[dyavuz]

I plug them straight to my sony walkman (nwz-a17) which has a decent dac and it seems to be a good match. probably you can get more out of them using a dedicated amp.
i use them sometimes with my audient id22 but although the id22 is an excellent audio interface with very nice converters its headphone output really sucks. the sony walkman delivers a nice sound with these cans.

 

[ginetto61]

I plug them straight to my sony walkman (nwz-a17) which has a decent dac and it seems to be a good match. probably you can get more out of them using a dedicated amp....  the sony walkman delivers a nice sound with these cans.

 
Hi and thanks a lot again.   Very helpful.
Yes i think amps are very important.   This specific HP do not appear to be a tough load by the way.
Based on your review i will try to break them in properly.  I decided to buy them seeing their distortion performance in a graph. Very good indeed.
 

i use them sometimes with my audient id22 but although the id22 is an excellent audio interface with very nice converters its headphone output really sucks.

 
Yes it is a very good interface from what i have read around.   Strange that they have skipped on the HP out quality

Maybe they think that the monitoring is usually done with speakers ?
Anyway if you interface has balanced outs you can look for an amp with that kind of inputs.
If you listen a lot through the interface it could be a good move.

Thanks again,  gino 

 

[Feilong4]

I've been listening to the RH-300 for a few days now.

Here's an album of me picturing the differences in drivers, earcup interior, and damping between the M50S and the RH-300: https://imgur.com/a/YeBP2Wf

They do not sound (or look) like how they measured here:



They sound a bit more like this measurement:



Or maybe the scaling is making it look very different. I dunno but from what I'm hearing, it sounds and looks closer to the second set of measurements.

Here's the same guy's measurements on the M50:



Less bass bloat for sure on the Rolands. Maybe a touch less sharper but I dont have the original pads on the M50 so can't really do a stock vs stock comparison. I did swap pads for some fake Shure SRH840 pads and those did great in reducing some of the peaks on the RH-300 with stock pads, while it did pretty much nothing on the M50 which is interesting. The inside of the earcup are quite a bit different. The stiffness of the Roland earcup seems to be stiffer. The drivers are damped differently as well. The Rolands have rear porting whereas I don't think the M50S does.

The RH-300 with the fake Shure earpads sounds fairly dark while keeping the recessed upper midrange - even though I do tend to like a recessed upper midrange, I admit it's a bit too much; I bump up 2.5 and 3 kHz by 2 db and 3.5 and 4 kHz by 3 db. This helps bring some "liveliness" back in songs.

The tuning of the Rolands are more neutral. I like them quite a bit after the EQ I've applied mentioned above. With the fake Shure earpads, they're warm with excellent sub-bass extension and smooth up top.

I also think they look a lot nicer than the M50S/X. Too bad they don't fold up or fold flat.

I'd like to keep these but I'd like just a bit more isolation, a bit less leakage, and a bit more upper midrange. Even so, the RH-300 is definitely one of my favorite closed backs. Just behind the Focal Listen and Oppo PM3.

 

[trellus]

Nice work, thanks, @Feilong4 , funny thing is I had never even heard of these headphones until yesterday, so strange coincidence that you posted something about them today. I didn't know Roland had any branded headphones at all. I do have a small Roland DAC/amp, the UA-M10 -- that I'm using this very minute, oddly -- very cool to know they have very capable headphones.

 

[Feilong4]

Nice work, thanks, @Feilong4 , funny thing is I had never even heard of these headphones until yesterday, so strange coincidence that you posted something about them today. I didn't know Roland had any branded headphones at all. I do have a small Roland DAC/amp, the UA-M10 -- that I'm using this very minute, oddly -- very cool to know they have very capable headphones.

No problem!

They also got a RH-A30 which is supposed to be the same as the RH-300 but open back. You might've read a bit about the RH-A30 while reading about the RH-300.

 

[trellus]

No problem!

They also got a RH-A30 which is supposed to be the same as the RH-300 but open back. You might've read a bit about the RH-A30 while reading about the RH-300.

Well, no, I had only seen the RH-300 model mentioned and looked up pricing on it yesterday -- then lo and behold, was checking recent posts and saw your post here on the RH-300.... I am actually now, thanks to your tip on the RH-A30, much more excited about those than the RH-300, as I generally prefer open backs anyway... AND, the pricing on the RH-A30 is more favorable than the RH-300, judging by a quick Google search. Going to have to read up on those now, thanks!

 

[kkl10]

I wonder if anything can be done to address the uppermids depression...

Has anyone compared this with the Shure SRH840?

 

[TheSonicTruth]

What I wonder most about the Roland RH-300 headphone is why it has been to-date such a sleeper among headpohones! I never read much -recent anyway - discussion about the model, compared to the endless chatter about everything from Beats to MDR-7506 to HD800.

As for the sound itself? I find them to be pretty even-handed response-wise, except for something going on in the upper-mids to treble region - 5 to 8kHz. Almost like a veil over that part of the spectrum. It makes vocals and pretty much everything else stand out by comparison.

Construction seems reasonably sturdy, a couple creaks when I am holding them, turning them over in my hands, but otherwise solid cans.

 

[TheSonicTruth]

The one time I had the ear pads off my -300s I noticed something, and unique among my arsenal of headphones: Their drivers are angled, about 20° to the flat plane of the earpieces. I'm sure that accounts for some of the diffuse upper-mid-lower-treble sound. What was Roland's idea behind angling the drivers like that?

 

[Mad Max]

better staging, angled drivers are real common and usually preferable

 

[TheSonicTruth]

better staging, angled drivers are real common and usually preferable

But it seems to muffle/obscure, better word? the sound in the region I referred to

 

[rayjuodas]

The one time I had the ear pads off my -300s I noticed something, and unique among my arsenal of headphones: Their drivers are angled, about 20° to the flat plane of the earpieces. I'm sure that accounts for some of the diffuse upper-mid-lower-treble sound. What was Roland's idea behind angling the drivers like that?

This is not Roland's idea, I'm afraid, as these are (litrerally) rebranded Audio Technica ATH-M50, with same drivers and same angled driver construction. The only difference is the ear-pads, Roland made their own, hence a slight sound difference.