[EtymoticFtW]

Or swap ears. I think the first person to swap ears should get some kind of Head-Fi "most committed" badge on their profile.

 

[NuClear235]

I tried them Yesterday. I must say that this are the best closed headphones i heard. But for me is it not enough...
The space is in this category GRAND - the best I found. Bass is perfect - deep and controlled. Treble is not sharp. Sound is not black and is Airy. On closed headphones unbelievable.
BUT for me is not this sound funny. I can not enjoy it. I tried J.M.Jarre Equinoxe album, Rammstein Best of, Landa, Brichta (local interprets). Jarre was like from PC sound card. Rammstein had ... something like echo in voice ... like singing in the bathroom!?
And sound isolation - other people were hear nothing what I loud listen. Thats perfect.
But I hear aprox. 35% of original noise. It is not enough for me! About comfort - I have ears mid to big size. NAD shells are the same size and I feel them on my ears. I think is needed more deep. It is not critical, but it is not perfect. On upper side it hurts me because pressure to my head is too big. I tried set it, but it not helps.
Result: NAD is the best, but not enough for me. I am still searching ...

 

[Sinocelt]

Result: NAD is the best, but not enough for me. I am still searching ...

 
NAD is the best, compared to what? What else have you tried?

 

[NuClear235]

AKG K450 (my favourite), K550, K 271 (non portable)..., Marley complete, Marshall and Sennheisers many types: Momentum both, HD 25 ... and other products I dont remember number, because their sound was horrible or not interresting.
I am searching closed can portable category with the biggest isolation of external noise. I tried it on Iphone 5 with ALAC files and with local HiFi devices if possible.

 

[oqvist]

Need to look for active noise cancelling headphones if you don´t want to go iem.

 

[NuClear235]

IEM no way. I want over ear headphones. Some Sennheiser were perfect isolating noise, but played sound was poor...
Active canceling - some users say, that have have influence to sound, nothing for me.
Now I hear opened Sennheiser HD570. But I must be closed in room alone . This is sound I love. Great soundstage and higher resolution. I bought now Astell and Kern AK100, so I can play HD soundfiles too.
Probably closed headphones with open sound are not yet made. But I am still nearer...

 

[grizzlybeast]

AKG K450 (my favourite), K550, K 271 (non portable)..., Marley complete, Marshall and Sennheisers many types: Momentum both, HD 25 ... and other products I dont remember number, because their sound was horrible or not interresting.
I am searching closed can portable category with the biggest isolation of external noise. I tried it on Iphone 5 with ALAC files and with local HiFi devices if possible.

The best isolation of a fully closed headphone that covers the whole ears is the German Maestro Gmp 8.35d and they sound really good with great balance. 
get your hands on some of those. Plus there are tons of pad swapping capabilities.

 

[tan1415]

IS teh NAD hp50, the PSB m4u1 and teh Keff 500 teh same headphone or different but with same sound?

 

[AustinValentine]

  IS teh NAD hp50, the PSB m4u1 and teh Keff 500 teh same headphone or different but with same sound?

 
Different headphones, each with different sound.
 
The PSB M4U1 is a cousin of the HP50 though as it was also designed by Paul Barton. Even given their relation, it's sound is still different though, and several people (Tyll included, which is why he didn't review them) found the M4U-1 to be strident. 

 

[AustinValentine]

BUT for me is not this sound funny. I can not enjoy it. I tried J.M.Jarre Equinoxe album, Rammstein Best of, Landa, Brichta (local interprets). Jarre was like from PC sound card. Rammstein had ... something like echo in voice ... like singing in the bathroom!?
 

 
I certainly heard this too. I'll have a more detailed description of this when I review them later this month. The HP50 is the first headphone I've felt that I just had to do a full site review.
 
Owners should watch out for this as well: I had to return my HP50 to World Wide Stereo due to a headband defect. The headband snapped just above the metal adjustment mechanism. It happened from normal use as they hadn't even left my house yet. It made the HP50's have no clamping force after it snapped; getting a proper seal was impossible after that happened.
 
I have a unopened replacement en route. I'm hoping that the vocal oddity NuClear235 described above won't be present in the new set. More to come after the new pair arrives.

 

[DnB4Guy]

Can you guys/gals who are hearing this "echoing" please name the recording that you are listening to when you heard this.
 
