[gradtex]

I have mine custom made by Lindsay over at Etsy, "Impact Audio cables". Takes for ever to get, but looks stellar and very nice and soft.

+1 for Impact Audio Cables, ordered them before it was found out the connection was no longer MMCX, found that out within the day I ordered. Was easy communicating with him to get everything changed to the proper connection for the second revision. We kept each other informed through the process and out came his first 2.5mm mono cable for the M1060. Will be going with Lindsay again for a custom HD 700 cable in the future.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/533320597/custom-infinity-series-monolith-m1060?ref=shop_home_feat_1




I have DFR + laptop for my portable setup at work (mainly listen to the TH-X00 PH with it). Been a while since listened to the M1060 on it, but from what I remember it paired well with it. Will need to revisit it and listen again to get more accurate impressions of it. DFR definitely sounds its best after being powered on for a day. With any headphone I have, the DFR does have extremely clear sound - clearer than my home system setup. Phenominally clean and clear sounding, just lags a little bit in detail and more so in low end presence than my Bifrost 4490 DAC and Meir JAZZ-ff amp setup...

Thank you both. I had seen those when looking previously, and will likely be getting one. Very swanky looking cables.

 

[LCMusicLover]

Thank you both. I had seen those when looking previously, and will likely be getting one. Very swanky looking cables.

I've dealt with Impact and been satisfied.

However, for my m1060s, I ended up getting a balanced cable from:

http://tritonaudiocables.com/

Shipped in 2 days. Very happy with the product.

Just to offer an alternative

 

[givemetacos]

Just got to try the M1060 from a friend, for the price its decent but its "veiled" to me, highs are rolled off and sound stage is lacking. To me and a few other friends who gave them a listen the HE400i is clearly a better sounding headphone. While there is sub-bass, we all felt its too recessed compared to HE400, LCD-2f, LCD-3f, EL8-open, TH-X00, TH-600, HD700, HE560 and even my Ypsilon R1 build. A few others who also gave the M1060 a listen didn't have much to say about them, most felt that they were quite boring with no life to the sound, a bit on the heavy side like the LCD-2/3 that we also listened to. Most of the music was jazz, classical, blues and classic rock so this also needs to be considered since I think the one genre that the M1060 might have been better at is EDM and R&B which we didn't listen to. FWIW my HE400i is the older one and has been modded with sorbothane in the cups, silicon glue to seal the pads to the mounting ring and has the grill mod so this might be a reason for it to be so different from the M1060.

For the owner of the M1060 it was her fourth "better" headphone, she also has a HE700, HE560 and a custom Ypsilon S2 build that she got after selling the HD600 that she bought from me and was looking for a laid back headphone but to her its a bit too laid back so she's going to give them to her sister who likes them.

DACs used: Mimby (impressive for the price), BImby, Modi2uber, UD-301, Hugo. Amps used: BH Crack, Elise, Hugo, Liquid Carbon, Lyr2, Ember, HA-501 and headphone output of UD-301.

I have mentioned this before and I am starting to think this is more true every day that there might be a lot of variation in each of these units. I know from talking with another owner that had both a rev 1 and rev 2 (not at the same time), he swears his rev 1 overall sounded better and very close to his LCD-2 (2016). He felt his rev 2 was lacking in a way. And what you described sounds absolutely nothing like my pair. Even though mine are now vegan/paper towel modded, even stock my set never sounded veiled or lacking in sound stage. Those are both complaints that I can see with the HD650. The M1060 has been the opposite for me. It is still warm, but has more sparkle than HD650 and a much wider sound stage. Honestly, the sound stage on my set feels closer to the size of my HD800 than HD650. I know you have the older HE-400i and it is modded, so I wouldn't be surprised if those are on par or better than stock M1060. I have only heard the newest revision stock and they weren't that impressive. But I know Hifiman really killed the HE-400i in the latest revision. I admit that I do mostly listen to hip hop, pop, EDM, etc. on M1060 because of the nice bass and the energy it has. I tend to listen to jazz, claasical, blues, etc on HD800.

Anyways, sucks the M1060 you demoed wasn't doing it for you guys. If your friend was going to keep it I would still suggest doing the mods as I think it might change your initial impressions.

