H20Fidelity
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2012
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So I got it today and I can hear what miceblue is referring to. There is bit of a lower treble prominence along with the somewhat heavy lower registers. The upper range does give the impression of detail but I don't hear anything new here. I think it's a good and competitive unit for the money but not the world beater others do. Tried it with AKG K701s, Grado PS500s. JH13s and a couple other IEMs. It worked better with some than others and never any trouble driving any of them or ever sounded bad but it's sig is a bit too noticeable for me and reasonably consistent throughout the phones. It's better with FLAC and wave than compressed formats relative to other players. This one had the FW update so maybe that has something to do with it. I think it's slightly better in hi gain and a hair more transparent with the gapless turned off. That's not a negative as it's very subtle and been the case with lots of devices clear enough to notice on.
This is only after about 15 min of use and unfortunately my situation won't allow me to do a proper review at this time. The building my business is in was sold and We've been notified that we can't stay. Finding a new space will occupy all my free time for a few weeks. I personally prefer the sound of my HiSounds overall though the X5 is better in the low bass and does HiDef. I also thought the AK120 I had better than either with the hm901 tops I've heard so far. The last 2 are close enough that the bulk and build of the 901 made it a non starter for me.
Take this all with a grain of salt since I can't give it a true shake down and never heard it with it's original FW that most impressions came from.
Give it a chance mate, especially if you're coming from the upper mid range boost on 3rd Anv. Give it a good hour or two to adjust. I don't think 15 minutes is enough time to adjust from the Hisound unit because they rather different. Listen for the resolution and staging differences to Studio V.