[ebann]

 
Thanks for the impressions, folks. Looks like two "OK's" and one "suck". I think I'll need to see more results. And it's Black Friday tomorrow.

I say not so bad. The sound grew on me and was not fatiguing, was definitely getting better as they broke in. I just dont need a convertible headphone and was more curious than anything. I suspect the 1060's are going to get some changes due to feedback on these and will probably end up being a decent headphone since its single purpose.

 

[vampula]

Rip off that black dempfer on the back of the driver and put some felt in the cup instead.

 

[nick n]

  So Monoprice just bought the drivers and put them in a shell. Didn't do any tuning. That's what I guess happened. Maybe they were trying to pull off a Fostex T50rp. But I wish the bigger M1060 to be better. 

There's definitely some backwave reflections coming into the front ear cavity which is causing that slight treble haze.
Can do a direct A/B and definitely notice right away.
Have a disk of Arctic Cotton batting in the rear  with porous foam disc holding it in place.
Direct driver damping is not a good idea at least what I tried. Bass drops a bit , even though sound gets a bit cleaned up that isn't a good compromise for me so scratch that.
 Best bet is to let the driver breathe and fly then deal with rears with these ones.
 
MUZO2 :  I don't feel the black driver backing ( famous last words ) is really impeding things too much. You mentioned possibility of overdamping.
It seems more or less a dust-guard of sorts with maybe minimal effect on damping. I'm sure it does a bit . I shone an led flashlight through the back to show that.

 
Sure there's some things I'd like to tweak to taste, especially the backwave thing .
That cleans things up a bit better, doesn't cost a lot to do, and is a fast tweak.
(>>>> for sure people should at the very least try that rear cup treatment, or some sort of thing there. )
 
I've got some cheapo and  potentially good frontal foams to try, will take a bit to arrive.
 
*** there's only about 0.5 cm of room below the driver in the cup rears when everything is seated in place.***
 

  The drivers don't match any other planar on the market I can find. These seem to be a Monoprice product from the ground up. They also sound quite good to me after about 12 hours break in, I need more time to find where they fit in my personal headphone hierarchy, but I would certainly say they are worth the asking price.  

Had a quick look at the driver traces with the flashlight they sure appear to be straight serpentine traces, no apparent pleating or trace zigzagging like the Fostex RP models do. It's not necessary though some older stuff does this and can sound great .
 
 

    I am still not a huge fan of the sound with the wood caps in the closed configuration, but I noticed that configuration seems to work better at lower volumes. 
  The M560, on the other hand, is mostly metal (earcups, earcup brackets, and headband) along with wood and leather. 

Toying with them in closed form only for now, figure if that gets nailed down then open should follow right along.
For now I'll stick to basic mods that are cheapo, easily done and easily heard/noticeable by anyone.
 
Construction is great. Inner wires taped and held off to the cup sides, solid  felling baffles, gimbal hinges secured into place with screwed down top clamps, decent feeling cable etc etc
 
 I'd say if someone is looking for a warm smooth sound they might want to try these first.
They are no so over the top crazy though on the high end to be intolerable/unlistenable ( bass level drops down only if the pads seal is cracked ) BUT  don't seem rolled off up there ( yet?).
Like a detailed more even sound, hard to say if anything is dominant at this point
 
Just sort of throwing things out there as I find them rather than saving for one giant post.
Apologies about repetition or if it seems disjointed or even uninteresting. 
Ignore the posts  as required.

 

[rikk009]

  The drivers don't match any other planar on the market I can find. These seem to be a Monoprice product from the ground up. They also sound quite good to me after about 12 hours break in, I need more time to find where they fit in my personal headphone hierarchy, but I would certainly say they are worth the asking price.  

Some factories in China offer exclusive products too. From the FR it doesn't look like Monoprice did anything else.

 

[rikk009]

@nick n Kudos for the effort. If a brave and experienced(with modding) soul dares to buy these and mod, I think they can improve them a lot BUT I am bit skeptical since reviews says not much details. That attribute won't change with modding, I think.

 

[nick n]

Hardcore mods come later. 

Have to live with them for a bit.
 
You'd be surprised what can be pulled out of an ortho driver with the right combos.
 
I'll pay particular attention to the details aspect. You mean detail levels of the sound?
You have any links to that or is it personal accounts from people ?
I'd like to know what they are using  to run them ( not a slight on anyone just curious about that )

 

[iostream72]

In my opinion, they are very detailed. I think I mentioned before (maybe on another thread), I noticed new things in songs I have listened to hundreds of times before. Since then, I have noticed a few more. I should really be taking notes, but a few are: 1) Robert Plant's faint ghostly singing on Babe I'm Gonna Leave You around 1:40; and 2) Sympathetic snare buzz during tom fills on A Day In The Life (especially the fill ~1:29); 3) Some intermittent 60 cycle buzz on several tracks of Aretha Franklin Live At Fillmore West (one such example at ~:18 to :30 during Love the one You're With); 4) Faint rhythmic hand clapping on Respect from that same album, beginning ~1:12.
 
