[Malfunkt]

Pedro, sounds like you've been looking to get the Amperior for a while. I just picked one up. I have a pair of badly beaten hd-25s and have just obtained an Amperior which I've been enjoying all weekend.

The HD25 is a classic headphone, and for DJ and those in media, practically legendary. My HD-25s are not quite in the state to be tested against the Amperior, but in my recollection the Amperior seems just that bit more refined. It's still a big thick wall of sound. Bright and almost harsh, the Amperior runs 'hot' which is one the main reasons it works so well for DJ mixing.

I'm still debating keeping it. Even though I just got it, it may have made sense to make the small repairs to my old pair to get them running. I'll probably do that and maybe sell it to fund these guys. The cord is just a bit too frail to do DJ work, but I could get away with it, perhaps get an extension that can plug into the top line of the Amperiors cord.

I recently compared them against the other headphones I have:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/720330/minor-headphone-battle-amperior-vs-ah-d600-vs-mdr-ex600

I also owned the MDR-1r before, and it was a good headphone, but was surprised that I still preferred my Sony MDR-EX600 as it had for the most part the same and in most cases better timbre, it also produced rich sub bass where it was practically absent on the MDR-1r. Also the MDR-1r failed as an on the go, just too large for my preferences. Having the EX600 it was just too much overlap. I got the Denon AH-D600 for my laid back bass headphone and it's great at that. Electronic music is really good on it. Worth a consideration, but again it is far too large to be an on the go headphone. It's also very coloured.

Both the EX600 and Denon AH-D600 are far more 'pleasing' sounding then the HD-25/amperior. Yet, the HD-25/Amperior is a whole different experience. I am leaning on keeping it, even though it can't do what my other headphones do. It could be very useful for the music engineering/composing and dj work I do for time to time.

But on sound quality, the thing is the Amperior surprises. The more critical listening I do with it, the more and more I like it. Even though it's a bit congested where all my other headphone have space, everything on the Amperior is present. You acclimate to its sound, one that is more 'flat' like a studio monitor and it works well for many genres. Also I think some people mistake flat for being the same as neutral. The EX600 is neutral and you can see this look at its frequency curves. A flat sounding speaker can be a bit harsh, consumers for the most part would hate it, and here it is. It's great for engineers, but it isn't necessarily the type of frequency response you want for 'enjoyment'.

Of course, this is the subjective part of listening. Listening on the Amperior and HD25 is like using a sonic scalpel. It's a precision tool, an assault of frequencies being blasted into your ear-drum. It can be a bit torturous and rewarding at the same time. What I'm finding though, is that with music, I'd rather have my ears hear all the frequencies and let my brain do the tuning.

Bottom line if you love your HD-25s you very much like the Amperiors. I'm interested to eventually try out some other headphones like the KEF500, but this is a tool I know very well.

Below is a photo of my old set. I gave them to a friend who long story travelled the world and had the time of his life (continues to do so). He loved these headphones, and they went with him everywhere, through rain or shine and even through a serious vehicle accident which he survived. The headphones bare all these scars. He was still listening to them in the state they were in and I gave another pair (Koss DJ100 - they are actually pretty good performers and very tough too).

 

[AngryGoldfish]

Pedro, sounds like you've been looking to get the Amperior for a while. I just picked one up. I have a pair of badly beaten hd-25s and have just obtained an Amperior which I've been enjoying all weekend.

The HD25 is a classic headphone, and for DJ and those in media, practically legendary. My HD-25s are not quite in the state to be tested against the Amperior, but in my recollection the Amperior seems just that bit more refined. It's still a big thick wall of sound. Bright and almost harsh, the Amperior runs 'hot' which is one the main reasons it works so well for DJ mixing.

I'm still debating keeping it. Even though I just got it, it may have made sense to make the small repairs to my old pair to get them running. I'll probably do that and maybe sell it to fund these guys. The cord is just a bit too frail to do DJ work, but I could get away with it, perhaps get an extension that can plug into the top line of the Amperiors cord.

I recently compared them against the other headphones I have:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/720330/minor-headphone-battle-amperior-vs-ah-d600-vs-mdr-ex600

I also owned the MDR-1r before, and it was a good headphone, but was surprised that I still preferred my Sony MDR-EX600 as it had for the most part the same and in most cases better timbre, it also produced rich sub bass where it was practically absent on the MDR-1r. Also the MDR-1r failed as an on the go, just too large for my preferences. Having the EX600 it was just too much overlap. I got the Denon AH-D600 for my laid back bass headphone and it's great at that. Electronic music is really good on it. Worth a consideration, but again it is far too large to be an on the go headphone. It's also very coloured.

