Thought I'd add a small update. It's been over 2 weeks since I ordered the JVCs from audiocubes and I still haven't received any shipping notice. I emailed once asking what's going on and they told me that my product would be shipped in a few days as they received it. Now more than a week later, I've emailed again, and I'm still waiting for an answer.
Cecala speculated (in PM), that the JVCs are no longer being made and my recent experiences seem to support that theory. So if you're in the market for a DX1000 this would seem to be the last chance. I'm still hoping that audiocubes will come through and eventually send me my pair.
However, I'm really starting to have my doubts if I'll ever receive a pair so today I decided to go on a headphone listening spree at the local shops, hoping to find a possible alternative (and just check out different headphones) to the DX1000.
I listened to the following headphones: Denon d2000, Sennheiser hd650, Grado RS1, Grado GS1000. Some quick impressions:
Music: Kanye West - Graduation, John Mayer - Continuum, and a third local act which is electronic rock basically.
Denon D2000: These are pretty good actually. Very comfortable and nice to wear, however the leather pads did make my head a bit sweaty. They have a lot of bass, but unlike the beyer dt770 the mids doesn't suffer that much from the bass, and they still pack a really good punch. I'd probably even recommend these over dt770.
One thing sort of destroyed the experience for me though. The soundstage is basically non-existent. Everything is jammed together really closely inside your head. I could maybe get used to this, but coming straight from the dt990 (with crossfeed on) it was really annoying, and I feel it does take away from the experience of the music. Too bad, because apart from that, I really liked them. Sadly this probably also means (from what someone else wrote here earlier) that the D5000 won't be a viable alternative to the DX1000 for me.
Listened straight out of a ~$1000 Denon CDP, not sure how that affected the sound though.
HD650: Didn't really think I'd like these, but thought I might as well try them. They aren't nearly as comfortable as the d2000, they have a lot of clamping force and the padding isn't nearly as soft either. They had a decent amount of bass and sounded pretty good, soundstage was nice and big as well. However they were very dark sounding and the music was really colored and not very natural sounding. I don't really feel these are an upgrade over the dt990 in any way, and the dark sound really put me off.
I know that someone will tell me that if i spend $500 on a recable and get a $3000 dollar amp they will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but so will most headphones?
Grado GS1000: Listened to these out of a pretty crappy headphone amp. John Mayer sounded good, but the other 2 albums sounded like crap really. Happily the nice people at the store let me borrow a pair(!) that I could bring home to listen to on my own system, so I'm writing this with a GS1000 on!
Using these with a proper amp cured the problems I was having with the sound at first.
Comfort is great, they're very light, despite the wood and their size. I'd say they're even more comfortable than the d2000, because there isn't any leather touching my head warming it up. The soundstage is huge, they are very detailed and do a great job of producing a very natural sound. Drums also have a very nice snap and impact to them, which is great. I gotta say these sound fantastic, I prefer them to my dt990 so far.
My only gripe with them, is that I'd really like more bass. Most music sounds great, but I do have some electronic songs which are pretty bass driven, and these simply have too little bass to make those songs sound good. If they had more bass, I'd buy them in a heartbeat.
Grado RS1: Listened to these right after the the GS1000 out of the same crappy amp, which probably wasn't very fair. However the extremely small inside-my-face soundstage quickly made me give them up. And I thought the GS1000 sounded better in every aspect really.
So, right now I'm listening to the GS1000, I'm supposed to return them sometime during the next week, so I'll enjoy them until then. I'm still waiting for Audiocubes to answer my e-mail, if they aren't able to deliver my DX1000, I gotta say the GS1000 are a very strong alternative.
Edit: Haha "small update". Incredibly while writing this quite lengthy post I just received an e-mail from Audiocubes that they will be shipping my DX1000 later today, as they finally received my DX1000. So YAY! Dx1000 incoming! Unless I really don't like the DX1000, I guess this makes my comparison slightly irrelevant, however hopefully someone else can benefit from it.
