DJDestroid
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2010
- Posts
- 32
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- 1
Note: This isn't me. I am tall and more womanly/androgynous than this, and look a bit like I'm from the 80s. This is just one of the more endearing images I got while searching for "JVC Flats". This one was cooler, but doesn't seem to have Flats in it at all.
I was going to order a new pair of KSC75s, as they're cheaper than the Portapro and sound decent. Given how cheap I'd seen the "Flats" go for, I was a bit reluctant. However, I was unlikely to find KSCs where I lived, as Koss is barely stocked in Ireland, and I could find the "Flats" for cheap. I actually liked the idea of having some semi-closed cans that would actually stay on my head and have low end(Sennheiser HD201, sigh, paid about €40 for them a couple of years ago too).
I went pretty much everywhere in town. This is how a shopping experience goes in Ireland - Spend 2 hours walking around various parts of the city centre, not find what you're looking for, go back home, order online, wait a few days, wade all the way down to the back of beyond to the Postal depot since realistically you can't be in or awake(depending on employment status) when the Postman comes at half 9 or so.
None of the music shops had them. No Koss anywhere. They did have PX100s, the cheapest I found them was €35, which wasn't too bad, and I was almost tempted but in my experience they didn't have as pleasing a low end and fell off my head every 5 minutes.
Eventually I found them in the last place I tried - a book shop. I was pretty amazed to actually see them in person, as if they were some kind of mythical beast I was hallucinating. Of course, the one colour I wanted, was not there. There was metallic shocking pink, and metallic sky blue. Very conveniently Girl/Boy themed. Then there was the black one, presumably for people who lack any kind of gender, and the silver one, for robots.
I ended up going with the blue as it was the best balance between hideous and boring. They're not bad looking(probably don't match any of my clothes though), the purple would be a bit tacky anyway. I can always get the paint brush out, and choose my own hue.
After going into the bathroom(I was quite sweaty and in need of a toilet break after running around after these headphones), I opened them up. Blister packing is a nightmare, I had to use my house key and cut along edge of the headband. I did manage to stab myself in the thigh while doing so, so I have to take points off JVC for that. It didn't draw blood though, so it could go either way.
I managed to remove them, freeing my ears of the rather painful Sony earbuds I was using(which I'd managed to make sound surprisingly pleasing with a bit of EQ, unfortunately they seem to be shaped for Elf ears). After putting them on my head and flushing the toilet, I got a pleasant surprise. There was simply far more OOMPH in the Bass than I was expecting, which is to say I was not expecting much Bass. Unlike my Sennheisers, I didn't have to push them into my head to get the bass, in fact if anything it sounded worse if I tried to do so. It was distanced just right. I took them for a spin while shopping.
Going with the boyish thing, I recently cut my hair short, though into a rather girly haircut. I have quite a strong jaw for being female, and I found the degree to which it pushed my hair back(kind of flattening it, is this why they're called "Flats"?) a bit upsetting. Perhaps the pink ones would have done so less?
They're not terribly comfortable, to be honest - they're a bit tight and trying to loosen them results in them moving around too much. Generally with tight headphones, I tend to try and straight them out a bit, bend the metal part of the headband, and that helps loosen them quite a bit. This didn't work too well on these. They just aren't a great shape for my head, which is a shame because they sound fantastic.
They triggered the pressure point around the side/back of my jaw, which made opening and closing it a little more uncomfortable. It also made my head swim a little, leading to such thoughts as "€10 for Dublin Bay Prawns! That's a great deal!"(it's not really, I'm poor and can't afford them, also I was probably mistaking them for more headphones).
I'm not quite sure why they're called "Flats" to be honest. They're not really quite flat anywhere, and are fairly curved. Nor are they quite high end enough to claim a "Flat response". I can only imagine that JVC engineers, testing their proud new creation while getting baked in the head of marketing's Yokohama flat, must have made some engrishy comment along the lines of; "That bass line. is so. FLAT." "Dude. DUDE!"
Here are the tests I did while walking around town, listed by genre. I like to think I covered most of the important bases, despite the player being set to random.
Progressive Black Metal
This was pretty sweet. It was the first thing that stuck it's wild appendage into my ears through my new cans. I was listening to "Moonsorrow" a band recommended by a friend whom I told I liked "Summoning" a similar act, though for a "Black metal" band they're considerably more hi-fi. I'd be pretty stupid to use something like Immortal as a test for these. Anyway, they had a pretty full sound, again tons of bass. The high end wasn't quite what I was expecting maybe as I was expecting something more like the KSCs. They had a similar overall level of quality to the KSCs, but the voicing was a bit more like a cheaper but more neutral version of the Portapro(maybe like the Sportapro actually?). It seemed to be a little warm voiced, this could be due to the acoustic nature of it. The high end didn't sparkle as much as with the KSCs, but I fixed that by turning the treble up a tad. Sound didn't "envelope" me like with the Portapros, but it did make me wave my fist in the air as I exited the book shop.
Synth Pop
Information Society were up next, with their hit "What's on your mind(Pure Energy"). Thanks to the closed nature of the phones, I felt like I was containing the 80s within the context of my head. Often you don't necessarily want to recreate a lot of the FM Synth sounds of the 80s in "all their glory". Personally, I love FM Synths, and was talking about them earlier with a friend. They can sound pretty harsh, yes, and sometimes those harsh sounds can't even be dialed out with a low pass filter. But they are plenty capable of warm sounds too. This maybe was not one of the warmest voiced tracks, so it was a good test of the sound-comfort of the phones. They did pretty good.
Modern "Festival" Electronic Bollocks
This quite blatantly is describing ORBITAL. I actually do quite like Orbital though, they're good. And not all their stuff is technically "modern", but they are known for playing Glastonbury and the like now. Mid range "acid" type synths carried over very well. Bass was a little more overwhelming than I expected, turned it down a bit at this stage(Sony Earbuds needed it turned up fairly high).
GRUNGE
Not sure why they were on my mp3 player at the time, but Nirvana are very important for when you feel like reliving your years as "troubled" individuals. Cobain's guitars sounded pretty huge. Was a nice listening experience, can't say much more.
80s Hipster Alternative Rock
This was possibly the strong point for me. I can't remember the Sonic Youth track in specific, but it actually brought out a lot of details I didn't notice before. These phones lack the "sparkle" of the Koss phones but in some ways make that seem artificial too. There was something nice and meaty and balanced about this, the guitars rendered perfectly and didn't sound nasally or muddy. This is good to know as being a bit of a Hipster myself, I play a Fender Jaguar and would like it's obnoxious scratchy sound to transfer well into listening on the go(as I like to listen to my own tracks).
My own Stuff
Being a bit more "Neutral" voiced, it made me think maybe I should go back and remaster it. Balls.
Overall these are amazingly good sounding headphones given how cheaply you can get them. I would have ordered online but I didn't want to dick around waiting. The lack of comfort is an issue, balancing them back on my ears can help with this but I have to do this fairly far otherwise they slip back. This gets rid of some of the bass and lets more sound in, but this isn't an entirely bad thing when you're walking around. The "closed" sound is kind of odd because it mostly filters out higher sound - which isn't bad since the rumbling of a car hurtling approach you tend to be more in the lower registers.
Importantly, just to edit this in - the Chord/Jack seems more reliable than the flimsy Portapro one, and also seems to have a tendency to get itself caught on door handles somewhat less. If they did a "model" up of this for another $10, made them a little more comfortable, it could easily replace the Portapro as the cheap hi-fi go to option.
Overall, I give this set of cans 4 Bill Baileys out of a Maximum of somewhere close to 7.