Both the EX600 and Denon AH-D600 are far more 'pleasing' sounding then the HD-25/amperior. Yet, the HD-25/Amperior is a whole different experience. I am leaning on keeping it, even though it can't do what my other headphones do. It could be very useful for the music engineering/composing and dj work I do for time to time.

But on sound quality, the thing is the Amperior surprises. The more critical listening I do with it, the more and more I like it. Even though it's a bit congested where all my other headphone have space, everything on the Amperior is present. You acclimate to its sound, one that is more 'flat' like a studio monitor and it works well for many genres. Also I think some people mistake flat for being the same as neutral. The EX600 is neutral and you can see this look at its frequency curves. A flat sounding speaker can be a bit harsh, consumers for the most part would hate it, and here it is. It's great for engineers, but it isn't necessarily the type of frequency response you want for 'enjoyment'.

Of course, this is the subjective part of listening. Listening on the Amperior and HD25 is like using a sonic scalpel. It's a precision tool, an assault of frequencies being blasted into your ear-drum. It can be a bit torturous and rewarding at the same time. What I'm finding though, is that with music, I'd rather have my ears hear all the frequencies and let my brain do the tuning.

Bottom line if you love your HD-25s you very much like the Amperiors. I'm interested to eventually try out some other headphones like the KEF500, but this is a tool I know very well.

Below is a photo of my old set. I gave them to a friend who long story travelled the world and had the time of his life (continues to do so). He loved these headphones, and they went with him everywhere, through rain or shine and even through a serious vehicle accident which he survived. The headphones bare all these scars. He was still listening to them in the state they were in and I gave another pair (Koss DJ100 - they are actually pretty good performers and very tough too).

I find the MDR-1R's to be one of the only over-ear portable headphones that has big enough earcups to fit my slightly larger ears. The Philips Fidelio L2, NAD HP50, PSB M4U1, B&W P7, V-Moda M-100 are a few of the other options for slightly bigger ears, but even then they're not perfect by a long shot. The L2's are probably an equal comfort-wise for those with taller ears. I doubt I'll be able to find a more portable headphone that will fit my particular ears. I find they look pretty good on my head and I don't feel like I have two Big Whoppers on the side of my face like I do with my K550's.

 

[c64]

I found the opposite with the momentum that electronic was great but rock harsh and congested

 

[micasa]

Hi Pedro, I think we share a lot in common with our music and headphone tastes. I've owned the K550s for a little over a year, and the Amperiors for a couple of months. Really enjoy them both for different reasons, but I'll start with the former. The K550s were initially my do-it-all pair of headphones, aside from exercising (ha ha, that would be...interesting), but now that I have the Amperiors, the K550s stay at home. I actually ordered them along with some Sennheiser HD 600s, V-Moda M100s, Sony MDR-1Rs, Logitech UE 6000s, Grado SR80is, Beyerdynamic DT990 Pros and Philips Citiscape Downtowns, and just returned all but the pair I thought had the best price/performance (if you can't tell, I had no freakin' clue what I wanted out of my first pair of headphones). That ended up being the K550, but *only* because of the mods suggested by Curly in this thread. Like most people, I found it finicky to get a good seal with the K550s, but once I did, they sounded wonderful. My favorite aspects of them were (and still are) the tight, well-extended bass, the neutral, detailed sound and the spacious presentation of music. However, when the seal wasn't just right, everything kind of fell apart sonically, especially the bass. Obviously, I wasn't interested in having to constantly fiddle with my headphones to make them sound right, so it was a bit of a gamble choosing the K550s over some other perfectly nice sounding headphones. 
 
But gamble I did. First, I gave the headband a bit of an inward bend. That helped increase the clamping power a bit so that they didn't shift around as easily. But the cups themselves still seemed to require a very precise angle in order to seal properly. What's more, the antihelix on my ears would juuust barely touch the drivers, causing a bit of long-term discomfort. I fiddled around trying this mod, but didn't find it terribly helpful or practical. I ended up stuffing the earpads as Curly had suggested, but instead of cotton, I used foam weather-stripping underneath the original (and very nice) memory foam. This plumped up the pads quite a bit, perfectly solving both the ears touching, and the finicky fit. One year on, I just throw these over my ears, wiggle them around for a second to get my (large) ears in the right spot, and forget about them completely as the lush, detailed stream of audio pumps into my head for hours on end. 
 
