[James Shoegazer]

Abused for my zoom lessons

 

[mux7]

Could anyone suggest me a way to black out the L and R white markings? I tried using a sharpie but it was a complete disaster. It smuged everywhere when touching it and leaves a weird purple/blackish shiny hue.

 

[NineWest]

Are there any times of the year when prices are better for these at the PhilipsEarphone Authorization Store on AliExpress?

 

[Black Sugar]

Hi, everyone, i'm gonna take a plan to pairing my SHP9500 with Zen Dac V2. What do you think? is it worth to get Zen Dac V2 to be paired with SHP9500?? because with my Dragonfly Black make them even sound thinner.

 

[vtr1000]

The Zen Dac is pretty nice imo. I have no experience of the Dragonfly but the Zen gives a more full and natural performance compared to my Fiio K3 which is a little anemic. It also has enough power to drive many other phones if you make use of the balanced output (not needed for the 9500s). Cheapaudioman did a good YouTube review on the original.
If you haven't done so already, fit some Shure1840 pads - much cheaper than the Zen & much bigger improvement too.

 

[northernsound]

I was just about to look for the SHP9500 in my area (Sweden) and imagine the horror when I noticed that it´s not available to buy and that the newer model (SHP9600) seem to have a rather different sound signature. Have you guys identified any other similar model when it comes to sound signature, quality and pricerange? I´ve been looking for a while now and I´m not sure what to buy instead.

 

[vtr1000]

Have you tried Aliexpress? Should be around €60. Sort by orders, read the reviews & you should be ok. Not sure what else I'd recommend at that price either...

 

[northernsound]

Have you tried Aliexpress? Should be around €60. Sort by orders, read the reviews & you should be ok. Not sure what else I'd recommend at that price either...

I appreciate the tip, the trustworthy prices I see are around or just under 100 usd on aliexpress. I will have to think about it, because sometimes when ordering from aliexpress to sweden there will be an added sum to pay, customfees and logisticfees and so on (specific for sweden). Many sellers on aliexpress are unfortunately not handling the ioss-procedure correctly.

 

[vtr1000]

I would have offered you mine if I'd not broken the headband yesterday... I was trying to bend them inward to increase clamp & it just shattered - it's entirely plastic... The 9500s were great at £50 but as you've seen, they're almost double that now & I'd forget about them at that price. To replace them I've just bought the X2HR, brand new & sealed for £105 on ebay. They're also on Amazon, which may turn out cheaper for you (post-brexit with customs & taxes involved). From what I've read & heard (but yet to hear), they should be an improvement over the 9500s but they could be a bit too bass heavy. I'm not too bothered about that as there's a port which can be taped over to reduce bass if required, as detailed here.

If you're not set on a pair of open back cans, then the Takstar pro 82 provide a good reference sound for the money and they should come in at around €100. Like the Tin T2s though, I don't actually find them very enjoyable to listen to long term. The T2s are what started this hobby for me when lockdown first started last year. I've since bought way too many in & over ear headphones, starting cheap & working up. I've larglely settled on Tin P1s for in ears at home, Blon BL03s for running straight from my phone's headphone jack, and Hifiman Sundaras for at the desk. The Philips remained for playing games using a vmoda boom pro & that's a large reason for me replacing the broken 9500s with the X2HR as I'm just not using an RGB headset...

I'm kind of reluctant to follow the heard and get a pair the HD600/650/660, but I feel that it would be much cheaper in the long run to just do that & forget about the rest...

 

[northernsound]

I would have offered you mine if I'd not broken the headband yesterday... I was trying to bend them inward to increase clamp & it just shattered - it's entirely plastic... The 9500s were great at £50 but as you've seen, they're almost double that now & I'd forget about them at that price. To replace them I've just bought the X2HR, brand new & sealed for £105 on ebay. They're also on Amazon, which may turn out cheaper for you (post-brexit with customs & taxes involved). From what I've read & heard (but yet to hear), they should be an improvement over the 9500s but they could be a bit too bass heavy. I'm not too bothered about that as there's a port which can be taped over to reduce bass if required, as detailed here.

If you're not set on a pair of open back cans, then the Takstar pro 82 provide a good reference sound for the money and they should come in at around €100. Like the Tin T2s though, I don't actually find them very enjoyable to listen to long term. The T2s are what started this hobby for me when lockdown first started last year. I've since bought way too many in & over ear headphones, starting cheap & working up. I've larglely settled on Tin P1s for in ears at home, Blon BL03s for running straight from my phone's headphone jack, and Hifiman Sundaras for at the desk. The Philips remained for playing games using a vmoda boom pro & that's a large reason for me replacing the broken 9500s with the X2HR as I'm just not using an RGB headset...

I'm kind of reluctant to follow the heard and get a pair the HD600/650/660, but I feel that it would be much cheaper in the long run to just do that & forget about the rest...

Very interesting. I will read some reviews of the X2HR, bass heavy is something that I´m not really into so it will be interesting to read about how bass heavy they are. I´m looking at the graphs on rtings now and they seem a bit bass heavy like you said. I´m hesitant when it comes to modding headphones and speakers since my view is that it often leads to other changes in the sound too and that you after the modding kind of have a different pair of headphones/speakers with a different sound, the timbre and what not could be different if you´re unlucky. Thank you for thinking like that about your SHP9500.

