ok let's share some impressions, I got my srh940 yesterday . Tested from "sansa clip+", "cowon s9" & "xonar stx" (mostly used flac or high qual ogg). I compare them with the other headphone I know: senn hd595 & the IE7 .
From the sansa clip+, the srh940 sounded the worse, these headphones didn't seem much the "detail monsters" you'd expect; lacking some clarity, thin sound, the soundstage was lacking.
The Sound improves, when moving from the sansa clip+ to the cowon s9, better clarity & soundstage, and this with a flat eq. Playing with the different jet effects, helps to get a more satisfying result. With the eq, I can get a more "balanced" sound, decreasing the high, increasing the lows. I can hear some "bass impact" (with techno for instance) , and the mach3Bass helps a bit to boost it. But it can't compete, with the bass of my iem senn IE7. I mean that for the bass: srh940 + jet effects << ie7 + no effects. And if I add the jet effects on the senn IE7, it's miles ahead of the srh940 (I'm on a discotheque). Never mind, you can still manage to get some "bass impact" from the srh940, enough to get a taste of it, but it leaves you hungry. Then I've tested my srh940 with some "meditative"/ambient music, like for instance "Adagio & Rondo for Glass Harmonica" from Mozart (with
true Glass Harmonica) or Hammock or Jonsi & Alex etc..., and thought "this sucks". Somehow I couldn't reach the euphonic tones from my hd595, and thought that my hd595 is much better for this kind of music.
When moving to the xonar stx source on the computer, I found the sound more refined and pleasing. Despite of the "brightness", the sound was enjoyable. Listening to some ambient music , was much better from the xonar stx than on my cowon s9, but it still couldn't compete with my hd595 (too bad, there are cracks on my hd595 that are getting worse & worse). I tried to apply some gain from the built in headphone amplifier of the xonar stx, (switching from normal gain to high gain), and the sound seemed a bit warmer, compensating slightly the "bright" sound, but not that much.
Somehow, I still found the brightness of the srh940 "unnatural". This reminded me a bit the music that leaks from any headphones, when you don't put your ears on them: you hear more the highs than anything else. Well the comparison is an exaggeration, but you get the idea. I listened to the song "on the closet" from Michael Jackson, and I found the percussions too much pronounced, you almost only pay only attention to them. I listened to the song "en cendres" by "emilie simon" (vocal & acoustic), and at first I thought at first "oh my god, what an explosion of details!". But then I thought that all these details were drowning the Song.
But this "brightness" was not bad for every song, sometimes it contributes to give a more "lively" feeling. I listened to some "Deadmau5" (electronic genre) as someone suggested on this thread; and the pronounced percussions was somehow "spicing up" the music.
About the "bass", I listened to it more carefully on the xonar stx. There's definitely some "bass impact" from the srh940 , but depending of the song, it's more or less drowned by the mids & the highs. When I compare with the bass of the hd595, I wouldn't say there's "more bass" (perhaps even the contrary). However I understood that the bass of the hd595 is somehow "broken". I would say there's a lack of definition between the low and the "low mids". Because of this , you often cannot hear any "slam","thump", from the hd595. So there's not more bass on the srh940 than the hd595, but because of its better quality, it's more satisfying.
About the soundstage of srh940 from xonar stx: I'd say it's the half of my hd595, not that bad.
Can be greatly improved using the free vst sheppi (I prefer this to dolby headphone).
Finally I applied a chain of vst (using multifxvst & george yohng vst wrapper on foobar) . Because why just an eq ? So first, I used an equalizer, trying to imitate the
quick tweaks I've made on my cowon s9. Basically I add 2 db below 400hz, remove 2 db above 1.1 khz (edited), and the mids decrease regularly between the two (see graph below). Then I add to the chain the D82 vst (commercial, BBE effect), increasing the "lo countour" setting to 0.5; this helps a slight bit to make the bass fatter/energical. Then I used the vst sheppi (it's free, get it, it's worth it), and I got a great improvement on the soundstage. I already tried sheppi vst before on the hd595, and the effect was much more important/interesting on the srh940.
I'd the say that for the moment, that with the vst chain, I like the result (my taste & mood vary ...) . Probably I could enjoy my srh940 without the vst chain, if I could get used to the brightness of these headphone. On the pic, below you can see the vst chain using multifxvst. The freeg vst is to decrease volume, and avoid clipping after applying all dsp effects.
Finally a comment about the comfort of srh940: I find it great. The pads are as soft as the pads of the hd595 on my ears. When you touch the pads with the fingers, you realize that the pads on the hd595 are softer. Also, there's the clamping force of the srh940, that you can't completely forget; but it's bearable.