[ThurstonX]

Well ... I just got mine this AM. Started off with some Seals and Crofts/Diamond Girl album, then moved on to various artists. All AIFF files from my Fiio DAP. Great expectations, right ? Maybe too great ? A couple of questions. Do these things need some serious burn in time ? I've never been a huge believer in this stuff as a rule, but I remain open minded. Does my brain require burn in ? I think I believe in this to an even lesser degree. But ... maybe ? Do these pads really suck as much as (almost) everyone says they do ?? These things sound a tad 'harsh' in my opinion. Not bad, actually quite good, when there isn't too much information thrown t them, but start piling on some heavier instrumentation and multipart vocals and it's NOT a beautiful thing. Seems like they can't handle it all that well. I'm used to, in my own humble opinion, some fairly nice cans, with some fairly nice amps, but nothing very expensive. HD600, AKG Q701, Monoprice M1060 (with some mods), amongst some others, but these tend to get most 'head time'. Schiit Asgard 2, Little Dot Mk lll with some upgraded tubes. Chord Mojo. Everything is well under the $500 mark, so 'mid fi' I guess. Except the Mojo. If these are as good it gets, I'll be letting them go, not wanting to have that much money tied up in one set of cans that I'm not crazy about. This all said ... I'm the guy that bought and sold the HD 800 cause I didn't care for them. Maybe I just have beer taste but mistakenly throwing champagne money at this thing called audiophiliacness ? Can anyone help me ? Much appreciated ...

My initial impression was a bit like yours: mids can be a little shouty, not particularly natural sounding, but then I switched to things I know were recorded and (newly) mixed well, fairly complex music with passages containing plenty of "information" and the ESP/950 were great. Then I switched to Yes's Fragile (Steven Wilson 2015 mix), and again the mids were shouty bordering on painful. I've read these cans will expose bad recordings/mixes/mastering, so for now I'm chalking it up to that.

Personally, I'm going to give mine plenty of hours and listening before passing judgement. I don't have a problem with the stock pads, cheap as they are, though I prefer thicker to move the transducers away from my ears; thus, modding is in order. The seal is fine on my head, so no problem with the low end. If, after several hundred hours, I'm still not overly impressed, I might sell them. One might lose a little money, but they seem to retain that $500-ish value, so if you got them via MD, you can chalk it up to, Failed Rental Experiment. Save all the packaging and accessories, and try not to beat 'em up too badly, and you should be able to unload them at a decent price for all involved. Hopefully they'll improve, though.

 

[timb5881]

Wow, I have never the ESP-950 headphones called harsh! These are the smoothed headphones I have ever heard. It has nice extension into the treble but not bright or harsh. The bass also goes very low but it is not an impactful bass.

 

[GearMe]

Wow, I have never the ESP-950 headphones called harsh! These are the smoothed headphones I have ever heard. It has nice extension into the treble but not bright or harsh. The bass also goes very low but it is not an impactful bass.

I'd second this...harsh isn't something that I associate with these cans

 

[Allanmarcus]

Well ... I just got mine this AM. Started off with some Seals and Crofts/Diamond Girl album, then moved on to various artists. All AIFF files from my Fiio DAP. Great expectations, right ? Maybe too great ? A couple of questions. Do these things need some serious burn in time ? I've never been a huge believer in this stuff as a rule, but I remain open minded. Does my brain require burn in ? I think I believe in this to an even lesser degree. But ... maybe ? Do these pads really suck as much as (almost) everyone says they do ?? These things sound a tad 'harsh' in my opinion. Not bad, actually quite good, when there isn't too much information thrown t them, but start piling on some heavier instrumentation and multipart vocals and it's NOT a beautiful thing. Seems like they can't handle it all that well. I'm used to, in my own humble opinion, some fairly nice cans, with some fairly nice amps, but nothing very expensive. HD600, AKG Q701, Monoprice M1060 (with some mods), amongst some others, but these tend to get most 'head time'. Schiit Asgard 2, Little Dot Mk lll with some upgraded tubes. Chord Mojo. Everything is well under the $500 mark, so 'mid fi' I guess. Except the Mojo. If these are as good it gets, I'll be letting them go, not wanting to have that much money tied up in one set of cans that I'm not crazy about. This all said ... I'm the guy that bought and sold the HD 800 cause I didn't care for them. Maybe I just have beer taste but mistakenly throwing champagne money at this thing called audiophiliacness ? Can anyone help me ? Much appreciated ...

