these are maybe my fav headphone now. I have the RS-1, HF-2, Ksc 35, K701, K550, SR-60 with flats, DT990, Momentum, and Aviators and really think these hit the right spot. For the first time I really feel like I'm listening to something that does a good job with everything and never feels real out of whack. It's the type of headphone you'd give a 7 or 8 out of ten in every category whereas others will have a 10/10 in one category and a 3/10 in another. This 558 has a very full sound without getting bloated, guitars sound rich, sound stage is very adequate for film scores, sound is wide and deep, and it can also be exciting, albeit falling short of an RS-1 or HD-25. Stuff sounds a lot more real than with the K550, which was my newest phone previously. Stuff sounds more real with the 558 than with the others I have. 701 is slightly more exciting with film scores. The problem with most of my previous high-end phones is that there's always a handul of albums that become unbearingly fatiguing to listen to. A lot of the time it's not even modern stuff. With the K550 some of the albums were Kiss-Alive 2 WG, Double Platinum PPD, Blaze Silicon Messiah, Harlan Cage Forbidden Colors, things that I hadn't found fatiguing before. Nothing really gets fatiguing using the 701 with my Arcam 73 and heed canamp, but those phones lack so much body that you really need to crank the volume to get any excitement out of them with rock or metal. I don't have a suitable amp to try them with my Sansa clip zip, which is my primary device now. I use an Ibasso P2 with it fed by an audio quest evergreen cable. These 558 phones might only have 2 hours of burn in now. Some loud 90s albums like Biohazard State of the World Address and King Diamond Voodoo were sort of a pain to listen to earlier. They both have a brightish, brittle quality to their sound. The only phone that made Morbid Angel Domination sound exciting was the 701. The lack of body seemed to help even out the muddiness of that album. K550 didn't like dance party like it's 1999 and that sort of music much. 558 does a pretty good job with it though. I also notice it digs up cracks and pops on needledrops that I didn't hear with other phones. It's tough to describe how it places music. Sometimes it feels like you could literally reach out and grab it, although it's not as airy as the AKG phones or the RS-1. It feels like the music is surrounding you. Really cool. Haven't got that with any other phone and I've been to a Can Jam where I tried most everything. The comfort on these things is better than the rest of what I own too. Too bad these leak more sound than anything I have, I'll be stuck using the 550 on planes til I get an HD-25, which I thought was awesome when I tried it.