 

[DavidA]

I have mentioned this before and I am starting to think this is more true every day that there might be a lot of variation in each of these units. I know from talking with another owner that had both a rev 1 and rev 2 (not at the same time), he swears his rev 1 overall sounded better and very close to his LCD-2 (2016). He felt his rev 2 was lacking in a way. And what you described sounds absolutely nothing like my pair. Even though mine are now vegan/paper towel modded, even stock my set never sounded veiled or lacking in sound stage. Those are both complaints that I can see with the HD650. The M1060 has been the opposite for me. It is still warm, but has more sparkle than HD650 and a much wider sound stage. Honestly, the sound stage on my set feels closer to the size of my HD800 than HD650. I know you have the older HE-400i and it is modded, so I wouldn't be surprised if those are on par or better than stock M1060. I have only heard the newest revision stock and they weren't that impressive. But I know Hifiman really killed the HE-400i in the latest revision. I admit that I do mostly listen to hip hop, pop, EDM, etc. on M1060 because of the nice bass and the energy it has. I tend to listen to jazz, claasical, blues, etc on HD800.

Anyways, sucks the M1060 you demoed wasn't doing it for you guys. If your friend was going to keep it I would still suggest doing the mods as I think it might change your initial impressions.

My friend is giving the M1060 to her sister who loves the sound just as it is but if I ever get the chance to hear another one I will. I don't think the HD650 is "veiled" in anyway, the M1060 was very close in sound signature to the Nighthawk that I heard a few months ago and they were what I would consider "veiled", sound stage wise the Nighhawk, HD650, HD600 and M1060 are pretty much the same, decent but nothing special.

If you say your M1060 has a sound stage close to your HD800 then that is impressive since the only headphones that come close to them in sound stage that I've heard are SR-009, SR-007mk2, HD800S, and HE1K-v2.

 

[GU1DO]

Hi all ,,

i just received from ebay my Moded 1060 with Audeze vegan pads and black paper towel mod done to it .

and i was very impressed by extended relaxed sound stage with out any bolted congested sound
(BUT) i was missing the details and definitions in imaging beside that the bass punch is also lost
the whole sound was improved but with less engagement & less fun , grrr
it was disappointing until i changed the cable to the (Audioquest NightOwl cable) and oh my god what a change ,,

Now the sound stage is way bigger then the stock headphone , the sound separation is also much improved, thanks to the mods
and the imaging is more defined and some of the bass attack is back (not like the stock for sure) , thanks to the cable .

I highly recommend the (Audioquest NightOwl cable) + ( Furutech F63-S(G) if needed) to anybody did the mods ,,
not sure how it improve the stock before the mods because i got the headphone already modded ,
and i have the old model which dose not accept the 2.5mm connection ..

Thanks to the person who invented the mods , really it is an improvement over the original ...

 

[IlluminatiTri]

Has anyone compared these to the Audeze EL-8 Closed Backs? I'd be interested to hear what you think. I was originally going to get the M1060s but decided on the EL-8Cs because they're closed (and since I can only really have one pair, I went for an "all-around" one that I can use more places). I really want to try them, though, so I'm curious if it's worth it.

 

[Brahmsian]

1) I like you, am not liking the stock sound at all...It's way too harsh on my ears in he upper mids and recessed just enough in the uppers that it just doesn't sound right with this combo of issues.

2) I ordered the Audezee non leather vegan pads even knowing they're back ordered.

1) Depends on what I'm listening to. At their best, the M1060s sound crisp and clear with no bloat or veil that I can hear. It's like listening through a crystal clear medium.

Then on other recordings I hear what some people complain about: something wrong with how the treble is tuned, which tends to veil the sound. It's not a dark veil by any means. There is actually very little to no muddiness to the sound I'm hearing.

I would not describe the M1060 as warm at all. To me, they're cold-sounding, but often in a very good way, like a clear day in late fall when you begin feeling that clean winter nippiness. But with some recordings that nippiness tips over into being icy and unpleasant.

I like to throw a lot of different genres at new headphones, stuff I don't usually listen to. On MacBook using DragonFly Red and streaming Tidal via Audirvana, first Led Zeppelin album (MQA version) sounds fantastic. Everything I said above: crisp, clear. Prince also sounded very snappy on these cans.

Then, at random, I threw Talk Talk's "It's My Life" at them. I couldn't even finish the song: that treble glare killed it.

