Hi guys, received my X1 today!
Plugged it in and started with "Requiem" by Neil Davidge from Halo 4's soundtrack in FLAC. I immediately noticed it sounded like a very cheap cardboard speaker
. OK, no problem, maybe it's just the first minutes since I just unpacked this thing. Next is something completely different to check this terrible sound: "Train" by Goldfrapp in FLAC. The prominent first beats were there, but sounded better on my HD595 but ok... but THEN when I expected she would sing I was still only hearing the prominent tune. Where is her voice? Where is the singing? VERY faintly in the background when I turned the volume up I heard something that might be a voice. What the hell???
Now I was 90% convinced I had a DOA. "Uninvited" by Alanis Morissette in FLAC gave the final blow when the deep note which started the song was clearly distorted, when Alanis started singing again barely any voice audible, while the high notes from the piano were not clean either. The mids and mid-lows were like -10dB and playing with the equalizer confirmed this since all sound was gone when I only left frequencies 125 to 500 on 0 when all other on -12dB.
No mids at all, distorted bass and so-so highs!
BUT, while already grabbing the box to send it back, I removed the stock cable and plugged in a short, thin, very cheap-looking cable which came free with some MP3-player I got 10 years ago. BOOM suddenly I recognised the sound everyone here was talking about and I liked it immediately since it wasn't very different from the HD595 I have. Further listening convinced me the X1 was indeed better than the HD595 i have. Bass has more impact, highs don't suffer from Sennheiser's veil anymore but mids were (very) slightly recessed. Overall: a worthy improvement! I even noticed sounds (in the highs) which I never heard before while the bass was playfully supporting.
So... I think this proves it's not only a matter of measuring the resistance of the stock cable anymore to confirm it's bad, the cable is just pure rubbish! It looks fine and feels excellent however the sound is just terrible. I know it's obvious mine is defective/broken and not all stock cables are like this (or all X1-reviews would be devastating unless they used a different cable and this topic wouldn't even exist ), but how can you mess up a cable may I ask? I didn't even know a cable would matter that much since I always thought a cable just works or just doesn't work (while slight differences may occur), this stock cable confirms to me a cable can destroy the sound. Let this be a warning to new X1-owners or future buyers who may notice this terrible sound as well: swap the cable! And to those who's stock cable sounds just fine: swap it anyway since better ones (lower resistance) can be found anywhere.
In short: My stock cable (which looks and feels fine) is DOA and made the X1 sound like a potato, the X1 itself however is exactly like everyone here is saying it is: impactfull bass, clear highs, fun, airy and just puts a smile on your face
. The (high-) mids however are a bit weaker than on my HD595.