Methos1979
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2007
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This is a review of the Denon AH-C700 after a pink noise burn-in.
Headphones are (obviously) Denon AH-C700
Source: Creative ZEN 16GB (no amp)
Music: Mostly 192 bit Napster-to-go tracks
Pink noise: Micheal "Bink" Knowles wav file found here - thank you Mr. Knowles!
These IEMs are a week old with very little hours of play on them. After reading up on burn-in and pink noise burn-in in partiuclar, I decided to give it a try. I am no audiophile so keep that in mind if you read this lengthy review.
I like these IEM's a lot and have written about them on Soosieq's thread. I thought I'd do this reveiw on a new thread because of the 'mystery' to all us newbies about the concept of burn-in and pink noise. As reported in my other posts on these cans, I like the sound. They are very bassy with crisp highs as advertised and reviewed by many already. In my search for the perfect IEM's for me, I was often dissappointed with the lack of bass in many IEM's I tried. So I tended to look for IEM's that offered better bass. Depending upon the music you listen to, the bass on these IEM's can be too heavy (as with music that is already bass-heavy to begin with). The highs are very crisp and can seem to me at least, to be a little shrill again depending upon the recording quality of the song. But that could also be a product of my poor hearing - read on.
Two things to keep in mind, I'm using a dap here, the Creative ZEN, and 192 bit songs, most from Napster - not exactly a pristine audio quality set up. Also please note that I suffer from a significant mid-range hearing loss from childhood and significant tinnitus in both ears from military service. These two things obviously color my hearing significantly!
So anyway, I downloaded two of Bink's tracks, the pink noise and the digital silence. I then plugged the cans into the PC and ran those two tracks for about 12 hours looped. That's a 20 minute pink noise track followed by a two-minute digital silence track. I had read that straight pink noise can cause the drivers to work too hard, over heat or otherwise be negatively affected and maybe even damaged.
So this morning I stopped the burn-in process and plugged the cans into the ZEN. I have a 'headphone testing' playlist on my ZEN I have used the past couple of months to test potential headphones for my dap listening pleasure. The songs are in no way audiophile quality. Most are newer tracks that were recorded well and offered a wide range of styles, instruments, soundstage, and little 'quirks' that I could listen for. They are:
It's So Hard To Say Goodbye - Boys To Men (great a-capella song)
Umbrella - Marie Digby's acoustic version
Periscopes - The Beautiful Girls
U + UR Hand - Pink
Better Together - Jack Johsnon
Headstrong - Trapt
So I'm cycling through these tracks after the 12-hour burn in. The bass did seem a little bit tighter than before and the highs just a tad less bright - both welcome things. But it should be noted that neither of these things were super-noticable. There was no earth-shaking epiphany here. The changes seemed to be there, but who know's for sure. Now most of the 'burn-in' guru's around here suggest hundreds of hours of burn-in time with regular music. I don't plan on doing any more pink noise burn-in on these but rest assured that they will definately get hundreds of hours of time with my regular music listening.
Also, for the first time I really dug into my Custom EQ setting on the ZEN. Since the bass was still a little too overwhelming on certain songs I felt it was time to see what I could do with manual EQing. I had avoided using any EQ on my ZEN while testing headphones because I wanted to get the best sounding (to me, at least) headphones before doing an EQing.
So after playing all the songs again and going back and forth with different EQ settings this is what I came up with for numbers. The ZEN offers manual EQ of five frequencies in a 24dB range from +12 to -12. Here are the freqencies and the setting's I chose as best for the above mentioned songs:
80 Hz: 3
250 Hz: 5
1 kHz: 6
4 kHz: 4
13 kHz: 5
The 80 hZ setting varied between 2 and 3. I like more bass so the 3 wins out on most settings. It gives me that oomph I need without washing out the mids or highs. Also notice that the mids are bumped quite a bit, this no doubt being the natural result of my mid-range hearing loss.
I was suprised to find that the EQ Off setting on the ZEN did not match the Custom EQ with all settings at 0. I just figured this would be the case logically, but no. And in fact, the difference between my Custom EQ setting above and the EQ Off setting on the ZEN is not too different. A little lower on bass, maybe 2 dB down, and some bumping in the mids.
Over all, I'm very happy with the ZEN and the Denon's. I looked long and hard to find these IEM's in my price point range and thanks to this place, and a special thanks to Soosieq's thread and all who added to it, I have the IEM's for me. I hope there's some newbies out there that are as new to all this as I am who find this thread helpful.
