lojay
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Posts
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- 249
I actually agree with you. I also have a long overdue review to do but my room is almost done with renovations and I want a nice setup to compare my SR009, HD800 and HE1000.at issue here is what you define "TOTL": if you are a true-blue audiophile TOTL is probably a modded HD800 attached to a monster SS amp that allows you to hear a fly buzzing in a concert hall. You don't care if that setup would give you a splitting headache if you tried to listen to, say, "Sgt Pepper" CD for more than 10', because you only listen to well-recorded music at the highest possible resolution. OTH, if you focus more on the music side of the hobby, TOTL is a headphone that works great with all sorts of music, and that does not distract you from the music flowevery time a cymbal is hit (BTW I agree HE1K has a problem with cymbals).
Intentionally or not, HE1K seems to be the latest attempt to build such a "universal" headphone. I have personally owned two headphones in this lineage, AKG K701 and Beyer T1, and while I have yet to post the promised review, I do believe HE1K bests them sonically in every possible aspect, as it should at its price.
The HE1000 are true genre masters. But they are also a jack of all trades, master of none. Some find fault in that, I personally don't given my purpose is to use these in office, but would like more engagement and realism as I expect from a TOTL headphone.
I see them as a nice complement to my HD800. No it doesn't give me a headache while listening to Beatles, but the HE1000 is undoubtedly the easier listen. But on the same token I cannot see why the HE1000 should not be able to scale with better recordings and setups while sounding great with other less stellar recordings, like the SR009/KGSSHV combo I have.