Tavilyn
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2015
- Posts
- 118
- Likes
- 12
Hi all,
So, I'm at a bit of a loss here. Unlike some head-fi users, I don't have tons and tons of money, and I don't want to keep multiple pairs of headphones. I might end up with one open pair and one closed pair, but that's about it.
I recently tried a pair of PSB M4U2, and liked them a lot. Two things made me send them back however. One was the way they fit my ears; I found them modestly uncomfortable...soft enough, and I don't care about clamp, but the earcup shape was downright cramping my ears. The other thing was the fact that, for want of better ways to explain this, they didn't wow me. Bass was decent, mids were decent, treble was decent, nothing jumped up and bit me. If I turned on their amp, stuck them into my E10K and turned bass boost mode on, I got a fair amount of bass slam, but it sounded kinda boomy at the bottom end. Guess that's what I get for amp-chaining that way.
So then I decided to give the K545s a whirl...and I think I'm in love.
They have bass so good it's making me question the X2's bass, which I thought was pretty good to begin with. They have slightly better treble (less rolloff, which I like), and the mids are neither honky (like the M4U2 could sometimes get) nor recessed. They're comfy, though the X2 probably still beats them out just a hair here; they're big enough to fit my ears.
So anyway, the reason I'm here is because I have a whole pile of questions, most of them not related to one another:
1. If I should ever want to sell my X2, would I need the box? I have the nasty suspicion I got rid of the box during a housecleaning recently, and I wonder if anyone would buy headphones secondhand without the box they came in.
2. When you can hear the air in a bass drum vibrate, can feel your head and cheekbones rumble a bit with heavy bass hits, is that lower bass or what? I ask because the K545 does this, while the X2 doesn't do it as much.
3. I am wondering if it's worth demoing the P7s. If the earcup size on the K545 is great, are the P7s much smaller? Will the P7s give me that nice bass extension that the K545s give me, or is the bass on those cans boosted across the entire frequency such that it will push the mids back? I'm not a basshead, and while I do appreciate it, I think it has its place.
4. Can someone explain the parts of the bass spectrum with examples of each? People talk of upper bass, lower bass, mid-bass, and I wonder which instruments and such would fall into each, so that when I read reviews and descriptions I know what to expect. I have a good idea of this for treble already, mostly.
5. Would it be worth my while to try the Sony MDR models, any of 'em, bearing in mind my preferences?
6. Okay, so I get that open cans and closed cans are different, but I have to ask. The K545s have good soundstage, the X2s have good soundstage (better, but not by leaps and bounds). But the M4U2 was arguably almost as good as the X2, and the X2 is open. What's the deal here? Am I just not sensitive to soundstage, and thus ignoring finer details, or is soundstage really quite a small deal unless it's really obviously excellent or bad? Because the more I play around, the more it feels to me that open cans are just like closed cans, a touch airier, and they leak sound to hell and gone.
The more I know, the more I can further educate myself, so if anyone's got any answers for me, I'd be most interested.
I should mention one small gripe I do have with the K545s...notably, their cable. It's short and thin, and that's one thing the X2 got right...freaking love the cables and build quality on that thing. If I could find a closed can with a sound signature similar to the K545 and better cables, I might pounce all over it. This is, I suppose, my way of eeking out every last scrap I can for the money I spend on my gear, and it's probably overkill. Haha.
Anyway, thanks in advance.
So, I'm at a bit of a loss here. Unlike some head-fi users, I don't have tons and tons of money, and I don't want to keep multiple pairs of headphones. I might end up with one open pair and one closed pair, but that's about it.
I recently tried a pair of PSB M4U2, and liked them a lot. Two things made me send them back however. One was the way they fit my ears; I found them modestly uncomfortable...soft enough, and I don't care about clamp, but the earcup shape was downright cramping my ears. The other thing was the fact that, for want of better ways to explain this, they didn't wow me. Bass was decent, mids were decent, treble was decent, nothing jumped up and bit me. If I turned on their amp, stuck them into my E10K and turned bass boost mode on, I got a fair amount of bass slam, but it sounded kinda boomy at the bottom end. Guess that's what I get for amp-chaining that way.
So then I decided to give the K545s a whirl...and I think I'm in love.
They have bass so good it's making me question the X2's bass, which I thought was pretty good to begin with. They have slightly better treble (less rolloff, which I like), and the mids are neither honky (like the M4U2 could sometimes get) nor recessed. They're comfy, though the X2 probably still beats them out just a hair here; they're big enough to fit my ears.
So anyway, the reason I'm here is because I have a whole pile of questions, most of them not related to one another:
1. If I should ever want to sell my X2, would I need the box? I have the nasty suspicion I got rid of the box during a housecleaning recently, and I wonder if anyone would buy headphones secondhand without the box they came in.
2. When you can hear the air in a bass drum vibrate, can feel your head and cheekbones rumble a bit with heavy bass hits, is that lower bass or what? I ask because the K545 does this, while the X2 doesn't do it as much.
3. I am wondering if it's worth demoing the P7s. If the earcup size on the K545 is great, are the P7s much smaller? Will the P7s give me that nice bass extension that the K545s give me, or is the bass on those cans boosted across the entire frequency such that it will push the mids back? I'm not a basshead, and while I do appreciate it, I think it has its place.
4. Can someone explain the parts of the bass spectrum with examples of each? People talk of upper bass, lower bass, mid-bass, and I wonder which instruments and such would fall into each, so that when I read reviews and descriptions I know what to expect. I have a good idea of this for treble already, mostly.
5. Would it be worth my while to try the Sony MDR models, any of 'em, bearing in mind my preferences?
6. Okay, so I get that open cans and closed cans are different, but I have to ask. The K545s have good soundstage, the X2s have good soundstage (better, but not by leaps and bounds). But the M4U2 was arguably almost as good as the X2, and the X2 is open. What's the deal here? Am I just not sensitive to soundstage, and thus ignoring finer details, or is soundstage really quite a small deal unless it's really obviously excellent or bad? Because the more I play around, the more it feels to me that open cans are just like closed cans, a touch airier, and they leak sound to hell and gone.
The more I know, the more I can further educate myself, so if anyone's got any answers for me, I'd be most interested.
I should mention one small gripe I do have with the K545s...notably, their cable. It's short and thin, and that's one thing the X2 got right...freaking love the cables and build quality on that thing. If I could find a closed can with a sound signature similar to the K545 and better cables, I might pounce all over it. This is, I suppose, my way of eeking out every last scrap I can for the money I spend on my gear, and it's probably overkill. Haha.
Anyway, thanks in advance.