Some of this can certainly be chalked up to the fact that I'm listening much closer because I'm evaluating the headphone. (I am shocked I have never noticed the buzz before, it's actually quite pronounced!) But when I take my old cans out and listen to the same passages, I can hear them, but not nearly as well. To me, that says the M560s are giving me good detail. I am new to high end headphones, so I may be misinterpreting what detail means, but that's what it means to me.
 
I will say this, further, about the bass. It may not be as loud or pronounced as some might like, but it is -- for lack of a better word -- tight. I am hearing stuff in the bass frequencies that I have never heard before. Hard to describe, but you can hear the bass instrument a lot more than just bass notes, if that makes any sense.
 
I have also been running a burn-in regimen nightly. I'm not sure how much this has helped, or if it's just my brain getting used to them. The treble has mellowed quite a bit and the bass has blossomed quite nicely. I tend to think this is my ears/brain adjusting, but who knows. Maybe a bit of both.
 
I am liking these more and more!
 
Edited to add: I am listening mostly through the Monoprice tube headphone amp, but some with the headphone out of my Macbook pro, and some through the headphone out of my Nexus 6P. The amp drives them nicely, the Macbook does nearly as well. The Nexus almost doesn't have enough oomph to drive them. On certain songs or types of music, the phone just doesn't quite have enough juice to give them what they need.

 

[gtb75]

 
I have also been running a burn-in regimen nightly. I'm not sure how much this has helped, or if it's just my brain getting used to them. The treble has mellowed quite a bit and the bass has blossomed quite nicely. I tend to think this is my ears/brain adjusting, but who knows. Maybe a bit of both.

 
What you're hearing isn't just you brain getting used to them.  Between the 60 seconds or so I heard them fresh out of the box versus last night (48 hours later) the bass has improved considerably and the sound has "bloomed" quite a bit across the board.  I don't know if it is a case of the treble mellowing or a matter of everything else filling in, but they are definitely waking up. 
 
Between the fact they are 20% cheaper than the HE-400i (at the new price) and the dramatic difference in build quality, I think they are a really good value.  I only heard the 400i for a few minutes at Axpona back in April so I can't make a sound comparison, but the build quality of the M560 is in a completely different zip code. 
 
For what it's worth, the track that impressed me the most last night when listening lossless was I See Fire from Ed Sheeran: https://youtu.be/2fngvQS_PmQ

 

[MLGrado]

My pair of M560 is out for delivery.  
 
 
Will post some quick impressions later this evening.  

 

[MLGrado]

$200 for a planar sounded like a great deal, but then the he400i dropped to $250 so there is really nothing the m560 has going for it... And the impressions certainly aren't doing any favors

 
 
Yeah, I did not know about the price drop!  WOW!  
 
I suspect you are very, very right, even though I have not had the chance to even hear the Monoprice... darn, wish I had not pulled the trigger... I would have grabbed a set of Hifiman!!

 

[MLGrado]

  OK, so a while ago, I thought I might get into doing headphone measurements. So I contacted @bluemonkeyflyer and he was kind enough to build me a set of Panasonic WM61 in ear mics and a custom preamp. Unfortunately I never really had the time to spend learning about headphone measurements and almost forgot I had the mics.
Well, with the M560's, I decided to fire up those mics and see if I could figure out how to get at least rough, ballpark measurements.
 
I am certainly a complete newbie when it comes to measurements. (The room and speaker measurements I do for our Out Of Your Head software is completely different than headphone measurements.) So I am hesitant to post the measurements I did simply because they could be wildly inaccurate.
 
But, I did some measurements on the M560's after almost 3 days of break-in. I also measured some of my other headphones to use as a frame of reference so you can see how far off my measurements are against known headphones.
 
The setup was: Panasonic WM-61 mic (in my ear canal) --> custom preamp --> RME Babyface audio input interface --> USB --> Room EQ Wizard (on a Windows laptop)
 
Here's a measurement of the M560's compared to Sennheiser HD600's and Fostex T50RP:
 

 
Well, I measured the M560's a bunch of times and every time, the FR was pretty strange looking. Compared tot he smooth HD600 curve, the M560 is anything but.
 
Infer what you want from these "questionable newbie" measurements... 

 
 
-Darin

 
 
great job!  Sounds like you have quite an excellent measuring rig!  Are you saying you measure while on your head?  Mics in ear, with headphones over?  Wow.  That seems like it would be an excellent way to get results tailored just for yourself... may not be as accurate for everyone else, but considering your unique anatomy, could be very, very telling an instrument for your own personal evaluation!!  I like it a lot!!!!!
 
Also, wow... look at the Sennheiser.  The 600/650 are still just some kick ass headphones.  

 

[MLGrado]

  Looking at that frequency response graph this looks like another case of put the drivers in a housing and it's a pair of headphones school of design. 

