Count me as the most recent Q40 owner!
Overall, I'm quite pleased with my wife's choice of Christmas gift. I have been moaning for weeks about how my old V6's had died (the right driver just stopped working one day and a complete re-cabling didn't help). How she divined that I had been looking at the Q40 I couldn't say, beyond some snooping of my browser history...
Before I post all my thoughts, let me preface it by saying that I DO spend a lot of time listening via headphones (mostly IEMs & buds through my Nano) but I'm primarily a loudspeaker DIY guy and I value stupidly flat response and low distortion across the entire spectrum. That's what puts a speaker on a pedestal for me.
The Bad:
If the Q40 isn't a basshead's can, then I don't think they make them. I was really shocked at first how pronounced the bottom end was. There's quite a bit of boost in the octaves from 80-160. It's more linear below that. It definitely reaches all the way down to the 30's, but I think that capability gets lost by the tubbiness just above.
The lower midrange is recessed to me. Guitars just don't have enough bite. When I adjust the EQ for +4dB of gain from about 300hz-500hz and place -6dB notches at 160hz & 7khz things improve considerably. Bass tightens, male vocals smooth & come forward and listening fatigue goes away. From here on out, my review continues with these adjustments in place.
My laptop seems to be out of drive capability for these (I can hear it clipping and compressing on dynamics), but my ca. 1979 Kenwood receiver at home seems to have no problems. I'm pretty sure, given its age, the receiver is using a voltage divider network and powering the cans off of the main amps. This tells me that they'll respond nicely to their own amp and I think I'll need to add one here at the office (along with an onboard AlienDAC or BantamDAC to complete the picture).
I can also see why the cord fails early. Try as I might, the jack location and connector length mean that the cord rubs against my left shoulder blade as I turn my head. Noted, and we'll see how long this cord lasts.
They make even moderately good MP3s sound like total arse. While this is not an indemnification of the Q40, it's bad for me because I'm going to have to re-encode some of my favorite albums. Again.
The Good:
So the response isn't flat. That's not always a bad thing! Our ears aren't as sensitive to high & low frequencies until the SPL comes up. It means that, when listening at low volumes, the Q40's non-linear response provides a warm, pleasing sound.
The Really, Really, Good:
As I sit here listening to Radiohead's OK Computer (via FLAC on the laptop, with Winamp & the Shibatch EQ plugin), there's loads of detail. Loads. It's everywhere. I know it's trite, but I'm hearing things I've never heard before and I'm accustomed to some
very high-end speakers. While it's hard to call the Q40 a "fast" can because of the stock bass performance, they certainly do a fine job of separating the individual strings and there's superb low-level resolution with Rodrigo y Gabriela.
They excel at putting up a wall of sound and I can see why, without EQ, they're not well suited to classical (my EQ made a huge difference). The Q40 seems to really like music fused with electronic elements. "Supermassive Black Hole" by Muse is downright groovy and
D4R had it right about the NIN. I'm rediscovering Trent's catalog.
Oh, and they're sexy. They smack of engineering prowess and I think you'd have to step up to a Grado RS to get a better looking can. They don't stick out from your head very much at all for a closed can.
The Mods?
I know it's hard to translate large-scale, far-field, acoustics to the world of headphones, but the physics nerd in me is really wondering about that accentuated treble region. The response graph posted a dozen pages go hints strongly that the dual peaks at 9khz (and the lesser one at 18khz) are caused by internal reflections. While the drivers and the size of the internal enclosure are too small for a full wave cycle to fit, quarter-wave reflections seem like they'd be very possible. I suspect these will respond quite nicely to internal damping. Did anyone create a mod thread for these bad boys? And for those of you that did pad-swaps, did it seem to make any noticeable change in treble response or listening fatigue?
I don't really mean it is an issue, but since I'm used to an extreme volume listening, that extra sparkle becomes noticeable, even with the mod. I also tried the beyer dt770 velour pads, I have 2 pairs of them, but both silver, doesn't match well these cans.
