I was at Best Buy this weekend and they had a number of headphones on display for listening. I have no idea what source they were connected to, except that they were all connected to the same source.You push a button to choose the type of music you want to listen to - rock, pop, classical, jazz, etc. and it plays a selection.
They had a range of headphones - several Sennheisers, several AKGs, Denon, Pioneer, Audio Technica, and a couple of others. Plus they had something I had never seen or heard of before - Martin-Logan headphones! I listened to all of the headphones before listening to the MLs. The better of the pairs of Senn's were quite good. The AKGs were good but seriously lacked bass, I thought. The Denons weren't as bad as I expected, and the Pioneers were crap.
Then I put on the MLs - I was anticipating good sound! What I heard was something else! I was astounded, amazed, stupefied - at home crappy these headphones were! These were truly the worst of the bunch. They cost nearly $400 and I thought they were flat-out the worst sounding of any headphone there! They sucked! They were not musical in any way, shape, or form. No highs, crappy midrange, no bass, no soundstaging at all, no detail, voices were all "wrong". Unless these were just not hooked up right (at Best Buy that could certainly be possible!), if someone gave these to me, I'd leave them on a table in the lobby of a nearby hotel with a note that said, "free - take me!".
I listened to some ML speakers 20 years ago and thought they had the most astounding treble I'd ever heard - the highs and some of the mids just floated in space like nothing I had ever heard. Bass was nice but I didn't like the way the electrostatic integrated with the woofer, but that's just a personal preference. They were still damn good speakers! Since that time I have seen a lot of different ML speakers show up at Best Buy, of all places. I sat down and listened to some ~$1000 MLs one day at Best Buy (electrostat midrange/highs with conventional bass as is typical for ML) and didn't get that "special" feeling I had for the MLs I listened to decades ago (those were more expensive speakers too). I noticed walking around their special audio area that ML had some a lot of inexpensive speakers in the price range of a few hundred bucks at most. They were not electrostats - just basic speaker technology as far I could tell. I didn't get chance to listen to them, but after seeing the profusion of inexpensive ML speakers and based on my feeling about the ~$1000 electorstat hybrids I had heard recently, I began to wonder if ML had lost their way - sacrificing audio quality for mass market sales in order increase sales and income. After listening to those ML headphones, I am convinced that ML has lost its way and has become greedy.
These ML headphones seem to be an attempt to capitalize on their name and reputation, but if they keep making s**t (IMHO) like this, they won't be in business too much longer.