Here's the thing though: it doesn't kill the headphones for me. I'm keeping the M1060 for their almost magical crispness when I pair them up with the right recording. I just did not want another set of muddy cans. When the M1060 sounds too cold, I just switch to warmer headphones.

2) Brown version of the vegan pads still available I think, but never understood why they're $100 -- forty bucks more than the black ones. My main concern about swapping pads is losing that crispness to the stock sound when it's there. My leather Audeze pads scheduled to be delivered Friday, so I shall see soon enough.

I have mentioned this before and I am starting to think this is more true every day that there might be a lot of variation in each of these units.

I think my v2 impressions line up pretty well with initial v1 impressions. Right here on this thread, one of the earliest words used for how they sound was crisp. And that is my word for them when they're at their best.

But then you also had people complaining about the treble (ringing and so forth). Here again I find that accurate in so far as something seems to be off with the treble region in the v2. Some people didn't like the v1 stock sound, which is what led them to mod it in the first place. It just looks like I'm not as sensitive to that frequency as some.

I don't think the HD650 is "veiled" in anyway, the M1060 was very close in sound signature to the Nighthawk that I heard a few months ago and they were what I would consider "veiled", sound stage wise the Nighhawk, HD650, HD600 and M1060 are pretty much the same, decent but nothing special.

This is where I begin to wonder about huge variation in experience (or at least equipment). For me, HD650 has a dark veil and is not as clear as the M1060 most of the time, except with vocals. As for this sound stage business, someone early in this thread, maybe the same person who described them as crisp, distinguished between head space and sound stage. He said head space was very good as opposed to sound stage and, assuming we mean the same thing by these terms, I would agree with that assessment.

 

[givemetacos]

My friend is giving the M1060 to her sister who loves the sound just as it is but if I ever get the chance to hear another one I will. I don't think the HD650 is "veiled" in anyway, the M1060 was very close in sound signature to the Nighthawk that I heard a few months ago and they were what I would consider "veiled", sound stage wise the Nighhawk, HD650, HD600 and M1060 are pretty much the same, decent but nothing special.

If you say your M1060 has a sound stage close to your HD800 then that is impressive since the only headphones that come close to them in sound stage that I've heard are SR-009, SR-007mk2, HD800S, and HE1K-v2.

I also don't think the HD650 are veiled, but that is a common complaint about them so I mentioned it. I haven't heard the Nighthawk, but I understand those are supposed to be darker than HD650. My M1060 is somewhere between HD650 and HD600. It is just slightly warm, but not as warm as HD650. It doesn't have that mid-bass bump so the bass is only present when called upon. I also didn't mean for it to sound like I think the M1060's soundstage is the same as HD800. I was saying that if you were to make a scale in soundstage width starting with HD650 (tiny) to HD800 (huge), the M1060 is somewhere in the middle, but closer to HD800 than it is to HD650. There is just a lot of air and separation between instruments. Anyways, based on all the wildly different reviews I have seen about the M1060 I think there's just a lot of variation unfortunately. Sort of how "that other site" used to use an A-B-C scale to rank the quality of the pre-fazor LCD-2s.

 

[koover]

So the black Audeze pads are available now? Every site i went to said backordered.
Also, what's going to be the difference between the vegan brown and the black leather?
I'd rather not wait forever until the Vegan is off backorder. I'll cancel my order and save $60

 

[VRacer-111]

So the black Audeze pads are available now? Every site i went to said backordered.
Also, what's going to be the difference between the vegan brown and the black leather?
I'd rather not wait forever until the Vegan is off backorder. I'll cancel my order and save $60

I don't know exactly what the Audeze leather pads sound like, but supposedly more back towards stock in terms of bass presentation and help alleviate the high frequency 'ringing' that the stock pads have. The microsuede pads will give nicer comfort in regards to breathability over stock, but make sound just a little more sterile and distant, but more precise at same time. I'm looking to try out the leather pads, since the stock pads with the paper towel mod had something going on I kind of liked and I have HD 700 coming in (think I want to get the M1060 tuned as much for fun and non fatiguing listening as it can be, HD 700 will take care of the technical precision.) I did the mod in stages: had them stock for ~50hours until the bass turned around and was developed -> did Paper Towel mod and listened to a few songs -> changed from stock to microsuede (vegan) and listened to same tracks.

