Mine arrived at my office this afternoon 30 minutes before I had to leave for the weekend, so only a minimal amount of observation, plus I don't like making deep assessments prior to burn-in.
Equipment: I'm running these off a Marantz HD-DAC1 and my current headphones are the Koss ESP-950 electrostatics with the E90 energizer/amp. One of the difficulties I immediately ran into is that while I can run both cans out of the Marantz simultaneously, the M1060s are so insanely easy to drive that even with the E90 turned up to max I could not volume match the two... which makes qualitative comparisons difficult.
I listened back and forth between the two headphones for about 20 minutes before putting my music on shuffle at decent volume to let them burn in for the weekend and walking out the door.
Thoughts in no particular order:
These things are comfortable as hell. Love love love the pads and the way the headphones sit on the head. They are considerably heavier than the Koss, but there's virtually no noticeable clamping pressure. I feel I could wear these for days.
The jaggedness of the metal... OY! Very sharp feel to them, do not like. A bit of finishing during the manufacturing process would have done wonders.
Connectors: no problem with mine. Jiggled and twisted mine trying to get them to cut out and couldn't. Time will tell...
What complete moron thought that a cord that short would be a good thing? I'm not going to be able to use these in my office without some sort of workaround... either a replacement cord that's longer or an extender cable of some sort (recommendations as to either greatfully appreciated).
Headband: cheap POS. As great as the wood and metal look and the pads look and feel, the exact opposite is true of the headband and adjusters. Bleagh.
Ok, now on to sound...
Given what I had read from others thus far, out of the box these sound much better than I was expecting, even without burn-in. Bass and mid-bass presence are stronger than the Koss. The soundstage is wider than the Koss. Overall I feel more depth with the M1060 than my electrostatics.
Treble, midrange, and detail, on the other hand is where the Koss kick the M1060's butt. There's a level of crispness and clarity that just isn't there with the M1060 out of the box... to be expected though, as those are areas where electrostatics traditionally excel.
Early assessment made on minimal listening: I think I will wind up keeping both, as I think they each lend themselves to different styles of music. For acoustic, jazz, and classical material I can see staying with the electrostatics, but for rock and metal I'm likely to want the M1060s. Jury is still out on pop, trance, etc.
Again, the above is all really premature, but I wanted to post a first take. Opinions definitely subject to change after burn-in and critical listening.
Regardless, material quality issues notwithstanding, these appear to be a great bang for the buck.
