I had the opportunity to visit the Apple store today to test out the P5. I had written a review in the Apple store, just fresh after listening to the P5, but being unfamiliar with Macs I lost it all when attempting to post. Now that I have a proper computer, I shall attempt to recreate my original review.
I have adventurously brought my HD650 along for some comparison. The music was from a iPod to P51, FLAC. I suspect my test music is more obscure with an Asian influence, so I will post youtube links so people reading will know how I arrived at my conclusions. They are quite poor recordings and don’t do the music justice, but oh well. To bluntly summarize this headphone, I can compare them to Beats by Dr. Dre: They sound nice, but do not live up to the price tag they command. In short, overpriced, or underperforming.
My primary music was the following, but I have briefly listened to other tracks not listed for comparison:
Badlands, Einhander Original Soundtrack by Kenichiro Fukui Electronic, Very fast and upbeat song. This track is extremely challenging to most headphones because of its quick pace and lots of things happening at once. It’s a good test of speed, decay, transience, bite, and bass.
YouTube - Badlands-Einhänder Original Soundtrack (this recording is poor and muddled, but I hope you will get a general idea)
Rachmaninov’s Concerto No.2 in c minor, Karajan/Weissenberg A very subtle, dreamlike, but dark interpretation of Rachmaninov’s work
Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, Riccardo Chailly Emotionally turbulent and very, very dramatic work (also underrated)
Wo Bu Hui Chang Ge, Lee Hacken with Lang Lang Slow piano ballad. Lee Hacken is one of the great Cantonese singers with a very rich, full voice. Lang Lang does the piano accompaniment and does an excellent job playing.
YouTube - Hacken Lee æŽå…‹å‹¤ - 我ä¸æœƒå”±æ*Œ (KTV) [Piano : 郎朗]
Final Distance, by Utada Hikaru J-Pop. Another slow ballad, but really shows her vocal strengths. I usually use this track to test female vocals.
YouTube - Utada Hikaru Final Distance
Chesky’s Ultimate Demonstration Disc (primarily Spanish Harlem by Rebecca Pidgeon)
Open Your Ears (bits and pieces of everything)
Build Quality
I was very impressed with the build quality of the P5. The brushed aluminum finish adds a message of quality and finesse to the beautiful headphones. The ear pads are soft, and despite being on-ear, did not cause any discomfort or pain – a first for me with supraaurals because I wear glasses. They also isolate fairly well, and when I had them on I could not listen to other people talking or the Apple store music, except when there were people standing right next to me. The build feels firm and built to last, and there isn’t very much clamping force (I have a smaller head though). HOWEVER, I find the cord scarily thin and flimsy! It feels like iBud quality and easily tangle and twist. The terminating jack is also most unimpressive. I have a feeling that the cable will give out in a couple years because it doesn’t scream quality at all, and for portable use it is bound to be tossed, twisted, and turned. I had a slight problem with P5’s headphone jack and my P51 output – when I moved or picked up my iPod to change songs, I will sometimes only get one channel of sound (poor connection). This has not happened to any other headphone/earbud/IEM I have.
For the review I requested a new P5 (the demo units had extremely crappy cable and gives out every few moments), brought from the back stockroom for my listening pleasure. I’ve listened to them for at least thirty minutes, did not keep time.
Sound Quality
My primary problem with the P5 (and a fatal one) is that they lack bite. They cannot portray sound accurately as it is supposed to be. They come very close, but there is this lack of preciseness and definition that makes the P5 sound amiss. In my artsy analogy, this is like someone has put a blur filter on an excellent photograph. The contours and shapes are there, but once you zoom in to examine the fine detail, you get a pixilated mess. I start out all my headphone analysis with Kenichiro Fukui’s Badlands – very quick tempo, very hard to drive all the bass quickly, and very hard to sound clean (even my HD650s cannot keep up) track. In the first 10 seconds of the sudden exposition, I can tell that the P5 struggles to keep up with the multiple layers of sound effects. The low basses for this track therefore turns into a blur of notes (a swamp!), and very, very messy. The P5s lack of attack and speed, and their decay makes them lose their detail. For saxophone, they sound fairly close to the real thing, but there is this thin filter which distorts the sound and makes them unreal. With Lee Hacken’s Wo Bu Hui Chang Ge, his voice is slightly off such that it seems artificial. For every sound the P5 produces it is 85% accurate – but the devil is in the details, and that 15% destroys the credibility for good (enjoyable) sounds.
