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Originally Posted by kool bubba ice /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Do you own other hi end headphones?
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I own a Grado RS-1, a GS-1000 and a Sennheiser HD650. I had a pair of SR-325i's but sold them off when I got the RS-1 and GS-1000.
I would love to own a pair of the collectible Grados, like the PS-1, HP-1, HF1, et cetera, but you can't have it all.
I really like the cushion arrangement. The wide disk and cushion setup is where I've been going in making Grado mods. The velour is effective at retaining some degree of bass without muddying the sound stage. Comparing these to the Grado bowls (L-Cush), I noticed the ear/driver distance isn't any wider but the wider aperture allows better HF dispersion (much like the G-Cush jumbos but without thinning out the bass). The cushions, which are the most comfortable I've ever strapped to my skull, are angled the way I was experimenting with foam. The fronts are thinner and the backs are wider, allowing the driver orientation to better match the angle of the earlobes, which is closer to 45 degree than 0.
If you take a pair of Grados and play with the cushion orientation, one thing that pops up is the bass improvement you can get by positioning the driver closer in the front. By angling the driver, you can get a nice "best of both worlds" solution - with the distance smaller up front (for better bass) and the distance wider in the back (to maintain a wider soundstage with killing the sparkle). Grado's G-Cush jumbos don't angle the driver, which is an opportunity lost unless you take a pair of scissors to the front - which is expensive, elective, experimental surgery (no insurance for that). That's why I was doing this with car-wash sponges from Home Depot.
Point of correction: Unlike the Grados, the drivers themselves don't "angle." It's the disks that pivot up and down. But an unengineered pivot occurs because of the cushions which, because of their angled cut, causes the disks to be bent inward, angling the drivers whether AKG thought of doing a Grado gimbal pivot or not (Maybe the left hand and the right hand were working in different departments).
Like the Grados, the amount of bass is workable unamped (the 701's don't drive as easil as the 32 ohm Grados, but they get plenty loud right off an iPod). Unamped, it's not going to blow anybody away - not compared to the bass slam of closed phones. But amped, you can get all the bass you'd ever want - and if the amp crosses low enough, you won't muddy up the mids and treble. I'd like to hear these with a decent tube amp, though right now, I'm working on a B22 which may do just fine (I'm a little phobic about tubes because they're made of glass and get hot). If the track is meant to have pronounced bass - Rihanna singing, "Take a Bow" - you'll definitely hear it unamped. On more techno-like tracks, like Supermassive Black Hole (isn't that redundant?) off the Twilight soundtrack, there's an unexpected little extra texture, even though the bass is quite tight. On more bass-shy tracks, it's not going to come out without some help. Some of my old Chuck Berry stuff still sounds a little flat and canny, something I've been able to resolve with any headphone yet.
Last night, I heard an artifact in one of my recordings, something I'd not heard off of my Grados or Sennheisers, though that may have just been a slight difference in output color, bringing the artifact closer to the surface of my consciousness. I wish I could remember the track (I marveled, then continued on). Some music that challenges my Grados to solve the sonic puzzle and clean up the mud were clearer on these 701's. Weezer is clearer. On the kinds of tracks you just want to sit back and analyze - like Charles Mingus's "Pork Pie Hat" - the presentation is scrumptious. The instrumentation and texturing is delectable (and the bass is balanced, controlled and tight - rich but not boomy).
I think that track was "The Dream of the Blue Turtles" off of Sting's solo album of the same name. The keyboard plays a prominent role in etablishing this jazzy little number but there's a neat buried keyboard riff about 52 seconds in, a kind of electric piano syncopation not prominent beforehand, as well as an inexplicable cutout/artifact at 56 seconds - neither of which I'd heard before after a couple of decades of familiarity with the track. If I went back to my Grados, I might hear it there but I hadn't caught it until I got the 701's.
Like the Grados, these are bright phones, not quite as bright as the Grados but definitely brighter than the Senns. There's a treble slam I miss when I'm not wearing my Grados, but I think these 701's give the Grados some serious competition in the field of clarity. My RS-1s may have more bass bite (my GS1k's definitely do - now that I surgically altered the pads) but (for the moment), the 701's are impressing me with what appears to be a cleaner presentation. I could be wrong (imagine that) but I'm definitely not feeling any buyer's remorse.
