[Selenium]

I see that you plan to review the Audio Technica SQ5. Have you actually used it yet? If so, have you had any noise/creaking caused by the plastic of the hinge and the "forks" rubbing lightly against each other? For me it's from the left side. It's really annoying, but other than that I quite like them. I'm thinking about sending them in to AT, but I don't know if that would be covered under their warranty. I would assume it was just my set but a reviewer mentions the same exact thing: http://smarthouse.com.au/Reviews/Accessories/A4B5D7L4 If you can answer but don't want to in this thread feel free to PM me...thanks.
 

 

[ljokerl]

 
Quote:

I see that you plan to review the Audio Technica SQ5. Have you actually used it yet? If so, have you had any noise/creaking caused by the plastic of the hinge and the "forks" rubbing lightly against each other? For me it's from the left side. It's really annoying, but other than that I quite like them. I'm thinking about sending them in to AT, but I don't know if that would be covered under their warranty. I would assume it was just my set but a reviewer mentions the same exact thing: http://smarthouse.com.au/Reviews/Accessories/A4B5D7L4 If you can answer but don't want to in this thread feel free to PM me...thanks.
 

I've been using the SQ5 on and off for months. My pair does creak a little but I've come to expect that from plastic headphones and it really doesn't bother me. It is quite common and I've had some headphones annoy me a whole lot more than the SQ5 in that respect. Perhaps ATH will replace your pair - I'm sure there are variances between individual units when it comes to creaking.

 

[Proglover]

Quote:

To you they may be slightly warm. From the many description and reviews (including here on Head-fi), warmth was pretty much universally used to identify the ESW9. I gave them a chance anyway. They were definitely mid rich, but I just hated the headphones. Hated them. The same way I'd more than likely hate the HD650. It's personal preference. I don't think they were bad, just bad FOR ME.
 
Same as the K701. I found their sound terrible for music. I just didn't like it's tone. I don't think they were bad either.
 
Can't win them all.
 
I buy all my new headphones from authorized dealers.

A bit of a late reply to this, but nonetheless..

I had the exact same experience with ESW9 as Mad Lust Envy; overwhelming warmth. Can't really say it has overly enormous bass, but it's just very warm and slow, way too slow. I was very dissapointed. I had a genuine one, I have it from mcnoiserdc, which were probably the model Joker revieved.
 
About a recent addition, the B&W p5. An 8 for sound, that's extremely generous. P5 on no3 in the list, that's too much credits for the B&W on my opinion. Offcourse preferences and opinions differ, just giving mine....
 
I bought p5 twice, they're the most beautiful headphones I've ever come across for portable usage, I really wanted to like them, but they're just so damn lacking on transparency, detail, clarity. I even liked ESW9 better*
*Edit: sorry, saw in the table you rated ESW9's sound higher then p5 as for sound only, p5 just comes higher because of comfort, built, isolation (agreed)
 
I'd love to read your notes on T50's and ES(W)10's, to get more perspective on the higher end portables, so please give the man one of these for loan. (I'm in Europe, it's just too expensive otherwise I'd let you test my T50's)
 
 

 

[Selenium]

Thanks for the reply. I have other headphones which you can hear creaking from occasionally when you have a song paused or something, but with my SQ5s I can often hear the creaking over my music, especially if it's down-tempo stuff or if I'm listening at low volume levels. I don't think that's normal, partially also because it only comes from the left side. I think I'll call AT and see what they say. Thanks again.
 

 

[BigDave]

Joker, really interested in getting either the creative aurvana live! or the ath-m50's.  Just wondering if they are night and day different?  you give them a fairly similiar score for sound (and I can get the aurvana's for $50 cheaper here in australia).  however, money is not an issue at these prices for me.  Are there that many sonic and other benefits in going for the m50's?
 
cheers,

 

[ljokerl]

Quote:

Joker, really interested in getting either the creative aurvana live! or the ath-m50's.  Just wondering if they are night and day different?  you give them a fairly similiar score for sound (and I can get the aurvana's for $50 cheaper here in australia).  however, money is not an issue at these prices for me.  Are there that many sonic and other benefits in going for the m50's?

