After being held up at the post office for a bit (seriously, signature required on a $70 item?) I got my 80s in last night. Obviously they haven't burned in yet, but I gave a little listen anyway. Very impressed with the soundstage, which is basically my lifeblood. It never felt cramped, though presentation was vaster on some tracks and more intimate on others than what I'm used to from my EPHs. For instance, Ballake Sissoko & Vince Segal's 'Houdesti' is a track which really 'does it' for me as far as gauging soundstage and imaging. While the strings definitely felt 'placed,' I didn't have the head-turning moment that I've had with this track before. Perhaps, however, I'm just becoming jaded. Other tracks opened up to whole new depths, however, such as Russian Red's 'Timing is Crucial,' which absolutely melted me. Granted, Lourdes Hernandez' voice has that effect no matter what, but this was a whole new level of melt.
Fit is definitely weird on these. My ears are small and seemingly not very similar to each other, so fit tends to be tricky for me in general. I could not for the life of me figure out what to do with the goofy strain reliefs on the 80s. I would love to wear them cable up, but there's just no way to get the cable to stay over my ear it seems. Cable down is fine, but they have a weird Frankenstein's monster jutting-out about them.
All in all, I feel like these punch way above their price, and after a bit more burn in I look forward to running them through their paces during my commute.
