ze-ant
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2002
- Posts
- 129
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- 10
Those of you who frequent the headphone section of Ebay will know that I won the recent auction for a pair of HP-1s with the upgraded signature cable and am the most recent addition to 'Team Aluminium Cans'.
I will try to set out a brief account of my impressions below, but please be kind, since this is my first attempt at such a post.
The HP-1s arrived yesterday. The flat pads were in really bad shape. They were literally falling-off/disintegrating and the small bits of black foam were everywhere. I immediately replaced both pads with the bowl pads I had recently acquired before putting them on.
Since the fitting was a bit tight and my ears began to hurt, I bent the headband outwards just enough to give adequate pressure to keep the pads lightly pressed against my ears. Being almost bedtime, I decided to plug them into by bedroom rig, a JVC cd-combo and spent about 1 hour listening to them in bed.
I listened to a Diana Krall cd (can't remember the name right now, not the newest one but the one before) and the Benny Waters cd by Opus 3. Not surprisingly, my first impressions were similar to those posted by other Head-fiers.
This is a very neutral pair of phones which present a very accurate and true sound. Some might even say that they are boring, but hey, there were designed to be used for monitoring! As I was listening to the Diana Krall cd and closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that I was listening to her in the studio. No MSG whatsoever! However, I also noted that the soundstage was relatively narrower than what I was accustomed to hearing with my Stax Lambdas. The midrange is on a par with the Lambdas, although when compared to the HP-1s the Lambdas appear to be slightly coloured and not as true sounding. I also didn't hear as much 'detail' or 'air' around the instruments as with the Lambdas.
This morning before going to work I plugged the HP-1s into my Cyber 10 tubed headphone amp and put on Sade's first cd (the one with Smooth Operator). My expectations were not high, because I had previously used the Cyber 10 with my now departed pair of W100s but did not like the sound at all. It made the W100s sound stressed with too much gain and background noise. I expected something similar from the HP-1s, since they are also relatively low impedance phones, but I was surprised to hear (once again) a very clear, neutral and noise free sound. The bass, rhythm and dynamics were better than what I heard from my JVC. Although I must add that the reduction in noise (compared with the W100s) may have had something to do with the fact that I had since replaced the original Chinese-made output tubes with a pair of vintage (1930's) British-made output tubes.
Having heard 3 types of music, I find that I prefer listening to vocals and pop music through the HP-1s, and jazz through the Lambdas. Perhaps I like phones with more colour or MSG for listening to jazz.
I will try to spend more time with the HP-1s over the weekend and will be trying them with my vinyl rig. Can't wait!
I will try to set out a brief account of my impressions below, but please be kind, since this is my first attempt at such a post.
The HP-1s arrived yesterday. The flat pads were in really bad shape. They were literally falling-off/disintegrating and the small bits of black foam were everywhere. I immediately replaced both pads with the bowl pads I had recently acquired before putting them on.
Since the fitting was a bit tight and my ears began to hurt, I bent the headband outwards just enough to give adequate pressure to keep the pads lightly pressed against my ears. Being almost bedtime, I decided to plug them into by bedroom rig, a JVC cd-combo and spent about 1 hour listening to them in bed.
I listened to a Diana Krall cd (can't remember the name right now, not the newest one but the one before) and the Benny Waters cd by Opus 3. Not surprisingly, my first impressions were similar to those posted by other Head-fiers.
This is a very neutral pair of phones which present a very accurate and true sound. Some might even say that they are boring, but hey, there were designed to be used for monitoring! As I was listening to the Diana Krall cd and closed my eyes, I could almost imagine that I was listening to her in the studio. No MSG whatsoever! However, I also noted that the soundstage was relatively narrower than what I was accustomed to hearing with my Stax Lambdas. The midrange is on a par with the Lambdas, although when compared to the HP-1s the Lambdas appear to be slightly coloured and not as true sounding. I also didn't hear as much 'detail' or 'air' around the instruments as with the Lambdas.
This morning before going to work I plugged the HP-1s into my Cyber 10 tubed headphone amp and put on Sade's first cd (the one with Smooth Operator). My expectations were not high, because I had previously used the Cyber 10 with my now departed pair of W100s but did not like the sound at all. It made the W100s sound stressed with too much gain and background noise. I expected something similar from the HP-1s, since they are also relatively low impedance phones, but I was surprised to hear (once again) a very clear, neutral and noise free sound. The bass, rhythm and dynamics were better than what I heard from my JVC. Although I must add that the reduction in noise (compared with the W100s) may have had something to do with the fact that I had since replaced the original Chinese-made output tubes with a pair of vintage (1930's) British-made output tubes.
Having heard 3 types of music, I find that I prefer listening to vocals and pop music through the HP-1s, and jazz through the Lambdas. Perhaps I like phones with more colour or MSG for listening to jazz.
I will try to spend more time with the HP-1s over the weekend and will be trying them with my vinyl rig. Can't wait!
