Where did you hear these? What amps? Source? Source material? How long did you spend listening?
And what weren't you impressed with - what were the glaring weaknesses?
Overture Audio in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Two amp/DAC units: MOON Neo 430HA, Sennheiser HDVD 800
I used my own test tracks, with all the genres I could.
I listened for about two hours.
Ehhh... I'm just so depressed at how none of them sounded very realistic to me at all, especially considering the prices and the amazing things I heard about them. I will try and sum it up, though. Keep in mind that this is in the context of wanting accurate, realistic sound.
HD 800: Painfully bright and nasty, weak bass.
HE1000: Too warm and lazy, smoothed over detail, still had some treble peaks despite this.
Abyss: I couldn't even get a proper seal for the life of me, so it was very distorted unless I pushed the pads close to my head. The HE1000 is much more of an audiophile headphone.
HE-6: Slightly bright, but possibly had the least problems. HE1000 was still my favorite.
I could go into much more detail, but I'm too depressed about it and tired too. *cries*
Don't get me wrong, though. They didn't sound
bad per se. I could still enjoy them, but there is no way I would buy any of these headphones after having heard them -- and this is coming from someone who wants the best sound regardless of price.