[Weckso]

Picked up a Senheiser PC-350 SE recently and was blown away by the ridiculously bad sound quality. Huge peaks around 500hz/2khz that made listening to them unbearable. It was like someone took a crappy AM radio and held it up to one of those megaphones they use to yell at hostage situations. Obviously they're new and need to be broken in, but I seriously don't think that will fix these guys. They have some major resonant nodes - to the point of actual ringing. Did I get a bad set?
 
In any case, I've gotten them to be at least listenable with Equalizer APO and the following config (derived from REQ and my DBX RTA-M to find the most egregious peaks) :
 
[edits : manual tweaking these]
 
Filter  1: ON  PK       Fc   2,133 Hz  Gain  -6.4 dB  Q  5.74
Filter  2: ON  PK       Fc     379 Hz  Gain  -5.4 dB  Q  4.84
Filter  3: ON  PK       Fc   7,301 Hz  Gain   2.0 dB  Q  1.00
Filter  4: ON  PK       Fc     677 Hz  Gain  -4.8 dB  Q  6.19
Filter  5: ON  PK       Fc     186 Hz  Gain   2.5 dB  Q  2.00
Filter  6: ON  PK       Fc   2,984 Hz  Gain   2.0 dB  Q  1.00
Filter  7: ON  PK       Fc   1,292 Hz  Gain  -2.9 dB  Q  2.65
Filter  8: ON  PK       Fc     530 Hz  Gain  -7.5 dB  Q  2.61
Filter  9: ON  PK       Fc     315 Hz  Gain  -4.8 dB  Q  8.48
Filter 10: ON  PK       Fc   1,946 Hz  Gain  -2.6 dB  Q  6.93
Filter 11: ON  PK       Fc     881 Hz  Gain  -3.5 dB  Q  3.51
Filter 12: ON  HS     Fc   6,000 Hz  Gain  -1.16 dB

 
They do take a lot of power to run and am just using a SB X-Fi to drive them - but I really don't think that should account for this sq.
 
-W

 

[Weckso]

A follow up thought. If I disable the filter at 530 or 2133, they become unlistenable again. Those two frequencies are almost perfect multiples of each other. I'm wondering if there is supposed to be some dampening material behind the drivers that somehow got left out in manufacturing and might explain this set?
 
-W

 

[Weckso]

Well this has been resolved. Applied the "Hero mod", all resonant modes are gone, no equalization required at all. I am completely baffled as to why this fixes the problems with this set (especially the 500hz/2K ringing) - guessing it was the cotton batting.
 
Anyway.
 
-W