I finally got to hear these at the SoCal CanJam and I couldn't agree more! And don't forget that the treble can be tuned by using the different pad types.
I have been on a quest to find an open-back headphone that is at least as good in overall SQ as my HD 650's but that also has the sub-bass power of my ATH-M50's, all for a reasonable price.
I know I was asking for a lot, and for a long time, I was afraid that they might not exist. Every good sounding headphone I tried sounded great at low-to-medium SPLs, but they were all brought to their knees whenever I played back tracks with clean, powerful bass at high SPLs. The bass would either begin to audibly modulate the higher frequencies or cause the driver to reach its excursion limits and begin to physically (and very audibly) distort.
The only headphones that have passed this test (that I've heard so far, and I've heard most of them) are the HD 800, but they are $1500, and aren't really an option right now.
So it put a
huge smile on my face when I was able to play the first track of The Dark Knight OST (which at 3:27 contains significant amounts of subsonic bass) and as I turned up the track louder and louder, I heard absolutely zero audible distortion while the bass was literally fluttering my earlobes!
The PM-2 will definitely be my next reference headphone purchase.
Thank you, OPPO!!!
Also, I was able to do a direct A-B comparison with the Audeze EL-8 open-backs at the OPPO booth using the HA-1, and to my ears, the PM-2's were better in every way. I have nothing against the EL-8's. I actually was really hoping they would sound at least as good as the PM-2's, but to me, the EL-8's were completely outclassed in every SQ category. And my opinion didn't change even after I heard the EL-8's at a couple of other booths. So its the PM-2 for me!!!