[daleb]

Okay, so review time!
 
Gemini HSR-1000s
 
Isolation: Okay, but not great. They aren't going to block out the world, but they will make it more manageable. I would like to have something much more isolating. 7/10
 
Comfort: The pad size could be bigger, over a couple of hours they will somewhat hurt my ears.  I can wear them for multiple hours, though. They do not have the vice of the 280s. Overall, they are more comfortable than that 280s.If I could find replacement pads that are more isolating and more comfortable, I would buy them in a heartbeat. 8.5/10
 
Sound: For testing the sound, I used this test file. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/69968986/MyMusic/CombinedTestTrack.mp3
The song samples contained are:
 
Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift, Strobe by Deadmau5, Pirate Bay by Savant, I Want It All by Queen, Small Two of Pieces from Xenogears, Home Sweet Home + Title Theme from Earthbound,
Star Stealing Girl from Chrono Cross, Aquatic Ambiance from Donkey Kong Country, For River from To The Moon, and finally the Final Fantasy VII Main Theme performed during Tour De Japon.
 
My main priority when listening to these songs is to question, how well do the headphones provide the intended emotion that the song sets out to create?
 
Songs that did not perform well:
~~~Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift, I Want It All by Queen, Small Two of Pieces from Xenogears, and Aquatic Ambiance~~~
The reason being that these songs are very vocal focused, and the headphones have a dip around 4 Khz, which I personally find to be a very important area for vocal listening. None of these songs provide emotion without EQ. I Want It All is heavily lacking even with EQ. Rock music does not mix with DJ headphones, I believe. It sounds lifeless. The drums are great, but the guitar, man. It makes me sad :c
 
Aquatic Ambiance, on the other hand, suffers from the impactful bass. The song should be relaxing, but the bass breaks any attempt at a soothing piece.
 
Songs that are okay:
~~~Final Fantasy VII Theme~~~
This song, listened to on the best of equipment, will take my breath away. On the Gemini's, this  will only make me smile. An acceptable reproduction, but not the best.
 
Songs that are great:
~~~Strobe by Deadmau5, Pirate Bay by Savant, Earthbound music, Star Stealing Girl from Chrono Cross, and For River from To The Moon~~~
Do you like Bass impact? Because these headphones got it. I'm normally not a bass head, in fact, I'm into treble, but the bass production on these are nice.
Pirate Bay proves that the headphones will do well with dubstep and the like. Strobe has a wonderful kick to it, and the organ is perfectly eerie.
On the other hand, the bass really makes the Earthbound track something else. I didn't even know the bass synth went so low in Home Sweet Home!
Star Stealing Girl might be here and not on "okay" because of the EQ I started using, but it also is a wonderful reproduction of the piece. The instruments are well separated and clear, and I believe that is great. The piano in For River also sounds wonderful on these headphones.
 
The sound is much more transparent than I expected, overall. I love how revealing these can be, but this also can bring some harshness to your listening experience in the treble, making them possibly too revealing for some people. They also do not reproduce vocals as well as I had hoped. Yet, I find these to be a wonderful new edition to my tiny headphone collection.
 
9/10
 
Conclusion:
I found these headphones to be lacking slightly in isolation, comfort, and vocal reproduction, but making up for it in almost every other aspect of the sound. I really do enjoy the sound of these. Thanks  for the recommendation!

 

[LNuneek]

Cool! It looks like it's a keeper then. I'm glad. I was concerned cause I wasn't expecting you to buy them right away. Do you feel these headphones perform above what you paid or about on par with price?

 

[daleb]

Definitely well above the price. That's why it gets a 9. If I had paid the MSRP of $200, instead of the $44 I paid, it would have gotten a much lower score in everything.

 

[LNuneek]

Definitely well above the price. That's why it gets a 9. If I had paid the MSRP of $200, instead of the $44 I paid, it would have gotten a much lower score in everything.

Good! That's what I was hoping for. I also recommended those cause I think they could work well with music production too. I wanted to cross everything off your list as close to possible for your price range so you can have decent isolation, sound, and continue to make music. I make and mix music as well and it's something important to me and I didn't want you to have something that was lacking for that purpose.

 

[daleb]

I mean, the HD 280s are just as neutral according to the frequency response charts, so I didn't really need them for production, these are for going places XD
In fact, the HD 280s have a smaller dip around 4000 than the Geminis by about 3 db, but that still puts it at -8 db. The bass and mids seem more accurate, though.
 
I would love it if there was a way to apply VSTs to the headphone output of a computer. I would throw Pro-Q right on there, and get it within 3~ db of perfection and life would be good. 

 

[LNuneek]

  I mean, the HD 280s are just as neutral according to the frequency response charts, so I didn't really need them for production, these are for going places XD
In fact, the HD 280s have a smaller dip around 4000 than the Geminis by about 3 db, but that still puts it at -8 db. The bass and mids seem more accurate, though.
 
I would love it if there was a way to apply VSTs to the headphone output of a computer. I would throw Pro-Q right on there, and get it within 3~ db of perfection and life would be good. 

 
I've seen threads or posts talking about a plug in called sonarworks. It basically automatically eq's your headphones to neutral if you own a supported headphone. I actually tried it in Adobe Audition with the ATHM-50 and it works surprisingly well. That's beside the point. Pretty sure I saw someone posting tutorials on how to get that plugin working with certain software audio players. If this is the case it's possible that you could get your plug in working as well. I think Foobar is the player IIRC. I dunno about all that. I just listen to regular MP3's through iTunes. lol Might be worth it to look into it if it's something you think you would enjoy. The only thing is it would only work with that software not the output itself.

 

[daleb]

Foobar FTW 

I wish it was more well known, it's a wonderful piece of software. I'll look into that, thanks!
I actually did get VSTs working through Virtual Audio Cable and VSTHost, though. Problem is the close to half a second latency. grr.

 

[LNuneek]

  Foobar FTW 

I wish it was more well known, it's a wonderful piece of software. I'll look into that, thanks!
I actually did get VSTs working through Virtual Audio Cable and VSTHost, though. Problem is the close to half a second latency. grr.

VSTHost rings a bell. I think that's what was being used with Foobar to get the plugin working. Can't say much more. It's just sometimes I remember little tidbits of things I know little of. lol

 

[daleb]

*facepalm*
 
I just went and looked it up, and foobar has a downloadable vst plugin. I've tried the Virtual Audio Cable route multiple times, too XD
I already have a much better VST set up with this now, woo!