Happy New Year to everyone. May our coming year be filled with great music!!!
M.
Headphones are (obviously) Denon AH-C700
Source: Creative ZEN 16GB (no amp)
Music: Mostly 192 bit Napster-to-go tracks
Pink noise: Micheal "Bink" Knowles wav file found here - thank you Mr. Knowles!
These IEMs are a week old with very little hours of play on them. After reading up on burn-in and pink noise burn-in in partiuclar, I decided to give it a try. I am no audiophile so keep that in mind if you read this lengthy review.
I like these IEM's a lot and have written about them on Soosieq's thread. I thought I'd do this reveiw on a new thread because of the 'mystery' to all us newbies about the concept of burn-in and pink noise. As reported in my other posts on these cans, I like the sound. They are very bassy with crisp highs as advertised and reviewed by many already. In my search for the perfect IEM's for me, I was often dissappointed with the lack of bass in many IEM's I tried. So I tended to look for IEM's that offered better bass. Depending upon the music you listen to, the bass on these IEM's can be too heavy (as with music that is already bass-heavy to begin with). The highs are very crisp and can seem to me at least, to be a little shrill again depending upon the recording quality of the song. But that could also be a product of my poor hearing - read on.
Two things to keep in mind, I'm using a dap here, the Creative ZEN, and 192 bit songs, most from Napster - not exactly a pristine audio quality set up. Also please note that I suffer from a significant mid-range hearing loss from childhood and significant tinnitus in both ears from military service. These two things obviously color my hearing significantly!
So anyway, I downloaded two of Bink's tracks, the pink noise and the digital silence. I then plugged the cans into the PC and ran those two tracks for about 12 hours looped. That's a 20 minute pink noise track followed by a two-minute digital silence track. I had read that straight pink noise can cause the drivers to work too hard, over heat or otherwise be negatively affected and maybe even damaged.
So this morning I stopped the burn-in process and plugged the cans into the ZEN. I have a 'headphone testing' playlist on my ZEN I have used the past couple of months to test potential headphones for my dap listening pleasure. The songs are in no way audiophile quality. Most are newer tracks that were recorded well and offered a wide range of styles, instruments, soundstage, and little 'quirks' that I could listen for. They are:
It's So Hard To Say Goodbye - Boys To Men (great a-capella song)
Umbrella - Marie Digby's acoustic version
Periscopes - The Beautiful Girls
U + UR Hand - Pink
Better Together - Jack Johsnon
Headstrong - Trapt
So I'm cycling through these tracks after the 12-hour burn in. The bass did seem a little bit tighter than before and the highs just a tad less bright - both welcome things. But it should be noted that neither of these things were super-noticable. There was no earth-shaking epiphany here. The changes seemed to be there, but who know's for sure. Now most of the 'burn-in' guru's around here suggest hundreds of hours of burn-in time with regular music. I don't plan on doing any more pink noise burn-in on these but rest assured that they will definately get hundreds of hours of time with my regular music listening.
Also, for the first time I really dug into my Custom EQ setting on the ZEN. Since the bass was still a little too overwhelming on certain songs I felt it was time to see what I could do with manual EQing. I had avoided using any EQ on my ZEN while testing headphones because I wanted to get the best sounding (to me, at least) headphones before doing an EQing.
So after playing all the songs again and going back and forth with different EQ settings this is what I came up with for numbers. The ZEN offers manual EQ of five frequencies in a 24dB range from +12 to -12. Here are the freqencies and the setting's I chose as best for the above mentioned songs:
80 Hz: 3
250 Hz: 5
1 kHz: 6
4 kHz: 4
13 kHz: 5
The 80 hZ setting varied between 2 and 3. I like more bass so the 3 wins out on most settings. It gives me that oomph I need without washing out the mids or highs. Also notice that the mids are bumped quite a bit, this no doubt being the natural result of my mid-range hearing loss.
I was suprised to find that the EQ Off setting on the ZEN did not match the Custom EQ with all settings at 0. I just figured this would be the case logically, but no. And in fact, the difference between my Custom EQ setting above and the EQ Off setting on the ZEN is not too different. A little lower on bass, maybe 2 dB down, and some bumping in the mids.
Over all, I'm very happy with the ZEN and the Denon's. I looked long and hard to find these IEM's in my price point range and thanks to this place, and a special thanks to Soosieq's thread and all who added to it, I have the IEM's for me. I hope there's some newbies out there that are as new to all this as I am who find this thread helpful.
Happy New Year to everyone. May our coming year be filled with great music!!!
M.