I already have the Takstar Pro 82 on the way, you can read about it here:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/tak...scussion-thread.849965/page-273#post-16509296

I´m thinking about also buying a pair of open headphones and noticed the great reviews of the SHP9500 but then discovered that they are now replaced and so on. Regarding IEMs, from reading reviews of the BL03 I just don´t think it´s my listening taste (too much bass) but I could of course be wrong since I haven´t actually heard them.

When it comes to HD6XX it´s out of my budget for this purchase, but I get your point. Thank you for a great reply.

 

[gargani]

I would have offered you mine if I'd not broken the headband yesterday... I was trying to bend them inward to increase clamp & it just shattered - it's entirely plastic... The 9500s were great at £50 but as you've seen, they're almost double that now & I'd forget about them at that price. To replace them I've just bought the X2HR, brand new & sealed for £105 on ebay. They're also on Amazon, which may turn out cheaper for you (post-brexit with customs & taxes involved). From what I've read & heard (but yet to hear), they should be an improvement over the 9500s but they could be a bit too bass heavy. I'm not too bothered about that as there's a port which can be taped over to reduce bass if required, as detailed here.

If you're not set on a pair of open back cans, then the Takstar pro 82 provide a good reference sound for the money and they should come in at around €100. Like the Tin T2s though, I don't actually find them very enjoyable to listen to long term. The T2s are what started this hobby for me when lockdown first started last year. I've since bought way too many in & over ear headphones, starting cheap & working up. I've larglely settled on Tin P1s for in ears at home, Blon BL03s for running straight from my phone's headphone jack, and Hifiman Sundaras for at the desk. The Philips remained for playing games using a vmoda boom pro & that's a large reason for me replacing the broken 9500s with the X2HR as I'm just not using an RGB headset...

I'm kind of reluctant to follow the heard and get a pair the HD600/650/660, but I feel that it would be much cheaper in the long run to just do that & forget about the rest...

The x2 are definitely more bass heavy than the shp 9500.
On top of that the 9500 has more treble from about 7khz to 10khz.
The 9500 sound quite a bit different than the x2.
You might get used to that the more you listen to the x2, or not. It depends on your bass, treble preferences. You do have the bass mod option for the bass.
I own them both, by the way.

 

[Radio81]

The 9500 definitely needs some EQ to shine, and a pad swap is a necessity, IMO. I've tried a couple of different pads on my SHP9500. The first was a set of Shure 1840 Velour pads. Those are nice and didn't change the sound much. I recently switched to Shure 1540 alcantara pads, and these things are plush. My ears also stay a lot cooler with these than with velour. There is some added bass, and treble is definitely tamed more with these compared to stock pads.

I've posted pictures earlier in this thread of the 9500 with the 1840 pads. Attached is a pic with the 1540.


I was using the modhouse audio earpad adapters, but they are cheap 3D printed plastic, and pulled apart after swapping pads a couple of times. The 1540 pads I stretched over the stock pad rings. It was a very tight fit.

I tend to prefer the 9500 for gaming, and the X2HR for movies. Just my preference. It would be hard for me to choose only one for all use.

 

[dandreye]

Hi All,

Apologies for using this thread for Fidelio X2HR/00 but there doesn't seem to be a thread on them that long, so I was unsure which one of a dozen of them or more to use.
Is Fidelio X2HR/00 still a good value for GBP100 (USD135) nowadays? I'm a rather happy owner of SHP9500, which I had preferred over Fidelio X2HR/00 earlier this year based on this thread, and just thought why not have them both to personally experience the diffs in sound everyone comparing them is talking about. The best quality sound source in my household at present is Topping E30 DAC, hence PCM/DSD.

Thanks in advance!

 

[dstarr3]

I haven't listened to them yet, but I feel like a lot of people would say the AKG K371 is better for the same money.

That said, I'd keep an eye on the used market. Over summer I bought my X2HR with a heap of third-party earpads for $60. Extremely well worth that much for sure.

 

[dandreye]

I haven't listened to them yet, but I feel like a lot of people would say the AKG K371 is better for the same money.

That said, I'd keep an eye on the used market. Over summer I bought my X2HR with a heap of third-party earpads for $60. Extremely well worth that much for sure.

Thanks for your reply. One thing I learned from reading about AKG HPs in the past is that they seem to be targeted more at sound analysis rather than its normal listening and enjoying. Perhaps it's only applicable to some particular models though. One more thing I recall learning about their HPs is the bass (or the lack thereof to be exact) while X2HR is renowned for its bass. Again insufficient bass may only be applicable to some particular AKG models and K371 might well be different. It'd be nice to test it somewhere first. Thanks for the reference anyway: at least I'll read about them for sure.

Great buy at $60 especially with those extra pads, well done I had to pay more for the SHP9500 (~$70 for brand-new ones though). Will try resisting the temptation then: no rush whatsoever after all.