I've got over 800 CDs, and I've heard this echo thing too, but only on 1 CD. This tells me, the echo was part of the medium and not the headphones. If there are enough people who are hearing this echo with "every single song" then there'd be a problem (or more) with the headphones.
 
For what it's worth, I can't remember what album I heard the echo, but this might be an idea worth considering...?

 

[AustinValentine]

I've heard it on a lot of albums. It's not so much an echo as it is a "scoop" - I'd best describe it as a produced hollowness in it's midrange reproduction. I'd put money that this is a consequence of ROOMFEEL, by attempting to voice the headphones to sound like a pair of speakers in an acoustically treated room (taking Chamber properties into account) the changes have the effect of shifting some vocal production to produce this sense of space. 
 
From my review notes, because I won't have my HP50 back until tomorrow at the earliest by UPS:
 
If you get out The Decemberists album EP "5 Songs," you'll notice that Colin Meloy's unusually forward nasal vocals are now set back at a distance. (By the way, this had a pleasant effect on this album. "Angel Won't You Call Me" has never sounded better.)
 
This is a pretty rare exception of it having a pleasant effect: it's very troublesome on other tracks/albums. On the Sam Cooke collection "Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964," if you pull up "Having A Party," Cooke's vocals are buried even more behind the baseline than the HP50's frequency response would suggest. He sounds at a far greater distance...and there is something unnatural in his vocal timbre. Similar timbre problems pop up with Tori Amos; her album "Little Earthquakes" sounds pretty off through the HP50's. Best example track, "Winter."

 

[tlau1125]

I've heard it on a lot of albums. It's not so much an echo as it is a "scoop" - I'd best describe it as a produced hollowness in it's midrange ...

Which cable were you using? Some headphone outputs do not work well with headphones with iDevice controls due to the extra electrical contact on the headphone plug. This can produce a hollow echoey sound.

 

[AustinValentine]

Which cable were you using? Some headphone outputs do not work well with headphones with iDevice controls due to the extra electrical contact on the headphone plug. This can produce a hollow echoey sound.

 
I was using the V-Moda Audio Only Cable. No iDevice controls at all (http://v-moda.com/audio-only-cable/).
 
The rest of the audio component chains were:
 
Retina MBP -> Audirvana Plus -> ALAC Files (Variable: 16/44 to 24/196) -> ODAC -> O2 on low gain
iPod 5.5g w/ Rockbox -> ALAC -> FiiO L9 -> FiiO E11
Sansa Clip Zip w/ Rockbox -> ALAC -> FiiO Interconnect -> FiiO E11
Galaxy Note II (Rooted, CleanROM ACE 4.9.0/Android 4.1.2, Perseus Kernel w/ HeadphoneAmpControl App) -> PowerAmp/Neutron/USB Audio Player Pro/Samsung Stock -> Headphone Out

 

[deltasun]

I've heard it on a lot of albums. It's not so much an echo as it is a "scoop" - I'd best describe it as a produced hollowness in it's midrange reproduction. I'd put money that this is a consequence of ROOMFEEL, by attempting to voice the headphones to sound like a pair of speakers in an acoustically treated room (taking Chamber properties into account) the changes have the effect of shifting some vocal production to produce this sense of space. 

From my review notes, because I won't have my HP50 back until tomorrow at the earliest by UPS:

If you get out The Decemberists album EP "5 Songs," you'll notice that Colin Meloy's unusually forward nasal vocals are now set back at a distance. (By the way, this had a pleasant effect on this album. "Angel Won't You Call Me" has never sounded better.)

This is a pretty rare exception of it having a pleasant effect: it's very troublesome on other tracks/albums. On the Sam Cooke collection "Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964," if you pull up "Having A Party," Cooke's vocals are buried even more behind the baseline than the HP50's frequency response would suggest. He sounds at a far greater distance...and there is something unnatural in his vocal timbre. Similar timbre problems pop up with Tori Amos; her album "Little Earthquakes" sounds pretty off through the HP50's. Best example track, "Winter."

Mine just arrived via FedEx and am letting it "thaw" for the moment.

I was going to mention this too (without hearing it yet or at all) that the roomfeel might have something to do with it. If they are leaking sound from the R to L and vice versa, and they're not done properly, I could see an echo-ey type of effect. I hope I don't experience this.