This leads me to the second problem – is their holographic imaging. The P5s lack ability to convey the information of space and place to the listener. I believe this information of space happens right after a note change (echoes, reflections, etc), but the decay makes the P5 lose detail. Because they cannot accurately produce what vocals and instruments
ought to sound like, it covers up all the nuisances and audio cues given to the listener. For example, Rebecca Pidgeon in Spanish Harlem is airy and conveys the space around her. But this edge is less clear in the P5, and it feels that she is in a generic room with reverberations. Rachmaninov is similar – it doesn’t tell the listeners that it is a smaller concert hall. This leads into a problem with faux ambiance, instrument separation and soundstage. I realize it is unfair to compare closed headphones to the HD650, but the P5 is unclear and cannot pinpoint; it gives a summary of all the things happening on stage instead of providing many individual parts adding up to a whole. Things are happening “over there” instead of providing “what” and “where”, and this loss of clarity and definition are prominent weak points. The soundstage is fair - it’s not like they are closed in, but there are general clumps of happenings (with Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony), and in the case of Karajan’s Rachmaninov, loses its subtlety and piano synergy as it turns into an ordinary flow of music notes without much passion. In contrast, the SRH840 does it with much better control and clarity despite smallish soundstage. The P5s, mind you, perform reasonably well, but just not at their $300 price point. If they sold at $150, then I would possibly consider them, but even if they were $50 cheaper than SRH840 ($200), I would still prefer the Shures.
The midrange and lower treble is P5’s strong point, and bring out vocals well, but there is still a hint of awkwardness to their sound which makes them unnatural. I suspect that the P5 sympathizes with female vocals more than male vocals, as they sound much more natural. I was generally very happy with vocals with one notable exception: Alan Tam. Anyone familiar with Hong Kong music will know his superstar status and his legendary voice – his voice is deeper, coarser, and full of character. But to the P5, his voice just sounded off. (
YouTube - è*šè©*麟 - 一生ä¸*最愛) Utada Hikaru sounded beautiful, and the P5 could convey her energy through her faster songs. The P5 performs best in its mids to lower treble. The pianos and violins are nice, but are hampered by shortfalls illustrated in the first paragraph. The bass does not extend very deep and it has its presence, but unlike the mids the bass is less memorable because of its more lack of detail and definition. It’s there, but (as said before), in clumps. I tried separating instruments in Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Sympony and had a difficult time doing so; Rachmaninov’s Concerto was an impossible task. You can feel the bass and appreciate it, but it is illusively subtle because it doesn’t deserve much attention, nothing that would make you go “WOW”. In my humble opinion, classical music suffers for this lack of clarity. As long as the music is not too fast, or too complex, it performs well. Otherwise, not so well.
Once again, I go back to my comparison to the Beats. The P5 is nice sounding, mind you, but it’s not 300 dollar sound quality. I would gladly purchase a P5 if it were cheaper, but alas there are more viable alternatives, like the SRH840. The P5s do not excel in any categories, and are a non-contender in most. It doesn't have much redeeming qualities, honestly. It doesn't have any ace in the hole that can overlook its faults. It's not bad by any means however! It was still pleasant to listen. I know I demo’ed them fresh from the box with no burn-in, but these things are designed to run unamped out of an iPod. They are not K701 monsters; these are easily driven, and how much can the sound signature really change over time?
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Didn't really intend to write one this long, but it was an enjoyable experience and I got carried away. I originally envisioned myself typing this out on the ipad actually, to test two things at once.