Burn in, especially expectations and brain burn is, might help.
Open, airy, music will sound best. Anything that requires bass impact will not.
If you have a tube amp with pre-out, try that to smooth the sound a little. Good tubes help too, of course.
The vesper pads will help a little, but more with comfort than with sound.
To me, classical is best with the 950. To me, the instrument separation and open sound is very concert like.
Oh, the Chord Mojo is definitely mid-fi
There is certainly a different sound with electrostats that you need to get used to and appreciate. They aren't for everyone.

 

[kid vic]

Well ... I just got mine this AM. Started off with some Seals and Crofts/Diamond Girl album, then moved on to various artists. All AIFF files from my Fiio DAP. Great expectations, right ? Maybe too great ? A couple of questions. Do these things need some serious burn in time ? I've never been a huge believer in this stuff as a rule, but I remain open minded. Does my brain require burn in ? I think I believe in this to an even lesser degree. But ... maybe ? Do these pads really suck as much as (almost) everyone says they do ?? These things sound a tad 'harsh' in my opinion. Not bad, actually quite good, when there isn't too much information thrown t them, but start piling on some heavier instrumentation and multipart vocals and it's NOT a beautiful thing. Seems like they can't handle it all that well. I'm used to, in my own humble opinion, some fairly nice cans, with some fairly nice amps, but nothing very expensive. HD600, AKG Q701, Monoprice M1060 (with some mods), amongst some others, but these tend to get most 'head time'. Schiit Asgard 2, Little Dot Mk lll with some upgraded tubes. Chord Mojo. Everything is well under the $500 mark, so 'mid fi' I guess. Except the Mojo. If these are as good it gets, I'll be letting them go, not wanting to have that much money tied up in one set of cans that I'm not crazy about. This all said ... I'm the guy that bought and sold the HD 800 cause I didn't care for them. Maybe I just have beer taste but mistakenly throwing champagne money at this thing called audiophiliacness ? Can anyone help me ? Much appreciated ...

My initial impression was a bit like yours: mids can be a little shouty, not particularly natural sounding, but then I switched to things I know were recorded and (newly) mixed well, fairly complex music with passages containing plenty of "information" and the ESP/950 were great. Then I switched to Yes's Fragile (Steven Wilson 2015 mix), and again the mids were shouty bordering on painful. I've read these cans will expose bad recordings/mixes/mastering, so for now I'm chalking it up to that.

Personally, I'm going to give mine plenty of hours and listening before passing judgement. I don't have a problem with the stock pads, cheap as they are, though I prefer thicker to move the transducers away from my ears; thus, modding is in order. The seal is fine on my head, so no problem with the low end. If, after several hundred hours, I'm still not overly impressed, I might sell them. One might lose a little money, but they seem to retain that $500-ish value, so if you got them via MD, you can chalk it up to, Failed Rental Experiment. Save all the packaging and accessories, and try not to beat 'em up too badly, and you should be able to unload them at a decent price for all involved. Hopefully they'll improve, though.

Burn in might be your first remedy, the other would be getting used to the sound signature. When I first got my TH600's i really couldn't stand them (admittedly a very polarizing headphone though), it took several weeks for me to begin to appreciate them seeing as it was such a wide departure from the sound signature of my other headphones.
Try watching a movie or some TV with the ESP950's; hell, even review videos of non-hifi products will help acclimate you to the soundsignature.

