Hello all! I just joined the forums after purchasing my new Fidelio X1's. I thought I'd introduce myself and give my impressions thus far.
I bought these headphones to replace my trusty Sennheiser HD 280 Pro's. I've faithfully run those almost daily for 9 years. This past year the headband (metal subframe) finally snapped in half.. Not a bad run I suppose. I never really liked using speakers or other audio sources, so to say I had become accustomed to those is an understatement. I considered buying another pair of those since they're still being manufactured and I didn't want to risk being sucked into the audiophile world (ignorance is bliss, amirite?) - but I guess you can see how well that worked out for me since I just registered.
It's been pretty entertaining learning how you guys describe certain audio characteristics. Just for fun I read some of the reviews posted here aloud to my significant other. I have never seen someone so confused. Needless to say I haven't been "classically trained" in your verbiage so bear with me as I make my descriptions - I'm still learning about this new hobby. I don't really consider myself an audiophile but I do have a pretty keen sense of hearing.
So... that's where I came from...
I've had the X1's for about a week, probably put ~40 hours onto them. Here are my first impressions:
Disclaimer: I tend to write pessimistically, so please don't jump on me about hating on them. I actually like them.
When I first got them I was pretty upset. Had people gone deaf in the 9 years since I purchased my first set of cans? I considered returning them to Amazon. Maybe it was my source? After all, I'm using them with a $400 laptop from Walmart. I decided to plug them into my HTC One - they sounded even worse. Great - consumers had gone deaf. I went back to the reviews. I don't really consider myself a "basshead", but I've been told they were okay at bass... I found the headphones to be missing many frequencies in the lower spectrum yet they moved a substantial amount of air. It's as if they could only hit one specific note, sort of like a drumset with only one drum. I wondered whether this was attributed to their open design, or if other people couldn't tell the difference. Their future looked bleak.
I wondered if maybe I had gone deaf in the year I had gone without decent headphones. My future looked bleak!
I kept searching for an answer. What happened to my purchase... I read that they're supposedly very good for gaming. Great! I play Counter-Strike: Source competitively on 3-dimensional maps which require you to hunt by sound. I fired up some binaural test patterns (don't have my gaming PC at the moment). All of the sound seemingly originated from ~4 inches above and behind my skull. It was actually very disorienting and gave me a headache (has anyone else noticed this, or is it just me?!). Maybe this was part of the sound signature and I just wasn't accustomed. I wanted to move onto testing other things but at this point my cheeks and jawline started to ache from how uncomfortable they were. I ended up stretching out the headphone band slightly as seen in some YouTube reviews. Again, this was frustrating since it was something which they were supposed to excel at.
I decided to order a V-MODA audio cable to replace the stock Philips cable (mainly because I thought it was going to break my laptop because of how large it was...
) At that point I was all in. This is how it starts; first you purchase a $12 audio cable and the next thing you're ordering is a $200 DAC/AMP!
haha... I caught the bug -.-
Anyway, the cable arrived yesterday. I love it! It looks great and got rid of the nasty noise I could hear when I accidentally bumped my cable. Seriously, that Philips cable is like nails on the chalkboard if you happen to accidentally scratch it near your pocket. In happenstance I'd probably go with the silver/black color combo to better match the cans, but I'm alright with red. If I ever needed a microphone I wouldn't hesitate to purchase their MIC cable.
More exciting than the cable arriving was that the headphones were finally starting to break in!
SUCCESS! Apparently I misread the importance of breaking in the headphones. I'm astonished at how different they sound and feel now. There are definitely more frequencies present. I started to like music again - pleasantly picking up things I've never heard in old and new audio tracks. Obviously, they don't sound exactly like my old 280 Pro's. Not necessarily better - just different - the sound signature is different. Perhaps I was also breaking in my ears during the last 40 hours getting them used to the sound. Those Sennheisers did have a clear edge when it came to the clarity of the lower frequencies, but that is also attributed to their closed design. I wish they weren't broken so I could do a proper A/B comparison .I might have to buy another set of cans in the future to complement these (DT770, HD650? Who knows where I'll end up!)
The other thing I'm baffled by is how different they feel on my head. Before, the clamp was unbearable. Mind you, I'm coming from 280 Pro's.. I <3 clamp. The clamp is a lot less than before, and the pads have softened a great degree (and don't itch, yay!). Seriously it's only been a week and a half... Looking back on it I probably shouldn't have loosened them manually and instead just let them open up naturally over time. Oh well, missed opportunity on my part.
I'm sure I'll be purchasing some sort of DAC/AMP in the future, but at this point it's not a necessity. I'll probably go with a Magni/Modi combo after I move this summer. In the mean time I've been satisfied with streaming music on Google Play Music (I've been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the subscription radio service it offers. Pandora sounds terrible in comparison).
Anyway, sorry for the non-audiophile rant.. First time reviewing something.
TL;DR: Before you return them wait a week or so to let them break in. These headphones are pretty great once broken in and I really like them now!