[Hammy]

@JOEYBUCKETS I'll say with a fair degree of certainty that your set are not "fake".  I put that word in quotation marks because by saying that they're not fake, I mean they probably are manufactured by Philips.  Whether they sound like early-version X2s is something you can only decide yourself by listening to more than one pair.  The fact they are glued is not evidence in and of itself that it's fake.
 
I was told the direct opposite of your information (see here) but I think the person you were in contact with has it about right.  It's a manufacturing decision IMO, and it affects all 'new' pairs - not only those supplied to Amazon.  I have seen both WOOX and Gibson pairs that are glued, but no non-glued Gibson pairs.
 
You're right about the pads not really going back on easily after removing them - they kind of just 'squish' back on and don't feel very secure.  I scratched most of the glue off with something sharp (not ideal, for sure) and they stay on more securely now.
 
Did the back of your box say WOOX or Gibson?  Personally, I've had 3 pairs and they've all sounded slightly/drastically different.  I would want a WOOX pair, but there are certainly Gibson pairs out there that sound good (I have one of each sitting on my desk at the moment, and one terrible sounding Gibson returned).
 
Hope this helps.

 

[K.T.]

Hi,
 
Is it safe to assume that the WOOX pair and the "good" Gibson pair exhibited the slight difference in sound? And the "bad" Gibson pair is the drastically different one?
 
You mention that you'd want a WOOX pair. Can you describe how the WOOX and the "good" Gibson compare to your ears? With all this talk about one version vs another, I think everyone is interested in knowing how they stack up.
 
I, for one, have a Gibson pair that I think sounds pretty good. It's about what I expect from a set of cans at this level. So I'm very curious as to how it differs from the WOOX. So far I have heard the WOOX may have a more balanced, less boomy bass. And the Gibson may be warmer sounding but less controlled in the bass and maybe not quite as clear. But I've only read that. I don't have a WOOX to compare it to. Anything else?
 
LOL, the WOOX X2s may become something of a collectors item, whether the difference in sound warrants it or not. So I'm very interested to hear your opinion of the differences.

 

[Hammy]

  Hi,
 
Is it safe to assume that the WOOX pair and the "good" Gibson pair exhibited the slight difference in sound? And the "bad" Gibson pair is the drastically different one?
 
You mention that you'd want a WOOX pair. Can you describe how the WOOX and the "good" Gibson compare to your ears? With all this talk about one version vs another, I think everyone is interested in knowing how they stack up.
 
I, for one, have a Gibson pair that I think sounds pretty good. It's about what I expect from a set of cans at this level. So I'm very curious as to how it differs from the WOOX. So far I have heard the WOOX may have a more balanced, less boomy bass. And the Gibson may be warmer sounding but less controlled in the bass. But I've only read that. Anything else?
 
LOL, the WOOX X2s may become something of a collectors item, whether the difference in sound warrants it or not. So I'm very interested to hear your opinion of the differences.

 
After critically listening to the WOOX pair and then switching to the 'good' Gibson pair, I'm confident I could pinpoint a slight difference in sound.. but it's very very small.  Yes, the "bad" Gibson pair was drastically different to both of the others.
 
I'd want a WOOX pair because 1) I have the choice, 2) I know it's the closest version to what all the glowing reviews were made with and 3) Resale value in the future may be higher with a WOOX pair (speculation, but certainly a selling point).
 
There is practically no difference in the WOOX and 'good' Gibson pairs.  The WOOX probably has 100+ hours on it, and the Gibson maybe 5 (if you believe in that sort of thing).  Perhaps the bass is slightly different between the pairs, but it's not really worth mentioning.
 
I've discussed this over in the main thread and, to be honest, I believe the there are some severe differences between sets (and individual) pads.  My WOOX pair had a left pad which blocked a lot of the sound, and they sounded much better with the left pad from the Gibson.
 
If someone has a 'bad' Gibson pair, and has done any research at all on the headphone, they'll probably know straight away that something is wrong.  The bass is uncontrolled to the point of being sloppy, and the whole midrange sounds like it's smeared in Nutella.  As you can see, I'm not great at explaining things with audio terms...
 