Night and day? No, not really. Signature-wise the most obvious difference is probably in treble sparkle, which the M50 has more of. By going with the M50 you'll be paying mostly for the better isolation and build quality. 

 

[BigDave]

Thanks for that joker.  I already have the ath-es7's, would I be making a big step up in sound quality going for the ath-m50's?  and how different is the sound sig.?

 

[guyblack]

Quote:

Thanks for that joker.  I already have the ath-es7's, would I be making a big step up in sound quality going for the ath-m50's?  and how different is the sound sig.?

 
they are a sifferent sound. I have both the M50 and the es7 and they reallly have diff uses. Es7 is great as a portable set and it might sound strang but a little amping and ES7 is a strong and fun sound. When Im home though I like the use the M50's over the es7.  In a quiet environment the m50 will give you a clearer sound whereas to me the es7 is more forward.
 

 

[BigDave]

cheers guyblack.  very interesting.  I have a fiio e7 portable amp, will try giving them a bit of juice and see what happens to the sound sig.  I don't really use the es7's for portable use, just at work and at home.  So really you feel that the m50's give a better sound, more detailed?

 

[3six5]

Nice chart, cool to see the MS400's near the top.

 

[Shrulik]

ljokerl, I was wondering if we could get the summary table as an Excel file.
It would allow a much better usage of this data because it would allow people to create queries like  :
 
1. Headphone under 100$ whose sound is above 7
2. Or create custom average functions where people can give different weights to each category,
like 40% to sound , 25% to comfort , 25% to isolation and 10% to build as long as it is above 6.
 
And so on and on. It will also get more and more useful as time goes on and new headphones are added.
I think most users of this forums are technical enough to bel able to do such things, and even if not the more advanced functions,
just the ability to sort by arbitrary attribute and set minimum or maximum values which is very intuitive in Excel
is very useful.
 

 

[RBNHIFI]

i also would like to see an excel version for this as well as your IEM reviews.  It would make shortlisting much easier. 

 

 

[-jinx-]

Any thoughts on HT-21 vs. PX-200 II?  The reviews imply that they have a lot of characteristics in common...but the HT-21s are half the price.

 

[dilkrac]

Thanks for nice reviews!! Really helped me a lot

 

[ljokerl]

 
Quote:

So really you feel that the m50's give a better sound, more detailed?

I'd say so.
 


Quote:

ljokerl, I was wondering if we could get the summary table as an Excel file.
It would allow a much better usage of this data because it would allow people to create queries like  :
 
1. Headphone under 100$ whose sound is above 7
2. Or create custom average functions where people can give different weights to each category,
like 40% to sound , 25% to comfort , 25% to isolation and 10% to build as long as it is above 6.
 
And so on and on. It will also get more and more useful as time goes on and new headphones are added.
I think most users of this forums are technical enough to bel able to do such things, and even if not the more advanced functions,
just the ability to sort by arbitrary attribute and set minimum or maximum values which is very intuitive in Excel
is very useful.
 

My spreadsheets are a little more complex and a lot more messy than the table you see there. I could post the word .doc that I use to keep everything straight but then you would only have sorting but not weighting options. If you just want the numbers to transfer to excel yourself I could do that with the next update.
 


Quote:

i also would like to see an excel version for this as well as your IEM reviews.  It would make shortlisting much easier. 
 

There was one done for the IEM thread by mvw2 and idvsego (it's in post #8 of that thread, below the table) but I think it's pretty out of date now. It had convenient scaling set up but I thought someone would maintain it and no one has. I just don't have the time to get it up to date myself (though if anyone wanted to I could provide the necessary files).
 

Quote:

Any thoughts on HT-21 vs. PX-200 II?  The reviews imply that they have a lot of characteristics in common...but the HT-21s are half the price.

Just responded to your post in the HT-21 thread. In short, I think the PX200-II sounds better but not 2x better.


Quote:

Thanks for nice reviews!! Really helped me a lot

You're welcome