 

[koover]

I don't know exactly what the Audeze leather pads sound like, but supposedly more back towards stock in terms of bass presentation and help alleviate the high frequency 'ringing' that the stock pads have. The microsuede pads will give nicer comfort in regards to breathability over stock, but make sound just a little more sterile and distant, but more precise at same time. I'm looking to try out the leather pads, since the stock pads with the paper towel mod had something going on I kind of liked and I have HD 700 coming in (think I want to get the M1060 tuned as much for fun and non fatiguing listening as it can be, HD 700 will take care of the technical precision.) I did the mod in stages: had them stock for ~50hours until the bass turned around and was developed -> did Paper Towel mod and listened to a few songs -> changed from stock to microsuede (vegan) and listened to same tracks.

Awesome. Great feedback. I like how the leathers should sound. I don't want to lose any of the bass impact while taming that irritating ringing I'm having a hard time with.
Thank you. I'm going to cancel the suede and save $40, plus actually get them.

 

[SamBBMe]

Awesome. Great feedback. I like how the leathers should sound. I don't want to lose any of the bass impact while taming that irritating ringing I'm having a hard time with.
Thank you. I'm going to cancel the suede and save $40, plus actually get them.

Where are you getting the lambskin pads for $40 cheaper than the vegan pads?

 

[koover]

I need to be more careful what I post and make sure I also order the right pads. I ordered the LCD3 pads by accident for $100. They were in stock so I ordered. Adorama is where I was going to get them. I cancelled. The other pads I was looking at also weren't the ones I wanted and misquoted myself. They were $69.
I do apologize for my error posting this savings.
Looks like the pads I want are $80 from Adorama. LCD 2 black leather.

 

[fpantalone]

I have mentioned this before and I am starting to think this is more true every day that there might be a lot of variation in each of these units. I know from talking with another owner that had both a rev 1 and rev 2 (not at the same time), he swears his rev 1 overall sounded better and very close to his LCD-2 (2016). He felt his rev 2 was lacking in a way. And what you described sounds absolutely nothing like my pair. Even though mine are now vegan/paper towel modded, even stock my set never sounded veiled or lacking in sound stage. Those are both complaints that I can see with the HD650. The M1060 has been the opposite for me. It is still warm, but has more sparkle than HD650 and a much wider sound stage. Honestly, the sound stage on my set feels closer to the size of my HD800 than HD650. I know you have the older HE-400i and it is modded, so I wouldn't be surprised if those are on par or better than stock M1060. I have only heard the newest revision stock and they weren't that impressive. But I know Hifiman really killed the HE-400i in the latest revision. I admit that I do mostly listen to hip hop, pop, EDM, etc. on M1060 because of the nice bass and the energy it has. I tend to listen to jazz, claasical, blues, etc on HD800.

Anyways, sucks the M1060 you demoed wasn't doing it for you guys. If your friend was going to keep it I would still suggest doing the mods as I think it might change your initial impressions.

You know ... I don't see a consistent 'source' or 'amp' used in these comparisons/comments. This has a huge effect on the sound, not to mention everyone's hearing/perception/bias/taste is unique as well. Hard to believe that impressions are ALL OVER the map !! I know ... it kinda makes these forums a moot point if you look at it like this, but ... Carry on

 

[givemetacos]

You know ... I don't see a consistent 'source' or 'amp' used in these comparisons/comments. This has a huge effect on the sound, not to mention everyone's hearing/perception/bias/taste is unique as well. Hard to believe that impressions are ALL OVER the map !! I know ... it kinda makes these forums a moot point if you look at it like this, but ... Carry on

Yeah, I agree, it is all subjective so there's going to be a lot of different impressions. Though I find it odd that some basic things have little consistency like small vs wide soundstage, bright vs dark, heavy bass vs bass-light, rolled treble vs piercing harshness, etc. And maybe this is just my bad hearing, but I really don't get a huge difference in sound from different amps. At least ones that provide enough power. I haven't really considered this headphone to be amp picky at all. I find my Sennheisers (HD600, HD650, HD800) have more differences between amps, but even then I always find amp differences to be subtle and require critical listening to distinguish. I have a hard time imaging an amp completely changing whether this headphone sounds bright vs warm. But I know I am not as sensitive to those changes, so it is possible I guess.