I'd also like to mention that my purchasing was in this order: WOOX -> 'bad' Gibson -> 'good' Gibson.  Expectation bias doesn't really come into play here, because I would have been expecting the second Gibson pair to sound terrible as well, and they don't.  I had all three pairs for a few days and could A/B/C.  It's possible I just got a lemon, and the few other reports did as well, but it shows it's certainly possible.

 

[K.T.]

Thanks so much for posting your impression between the two versions of the X2.

Yes, I wish I would have received the WOOX version, too. It just seems like a more solid product. I wouldn't mind having everything just right, with properly removable pads and solid quality control.

The Gibson version seems much more iffy. Though, as you say, if you get a decent one, it should perform on par with the WOOX version and give you legitimate X2 performance.

Still, I wish this issue never existed. I really hate having to second guess my purchase for quality control reasons. That should never be on me. The manufacturer should be on top of this, always.

 

[wwmhf]

Yes, I totally agree that the quality issues of X2 should never existed.

 

[Hammy]

For those who don't check the main thread: http://www.supportforum.philips.com/en/showthread.php?22285-Philips-X2-Statement

 

[trickards]

There is a huge amount of weight being given to this Woox vs Gibson argument when there is very little evidence I've seen that this is even a different production line.  Just because a line of business is sold or moved to another company doesn't mean actually production has physically moved or will ever move.  We have all established that the box may/may not say Woox, and that headbands all say Woox - but does this really tell us anything?  My view is that the only thing this tells us, in the small samples we have, is that they have at least purchased some new packaging.  The very components these headphones are built with (i.e the headband), still say Woox on every pair!
 
Selling a line of business does not tend to mean just turning off one production line and turning on another, they have to be tooled etc.  It is a very shallow view to expect the Woox vs Gibson on the box to mean anything other than there are two different versions of the packaging.
 
I don't dispute the gluegate/balancegate/trimgate but we shouldn't draw conclusions about a manufacturing process/change that we know almost nothing about.

 

[Hammy]

  There is a huge amount of weight being given to this Woox vs Gibson argument when there is very little evidence I've seen that this is even a different production line.  Just because a line of business is sold or moved to another company doesn't mean actually production has physically moved or will ever move.  We have all established that the box may/may not say Woox, and that headbands all say Woox - but does this really tell us anything?  My view is that the only thing this tells us, in the small samples we have, is that they have at least purchased some new packaging.  The very components these headphones are built with (i.e the headband), still say Woox on every pair!
 
Selling a line of business does not tend to mean just turning off one production line and turning on another, they have to be tooled etc.  It is a very shallow view to expect the Woox vs Gibson on the box to mean anything other than there are two different versions of the packaging.
 
I don't dispute the gluegate/balancegate/trimgate but we shouldn't draw conclusions about a manufacturing process/change that we know almost nothing about.

 
All good points, but there are very obvious cosmetic differences between WOOX and Gibson pairs.  I have not yet seen a Gibson pair which has the same colour metal and writing as a WOOX pair, for example.  Gibson are also clearly using different stamps/methods of writing for the cups, as recent Fid elio pairs show.
 
Again, you can say they are only cosmetic differences, but please get back to us when you've heard more than one pair.

 

[trickards]

   
All good points, but there are very obvious cosmetic differences between WOOX and Gibson pairs.  I have not yet seen a Gibson pair which has the same colour metal and writing as a WOOX pair, for example.  Gibson are also clearly using different stamps/methods of writing for the cups, as recent Fid elio pairs show.
 
Again, you can say they are only cosmetic differences, but please get back to us when you've heard more than one pair.

I'm not suggesting it's only cosmetic - only that I don't think we can't attribute this categorically to Gibson vs Woox on the basis of what's stamped on the box.  Only recently with gluegate have people been a/b testing - who's to say how long variations happen with this product or any other?

 

[Hammy]

I'm not suggesting it's only cosmetic - only that I don't think we can't attribute this categorically to Gibson vs Woox on the basis of what's stamped on the box.  Only recently with gluegate have people been a/b testing - who's to say how long variations happen with this product or any other?

