It's been almost two and a half months since I wrote my first impressions of the Q701 on the first post.
I've read my post again to see if there has been anything I would disagree with and would change. It's often easy to be a bit off on some impressions of specific headphones and I'm not afraid to admit this if it does happen. Basically I still agree with 99% of what I wrote. Since owning the Q701 I don't have any real complaints at all. I usually love to criticize my favorite headphones whenever possible!
Does anyone feel these headphones are totally unforgiving or fairly forgiving of poorly mastered songs or low bitrate files?
I originally said they were fairly forgiving, but I now no longer think this is really true at all. Maybe a tiny bit more forgiving than the DT-880 and KRK KNS-8400.
As smooth as the treble is, badly recorded albums still can sound really bad. I'm glad to say the Q701 doesn't really make them easier on the ears. Garbage in and garbage out as they say. I'm 100% sure it's the recording and verified this with the KRK KNS-8400. Any garbage track that sounds harsh and fatiguing on my Q701 is also just as bad on my KNS-8400 (and on my DJ100 strangely enough). When I had issues with the treble on my old K702, it wasn't just the case of bad recordings.
As long as the track is good, the treble is totally non-fatiguing in every way on the Q701. It's really sad how many Jpop albums I have where it's as if they boosted the upper mids and treble just to try and make it sound better. Doesn't seem to work. I have this new album from a favorite Japanese singer and it's nearly un-listenable on anything but the darkest headphone. That's too bad. Whoever recorded the album needs to get fired.
I made a stupid comment about how if someone thought the HD-598 was very smooth sounding, the Q701 is even more so. I must have had some perfect synergy when I had said that. Should have compared them more before saying something like that. It's not really true. The HD-598 I love because it's very detailed, yet can slightly tame some very bad recordings slightly. Crappy Jpop (bad) songs are much more listenable on the HD-598 compared to the Q701. It's almost like you've taken your bad recordings and put them through a filter to sound slightly better. It doesn't tame them (to my ears) as much as the HD-600/650 does. I think the track would have to be extremely bad for it to bother my ears. Even with bad Jpop I could probably fall asleep while listening to the HD-598. Yet it's not a boring headphone to me at all. Slightly more fun and engaging (for ME) than the HD-600/650. The Q701 is still smooth sounding and sounds very balanced to me with 95% of music. Too bad that the rest is poorly mastered stuff. The Q701 is just doing it's job and not trying to "fix" anything for me.
I still don't know why I feel the Q701 has a smaller soundstage than the K702. Something just has me fooled I guess. I just know that with gaming nothing ever seen further away than it should be or not accurate. That's one reason I hated the K702 for gaming.
BTW after comparing about 3 different Q701 cables for a month, I think I prefer the stock cable. Just comes down to preferences I guess. Switching to other cables removes some things I love about the Q701, but does make other minor improvements. The stock Q701 cable is really very good!
