phone I've had yet.

Anywhos, hope this helps!

*edit* forgot to add, what I talked about here is in my setup and to my ears, so YMMV!

 

[Geir]

It certainly helps denl82, but for the moment I am slightly undecided whether I should save some money and go for this, or if I should go for AT ESW9. Decisions decisions, and not easy to find these for demoing in Oslo.
Does not help that the EA's retail here for around msrp 300usd (which does include 25% vat and 2 year warranty as stated by the consumer laws here)
The question I have to ask myself based solely on reviews, will the rp22 be ok for me, or should I splash out for the At's? The spirit is willig, but the wallet is weak...

 

[denl82]

I've never heard the AT ESW9 at all. Maybe creating a separate thread will get the attention needed to answer your question=]


Quote:

Originally Posted by Geir /img/forum/go_quote.gif It certainly helps denl82, but for the moment I am slightly undecided whether I should save some money and go for this, or if I should go for AT ESW9. Decisions decisions, and not easy to find these for demoing in Oslo. Does not help that the EA's retail here for around msrp 300usd (which does include 25% vat and 2 year warranty as stated by the consumer laws here) The question I have to ask myself based solely on reviews, will the rp22 be ok for me, or should I splash out for the At's? The spirit is willig, but the wallet is weak...

 

[Nihility]

my little brother is just getting into mixing and whatnot (he just got reason 4) and so he needed a good pair of headphones because he had crap ones.


i looked around and his ($120 max) price range brought me to the rp22x because they were, as far as i could tell, nice bassy headphones (he pretty much only listens to drum and bass, electronic, trance, etc.) and they were of good build quality.


i, after listening to them, and VERY impressed with the sound quality to price ratio. i would rival the bass to be close to my beyer 770 pro's, in all honesty

not nearly as comfortable though

 

[Stuartn15ted]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psiga /img/forum/go_quote.gif Oh god, my RP-21s are breaking again. Same weak point along the headband. It must be stressing when I put them on and take them off. I am deliberately careful when doing that, since the first ones broke at the headband, but I must be doing it wrong anyway. I wear the things for several hours a day, taking them off and putting them back on 6 to 10 times throughout the day as I take breaks. Even though I don't yank, drop, or pull inordinately hard, that's still a lot of on-and-off. Now I'm not sure what to do, since I've already gotten a replacement before (first one snapped within a month), and have mixed feelings about contacting Equation again. On one hand, I'll feel like a jerk if I try to get another replacement, and on the other hand I am tired of dealing with this model. Honestly not going to recommend the RP-21 at this point. Not a happy puppy, here.

This happened to me, I took good care of them but they still had cracks on the headband. But instead of taking them back, I did this...

Was really easy to do, just un screw a few bits, and solder the wire form the new headband (actually quite an old one) to the head phones and your done! They're now very comfortable to ware, which was not something I would say about the original headband. I was a little worried that the wire from the new headband would adversely effect the sound quality, but it seem the wire was of good quality so no such problems.

I thought I would share this as it seems quite a few people have had issues with the headband.

 

[Young Spade]

Amazing review; good job man.

 

[buddhashenglong]

Stuartn15ted, was that a MDR-V600

?

 

[Punkrot]

Hello Head-fi'ers! (This is my first post!)
I have a question which I feel the folks on this thread are perfect candidates to address:

Assuming that I can get either the Equation RP-21, or the ATH-A700 for the same price, which one would be the better choice?

As a little background, I am a devoted (yet economical) audiophile, and do my home listening with 100% analog amplification through a flat mix and a pair of beautiful, full-spectrum tower speakers. I like a balanced sound, so I can hear music the way it was intended (i.e. I trust the audio engineer to make it sound good). I am drawn to the RP-21 due to the fact that it's specs list as ± 3db, just like any good pair of speakers would (never seen this with headphones). However, the build quality worries me, as does the fact that people seem to mod the hell out of them, thus leading me to believe that they leave some things to be desired. The A700, on the other hand, is purported to have scooped mids, but looks to be built well and very comfortable, with high sound quality. I do not intend to utilize a headphone amp, and will be using the headphones primarily for listening to music while working on projects at school, and occasionally for audio editing (though my home setup is the primary editing lab). Given these concerns, any recommendations/comparisons would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks to all who respond!

 

[BlackSushi222]

Sorry to bump this thread, but how would you compare this to the Creative Aurvana Live! in terms of sound quality? How about the Audio Technica M50? Thx!

 

[ourfpshero]

Quote:

Sorry to bump this thread, but how would you compare this to the Creative Aurvana Live! in terms of sound quality? How about the Audio Technica M50? Thx!

the aurvana has smaller soundstage and bass, but is much more balanced and 'tight' sounding. love the m50, it blows away the rp21 across the spectrum, including bass