You said you have seen no evidence that a different production line has been used. The end product says otherwise.

The "stamp on the box" is a nice way of downplaying it. The stamp on the box actually determines what the product inside will look like (and, arguably, sound like).

I don't know if there are terrible sounding WOOX pairs, but I know for certain that there are terrible sounding Gibson pairs.

We actually don't disagree. I don't believe it's a clear cut case of whether one is better than the other, but I have heard a terrible sounding Gibson pair and no terrible sounding WOOX pairs. IMO there are bad sounding batches of Gibsons at the moment. I don't know if this ever was the case when they were WOOX.

 

[trickards]

You said you have seen no evidence that a different production line has been used. The end product says otherwise.

The "stamp on the box" is a nice way of downplaying it. The stamp on the box actually determines what the product inside will look like (and, arguably, sound like).

I don't know if there are terrible sounding WOOX pairs, but I know for certain that there are terrible sounding Gibson pairs.

We actually don't disagree. I don't believe it's a clear cut case of whether one is better than the other, but I have heard a terrible sounding Gibson pair and no terrible sounding WOOX pairs. IMO there are bad sounding batches of Gibsons at the moment. I don't know if this ever was the case when they were WOOX.

Yeah, totally fair, and believe me - I totally get the frustration.  I don't have an issue right now, but in other worlds (cough Apple cough) I have.
 
I have some experience with manufacturing though, and that small print on the box is some graphic in some repository somewhere that they use to get someone to make 100,000 boxes.  In the same way they got someone to make 100,000 headbands with Woox written on them. I definitely wouldn't draw a lot of conclusions from it around the production itself.

 

[Architeuthis]

I hope I'm not too late for a refund from the Amazon Gold Box sale. I just partially removed one of the ear pads on my Gibson pair to find that there's a stringy, gooey mess.

 

[frogmeat69]

Seems I lucked out with my pair from the Amazon sale in December, must have gotten older stock, no glue, no ring issue, no imbalance issues, no Hi-Res sticker on the box,  says Woox on all the right places, and they sound awesome. Sorry you guys and gals are going through this, because a good set like I received  really are a joy to use.

 

[Shetzu]

I was lucky enough to receive the WOOX pair of Fidelio X2 which I am enjoying very much. I ordered them from the USA last week of December. Perhaps the seller had  a old stock stored some place. These are brand new and have removable cushion pads without any glue.

 

[starling2k]

The entire issue with most may very well be with the earpads, their positioning and compression.  I have a pair of the Fidelio X2/27 with Gibson on the box but Woox on the headband and they are from Amazon Warehouse. I have tried rubbing the earpads on white paper and there is "no" bleeding on mine.  I took the earpads off and they do have glue on the posts but go back on easily and stay on even without the glue.  You have to be careful removing the pads or you'll rip the the cloth driver cover if it is glued to the post - the trick is to grab or pinch the cloth at the post if it is stuck and peel it off.  I then reversed the earpad from the way they were originally attached.  There is an alignment marker arrow on the inside of earpad -- I simply put them on just the opposite way.  I think the sound with the earpads this way is  improved on mine.  It probably has something to do with the distance of driver to the eardrum and perhaps a better seal around the ear.  I think mine sound absolutely excellent this way.  I have a number of headphones including the Sennheiser 600, 598, 580 - AKG K553, AKG K7XX and the Fidelio X2 sounds as good or better than any of those.
 
You can also try a little trick - take you fingers (thumb, index and middle fingers) and with the headphones on, apply pressure to the outside of the earcup housing - pressing them tighter to your head.  You'll definitely hear a different sound - bass is much tighter and high sounds like cymbals become crystal clear - I did this with the earpads on the way they originally came and this is the reason I decided to reverse the original alignment.  This may also explain why some have stated that after burning in the headphones for a couple of weeks, sound improved drastically.  Perhaps it was just a matter or the memory foam cushions becoming more compressed and the driver closer to the eardrum. 
 
Anyway, I think these are awesome headphones and plan to hang on to mine.  I hope this is helpful.