That peak at 4.5khz is the opposite of what I want to see on a chart and experience with my ears. 

 
After looking at the photos of the internals, this was exactly my thought as well.  
 
Doesn't look like a whole lot of thought went into tuning.  Maybe the 1060 will be different.  
 
But, still, I haven't head them yet... arriving soon.  Fingers crossed they may actually sound decent, in spite of all the other first impressions.  

 

[darinf]

   
 
great job!  Sounds like you have quite an excellent measuring rig!  Are you saying you measure while on your head?  Mics in ear, with headphones over?  Wow.  That seems like it would be an excellent way to get results tailored just for yourself... may not be as accurate for everyone else, but considering your unique anatomy, could be very, very telling an instrument for your own personal evaluation!!  I like it a lot!!!!!
 
Also, wow... look at the Sennheiser.  The 600/650 are still just some kick ass headphones.  

Yes, in my ears. The mics are Panasonic WM-61 mics that are mounted in some triple flange ear tips. That way the mics can be set flush to the ear canal. Basically it's a poor man's head/ear simulator measurement rig. A lot cheaper than the Neumann KU100 ($8K) or GRAS type devices. I am not sure how much the measurements vary from one person to the next, but a lot of people use these mics thanks to bluemonkeyflyer. You can read all about the measurement rig here. But for almost no money, you can do your own measurements.
 
Again, the accuracy of the measurements is questionable especially for a newbie like me. But for a relative comparison between headphones measured on the same rig/same ears, it can be interesting like seeing the HD600 vs. the M560 measurements on my rig.
 
I have been burning in the M560's since I got them a week ago. At this point, I don't think they're changing from burn in any more. Certainly nothing as drastic as the first 24-48 hours. 
But I listened to them more last night and they're not as bad as the measurements look. I was sure I was going to return them before, but now I may keep them. If I didn't already have HD600's and HE-400S, I would probably buy either the HD600 or HE-400i now that they are only a little more money than the M560's. The HD600 is just SO much better. I have not heard the HE-400i, but they're probably a worthy alternative too.

 

[MLGrado]

Okay... so first question to those of you who have already received these...
 
did you get some extra... um.. 'swag' in your box???  When my box arrived it had a distinct rattle.  Opened it up to find this packaged in with the headphone box... What??
 

 
 
Okay... so lets get right down to it.  No more pictures necessary in the thread... the other guys have got that well covered.  
 
I was rather impressed by the care given to presentation and packaging.  Nicely done!  These are also quite well built!  They seem sturdy, they are comfortable, and fit snugly on the ear.  
 
I have had these on my head now for a grand sum of 15 minutes, so these are very, very early listening impressions.  (obviously)
 
Note, that I just finished a 3 hour love affair (not exaggerating all that much) with my Audeze LCD-X  (2016 revision).  My amplification is the headphone output of a Icon Audio Stereo 20PP tube amp, with all vintage tubes.  Today's flavor is a 1954 Mullard Long Plate ECC83, two Siemens ECC82 chrome plates, and a quad of Polam EL84.  
 
 
First impression was awful.  NASAL is the word that came to mind.  Then I remembered I could take the side covers off.  (The magnetic attach is a nice touch)... 
 
OKAY!!!!!! 
 
MUCH BETTER!!!!  Much more open and less nasal sounding.  It is almost as if these were voiced as an open headphone, with an option to close them just thrown in.  I would NOT recommend these as closed headphones.  If that is what you are looking for, I would suggest you go somewhere else.  
 
Many of you have commented they are bright.  It depends.  There seems to be some strange stuff going on.  Uneven. Some sibliance on hot recordings.  
 
But overall, I think the case is MORE they are lacking down low.  Not a lot of bass.  Not even a mid-bass bloat.  This is, in my setup, quite a midrange- lower treble forward sound.  
 
Overall, though, it is not all that bad.  If the bass improves as some have observed, then I would say these are a competitive headphone in the price-range, but only as an open headphone.  
 
Again to summarize, they don't seem bright so much as light in the bass.  There is a definite upper mid/lower treble emphasis here.  Lots of 'presence' which gives you a first row seat kind of sound.  Not the most detailed treble, though, I think ultimately there is a lack of upper end refinement and what seems like an artificial 'glare' up top.  
 
 
 What bass is there, though, is pretty well done.  Nice tone and control.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Okay, that is all for now... need to do more listening and more importantly let them burn in more. 

 

[MLGrado]

Okay, just another thought.  
 
 
No, these are not the giant killers we were all hoping for.  If I were Hifiman, Audeze, or anyone else in the Planar headphone business, I would not be shaking in my boots right now.  That is, unless the break-in changes are fairly dramatic.  
 
Some recordings sound great on these.  Others, not so much.  I keep coming back to that word 'uneven'.  I think that is a pretty good single word description of what am hearing so far.  
 
If the bass could increase a bit to balance out the forward upper mids- low treble, then, this could be a keeper.  
 
We will see!