Sonic Defender
Headphoneus Supremus
The HP-3 is a signature that is very deliberate and those who tuned it clearly had to decide where and how to optimize the HP-3 and nothing comes with a free lunch. The HP-3 would not be the best choice for music like Mr. Kitty, and I am quite certain the designers are good with that trade off. The design decisions pay very positive dividends in many, many situations, imperfect of course and the HP-3 is not for everything. Mind you, in my experience few headphones are so no, I do not think the HP-3 is remotely akin to a muddy mess. I have listened to some of the most engaging renditions of musical elements that are low frequency creatures and the HP-3 can make me just be still and listen. Some will love them, some won't, but a muddy mess they are not. It is a tuning and it will have hits and misses, but I would rather companies take a shot at creating a statement and being deliberate in their goals and aspirations. If everybody simply dialed things in safely and unremarkably we would basically have one monolithic approach to headphone voicing and that would be a shame.