[CaveManta]

Noo! 

That's why having dual-sided cable entry is better. No need to worry about funky stuff going on with the cables in your headband.
You know, I wanna see a Q701 modded to have bilateral mini-XLR ports. It would give a bulky Hifiman look.

 

[leggy]

Compared to HiFiman's HE-400i, which one has better detail retrieval and clarity?

 

[Tiddlesworth]

  The bumps get to almost every person who buys them
After an entire year of purchasing mine I decided to take mine under the knife.

By the way, nice X-Rays on the Q701. I can't see any wires going from the left to right channel, is the signal really being transferred through a thick metal rod?

Yeah, the rod is inside the band that holds the thing together, as seen here, go to 2:42
 

 

[Smugsie]

Compared to HiFiman's HE-400i, which one has better detail retrieval and clarity?

 
I listen to vocalists with a higher octave range that catered to the Q701's upper mid energetic characteristics.
HE-400i's made american vocalists with lower octaves sound lush and seductive.
I want to speak for myself, and the Q701's sound clearer, HE400i's have better detail retrieval.

Granted I've used the Q701's for 4032 hours (according to foobar's timer), and HE-400i's for less than 3 hours.

Here is someone who has spent much more time with the HE-400i's than I have.

My apologies, here are the edited links:
Links deleted

 

Originally Posted by a44100Hz /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 

400i has more present/forward vocals. Q701 has more separation making for more enjoyable violin. I think I slightly prefer the acoustic guitar on the 400i but it's close. There's a little more pep and snap to the acoustic guitar on the 400i but on the Q701 the guitar is more forward. The Q701 sounds slightly more flat and slightly more distant and the 400i sounds closer and more musical to my ear. The guitar feels more alive.

The 400i has more forward vocals and a more "full" sound overall, the Q701 has very slightly more forward guitar and string and sounds airier / has a larger space. This is probably the biggest difference, the sense of space and separation is greater on the Q701 but I think a smaller space is a common attribute to planars. Honestly the two headphones are more similar than they are different, though. Which is pretty impressive for the Q701 which I got at almost 1/3 of the price.
 

Edit:
Forgot to add: YMMV

 

[leggy]

Thank you Nec3

 

[CaveManta]

All of this talk has had me wanting to listen to my Q701 again(I've been glued to my X2.[Edit:HAHA, GLUED! Anyway..]) So I hooked it up and relived the greatness!
If I had to describe the Q701 in one word, I'd call it sharp. But not just sharp by having a hot treble. It sounds very clear, very fast, very..palpable. The Q701 is just fantastic at imaging numerous sounds coming from different directions at the same time. It never gets congested!
 
I definitely want to get the HE400i as my next headphone, especially if it has more detail retrieval than the Q701. The linear bass response of the Hifiman would be nice as well. But is the HE400i's bass as "fast and coherent" as the Q701's?

 

[Smugsie]

  All of this talk has had me wanting to listen to my Q701 again(I've been glued to my X2.[Edit:HAHA, GLUED! Anyway..]) So I hooked it up and relived the greatness!
If I had to describe the Q701 in one word, I'd call it sharp. But not just sharp by having a hot treble. It sounds very clear, very fast, very..palpable. The Q701 is just fantastic at imaging numerous sounds coming from different directions at the same time. It never gets congested!
 
I definitely want to get the HE400i as my next headphone, especially if it has more detail retrieval than the Q701. The linear bass response of the Hifiman would be nice as well. But is the HE400i's bass as "fast and coherent" as the Q701's?

The HE400i's bass is better than the Q's without a doubt. If you liked the Q's, then you'll enjoy the HE's. They have enough detail retrieval to compensate for the dark dip in the 2-5khz area. I missed my lower treble so I'm keeping the Q's for now.

 

[CaveManta]

That dip in the upper mids appears to be opposite of the Q701, which has a peak there instead. It would be nice to not have that peak, which makes vocals kinda shouty/plasticy. But grr, I don't want a dip either! Why can't it just be flatter there on either can?

I need to try some EQ!
(Actually, looking at the HE400i's raw frequency response, it looks like they might have tried to keep it flat, but used a different target curve than Tyll uses.)
 
Anyway, uhh..What kinda music do you listen to on your Q701? Do you usually stick to specific genres when listening with it?

 

[Me x3]

  That dip in the upper mids appears to be opposite of the Q701, which has a peak there instead. It would be nice to not have that peak, which makes vocals kinda shouty/plasticy. But grr, I don't want a dip either! Why can't it just be flatter there on either can?

I need to try some EQ!

 
The Beyer DT880 has a very good balance in the 1kHz - 3kHz region.

 

[Smugsie]

  That dip in the upper mids appears to be opposite of the Q701, which has a peak there instead. It would be nice to not have that peak, which makes vocals kinda shouty/plasticy. But grr, I don't want a dip either! Why can't it just be flatter there on either can?

I need to try some EQ!
(Actually, looking at the HE400i's raw frequency response, it looks like they might have tried to keep it flat, but used a different target curve than Tyll uses.)
 
Anyway, uhh..What kinda music do you listen to on your Q701? Do you usually stick to specific genres when listening with it?

I listen to every genre except country, 80's rock and Michael Jackson type of pop, and it's just a personal preference. It's not about what genre, but what caters more to my liking.
The majority of my playlist consists of Flamenco Rumba, Hip Hop, Japanese Pop(rock), Trance, House (and their many branches), Jazz, Medieval Renaissance, Blues, Opera and Waltz. Most of which are soundstage dependent songs.

Extra:
 
I tend to stick to neutral+bass light+treble happy headphones like Grado SR225, AKG Q701's and an Etymotic ER4S.
I absolutely dislike any warm+smooth headphones like the HD558, HD598, HD650. I absolutely love the HD800's which are basically a rich man's AKG Q701.
I found the HE-400i's to simply be balanced. It shares a property with balanced armatures (such as the ER4S) of having weird frequency response charts but sounding very natural.

Now, I tailor my playlist to my Q701's, thus why I have 172 songs in my primary playlist and 5824 in my network storage. This may sound absurd but it really is my end game mid-tier headphone. There are headphones like the HE-400i that wow me from time to time but I naturally slip back to my AKG's.
The AKG's carry a huge influence in the anime community so I take bigger pride in pledging loyalty to these cans.

 

[WildStyle-R11]

Man if I could combine Q701's with HE400i's I'd be a happy man. I also like headphones more on the brighter side of things. Absolutely love how violins, sax and bass guitars sound like on the Q701's it just uhh yeah...However for me personaly lack of bass is a wee bit disturbing even with 400i's I still boost the bass and X2's it just too much and distorted. I like 400i's because they can play anything, granted I use EQ on them all the time loads of bass, a bit in the mids and just a touch more in the treble. Makes it bit more lively and still not fun enough.

 

[leggy]

Have you tried the ATH-AD2000X?

 

[WildStyle-R11]

Not really, Should I?

 

[Logan M]

Man if I could combine Q701's with HE400i's I'd be a happy man. I also like headphones more on the brighter side of things. Absolutely love how violins, sax and bass guitars sound like on the Q701's it just uhh yeah...However for me personaly lack of bass is a wee bit disturbing even with 400i's I still boost the bass and X2's it just too much and distorted. I like 400i's because they can play anything, granted I use EQ on them all the time loads of bass, a bit in the mids and just a touch more in the treble. Makes it bit more lively and still not fun enough.

Have you done the bass mod to yours? It's fairly simple and increases the bass a noticeable amount.

 

[leggy]

Not really, Should I?

Why not?
It had great bass and very fun to listen to. Too bad it is over my price range