 

[gardibolt]

Burn in, especially expectations and brain burn is, might help.
Open, airy, music will sound best. Anything that requires bass impact will not.
If you have a tube amp with pre-out, try that to smooth the sound a little. Good tubes help too, of course.
The vesper pads will help a little, but more with comfort than with sound.
To me, classical is best with the 950. To me, the instrument separation and open sound is very concert like.
Oh, the Chord Mojo is definitely mid-fi
There is certainly a different sound with electrostats that you need to get used to and appreciate. They aren't for everyone.

The part I've highlighted reflects my reaction precisely. Spectacularly good out of the box for classical music.

 

[fpantalone]

Ok ... So I have to take back pretty well EVERYTHING I stated earlier this AM. The culprit ... the Fiio DAP. I think. iTunes on my laptop was acting up yesterday and early today so I couldn't access those files and had to use the Fiio. So I got the laptop thing straightened away a couple of hours ago and ... could these actually get any better with time. They really are terrific !! With just about any genre that I've thrown at them, from heavy strings to Daft Punk R.A.M. Lots of air and very good punchy low end. Reminiscent of my Q701's ... but on steroids. Buh bah Quincy One interesting thing I've discovered with these ... if you cup your hands and put them out a foot or so from your ears, and then slowly bring them in towards your head, some interesting things start to happen soundstage-wise. Anyway ... count me in as a new fan. And yes ... you better throw a good source and good files at them or suffer the consequences. I've always thought my MacBook pro had very good output and these cans prove it. I'll get around to actually using the Mojo as a DAC to feed the E/90, but I can't imagine it getting appreciably better than this !! And I have NO complaints with these pads either. They're comfy, seal well, and $100, plus tax, plus delivery for a replacement pair just isn't making much sense to me. Maybe if you have very sensitive ears, but I thankfully don't. Ok ... back to listening to all of my 'new' music again Cheers !

 

[fpantalone]

and one more thing, just to clear the name of the Fiio X5, which I've always thought to be rather good at just playing stuff without being noticed. I just discovered that I had played with the custom EQ setting for another set of cans and had left it there. That explains EVERYTHING to do with the shrillness/crap sound I was getting. It sounds just fine with the 950's with EQ set to 'off'.

 

[ThurstonX]

Listening to the Steven Wilson mix of King Crimson's Islands. Freakin' genius presentation by the ESP/950. Whatever issues I'm having seem to be related to source and source alone. I'll definitely be retrying my Lyr's preamp out, but I want to acclimate to the stock sound.

Also, if you doubt the importance of a good seal, just peel off the pads a bit from your head. I just did at the top by accident and thought, WTH? Resealed and it's all good. Boz's bass is bootiful ... as are all the little details so effortlessly presented. A sale is not imminent.

 

[ratboi]

What do Tupperware and a walrus have in common?

 

[ThurstonX]

What do Tupperware and a walrus have in common?

I can only ASS-U-me that they both like Boz's bootiful bass as presented by a well-sealed ESP/950.

 

[DonS1000]

The only general drawback to electrostatics are that the bass doesn't have an "impact" like dynamic headphones - as no air is moved by the drivers.

 

[ThurstonX]

The only general drawback to electrostatics are that the bass doesn't have an "impact" like dynamic headphones - as no air is moved by the drivers.

Maybe it's because my main cans are planar magnetic, but I find the bass response pretty similar with the ESP/950; which is to say proportional and accurate; maybe even more so due to the imaging. Granted, I don't own many dynamics, and the planars are certainly burned into my brain, but I prefer accurate to sheer impact when it comes to bass Maybe someday Utopia will land on my head.

In the end I reckon it's all down to Tupperware and walruses.

 

[fpantalone]

I can only ASS-U-me that they both like Boz's bootiful bass as presented by a well-sealed ESP/950.

Pray tell ... who is this 'Boz' you speak of ?

 

[fpantalone]

The only general drawback to electrostatics are that the bass doesn't have an "impact" like dynamic headphones - as no air is moved by the drivers.

Back to the physics drawing board ... No air movement = no sound. No ?