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| Matt, can you give exact examples of the Senn's etched highs? For example, do you have any famous classical recordings where you hear these etched highs...? If so, where exactly in the music do you hear them (which instruments, which song, etc.), and how does they sound different on the Sony? |
Well, my best example so far has been "Judy at Carnegie Hall." (You know, this is so ****ing amazing me that I am even talking about this, but the differences are stunning) Anyhow, on the Sonys, her voice is very effortless and has this REALLY appealing, very natural and neutral sound. It sucks you in. You feel like you're falling forward forever into the beauty of it.
I can hear micro-quivvers in her voice, the voice is less veiled and less artificially bumped in the upper-treble. On the Senns, it's spittier and has rougher, way less refined treble. I mean, there is so much **** missing that I feel like all the gains I initially noticed from the EMP are gone. I'm talking about two totally different worlds.
Let me emphasize this: the difference is like being in a flourescent light-washed office at at your desk at 10:00 a.m. in a tight tie as opposed to a walk on the beach as the sun is setting with the woman you're most attracted to.
Bottom line: one you wanna keep on doing, the other your ready to get it over with as soon as you start.
(Note that I am only talking about the micro details and subtle timbral shifts...those things which add interest and realism to a presentation!)
Additionally, while the Senns spit the upper-highs out, the Sonys just *present* them. I mean, they are so completely there (so they're not blocked-off), but they're not *shot* at you in a forceful way like with the Senns. In my experience (like with the Kimber Hero IC's) when the term "rolled-off" is used, it means "non-existent." While the Kimber Heros are this previous definition of "rolled-off" (which I'd better state as "blocked off"), the Sonys present everything, just in a natural way and they don't spit it at you. So I don't know if I'd apply "rolled-off" to them, because in my experience, these are totally different than what I've heard described as "rolled-off" and have actually heard.
When I listen to synth lines in which I could previously hear the micro-modulations of the pitch or amplitude, I can no longer hear those. It's a more "stern" sound, not the loose, airy, endlessly extended freedom and natural, sensual, organic sound I'm used to from the EMP.
I am dead serious about these vertical earbuds; the EMP obviously is the key player in their sound, but they just lay down and take the banging they get so beautifully. They have an Ety-like bass response (totally there and musical, but there is no visceral wash of bass energy over your ear itself).
Furthermore, with the Senns, where once I felt like I was able to *grace* with my fingertips deep-relief figures carved into a piece of stone, now I feel like I am back to the headphone jack of my cheesy JVC boombox, detail-wise: my hand now only flies over the major details.
I mean, before, with the Sonys, I was getting back behind those stone figures, caressing their rock-solid asses, feeling all the details and texture in detail of the wall behind them, getting really intimate with any level of the art. I could listen *easily* to the foreground, the background, the far, far background, the low-ground, high-ground and anything in between. Now, I can only sorta slap at the general details with my palms. And that slapping kinda hurts.
I am *so* missing all the micro details; the phones are just not picking them up.
For me, there is this subtle shift in sound reproduction where it flips between "believable" and "reproduced" and so far the Senns are just not doing it.
I am giving it two weeks, though, for whatever.
- Matt