The only thing I'd add is that I concur with the common critique of the K550s, namely that they have some pretty peaky upper mids/lower treble. For some, I have no doubt that this makes them a non-starter. That certainly is the case for my partner when she listens to them. However, I'm pretty sure that my ears are exceptionally insensitive to that 4Khz-8Khz frequency range, and I never found them harsh sounding in the upper mids/lower treble. Recently, I have started playing around with EQ'ing out the resonance peaks in my headphones, and I believe that doing so with the K550s turns them into a headphone anyone could really appreciate, with the possible exception of hardcore bassheads. It made me realize that, while I can easily tolerate resonance peaks in that range, it actually makes the headphones sound vastly better and more natural to flatten them out. I had previously falsely equated "clarity" with an artificially harsh edge, but once I applied that EQ, I could distinguish the crisp, revealing nature of the K550s (which is real) from that upper-mid peak they seem to have. 
 
Well, as for the Amperiors - I must say that the only reason I got them was because I wanted something more portable. It's not that I haven't travelled lots with the K550s, but they're really not ideal for doing so. Since you have the HD-25s, I don't think I have to tell you much about the Amperiors. I haven't compared the two, but from all I have read, they're quite alike sound-wise. I like them as a change of pace from the K550s, and they're arguably nicer to listen to some electronica with. Their bass is more emphasized than the 550s, while still not bleeding into the lower mids. I haven't done painstaking comparisons of resolution between the two, but my overall guess is that the 550s are slightly more detailed. The Amperiors' overall sound is very "up close and personal" compared with the K550s, and of course the perception of 3-dimensionality is nearly nonexistent compared with the 550s. I tried the Amperiors alongside some Beyerdynamic DT1350s, and neither of them excelled in this area. The big deal, however, is that I can throw them into a compact case (or just loose in my bag) for travel, or even better, just wear them around my neck. I can also use them for exercising, as the adjustable, v-style headband can effectively weld them in place on my noggin if need be. That was an unexpected bonus for me, as I don't like IEMs much, and expected to have to keep wearing them while exercising. One irritating thing about the Amperiors is that they slide out of adjustment far too easily. I have seen people complaining about this with older sets of HD-25s due to the plastic springs on the earcups wearing out, but few people with a brand new pair have had any problems, so maybe I just got a defective pair. Anyway, once I've resolved that, I'll have no complaints at all with the Amperiors. 
 
Overall, I'd say that if you're enjoying the Hd-25s a lot, you can't go wrong sticking with them. If you're still wishing for a comfier set of headphones with more spaciousness, I'd honestly suggest that you give the 550s another try and apply the adjustments I mentioned above (unless you already did). Even the earpad stuffing is a simple job requiring no tools except scissors to cut the foam, so you needn't feel intimidated or worried that you'll damage the phones. Finally, not only do the mods help, but with time, you get very adept at adjusting them for a proper seal. That said, it may be that you need more bass than the K550s can deliver, even when they're burned in and properly sealing. Oh, and I should also tack on here that I listen to both pairs unamped through a Macbook Pro, Hackintosh desktop or Nexus 5. If you're planning to use an amp, I would say that's even one more thing in favor of the 550s, as you could almost certainly find an amp that could give you more convincing bass with them.

 

[Beeba]

I am an Audio Enthusiast who is pretty much addicted to music, i listen to music A LOT on-the-go but unfortunately never had a decent pair of headphones, had A LOT but never a good awesome one, recently ive had a some of money almost 250$ but lets say 200$ for now and am interested in buying a pair of headphones, a fter a lot of hours on youtube, amazon and reading reviews i'm torn between the Sennheiser's Momentum ( Over the ear) , the AKG K545 even the sennheiser HD8 Dj ( i know it's a bit pricier and unlike the previous two), Audio Technica's ATH M50x, Sony MDR-1R,Sennheiser HD 598,Philips Fidelio X1 and the Sennheiser HD598 
I know hey are all different in one way or another , i do not have any specific preferences music genre wise, i just want a pair that has an awesome performance and delivers the best music experience, i want to feel the music , get goosebumps you know
 
Note: i am also planning on buy the Fiio X1 Player
any additional suggestions are welcome
 
thank you all in advance

 

[Malfunkt]

I am an Audio Enthusiast who is pretty much addicted to music, i listen to music A LOT on-the-go but unfortunately never had a decent pair of headphones, had A LOT but never a good awesome one, recently ive had a some of money almost 250$ but lets say 200$ for now and am interested in buying a pair of headphones, a fter a lot of hours on youtube, amazon and reading reviews i'm torn between the Sennheiser's Momentum ( Over the ear) , the AKG K545 even the sennheiser HD8 Dj ( i know it's a bit pricier and unlike the previous two), Audio Technica's ATH M50x, Sony MDR-1R,Sennheiser HD 598,Philips Fidelio X1 and the Sennheiser HD598 
I know hey are all different in one way or another , i do not have any specific preferences music genre wise, i just want a pair that has an awesome performance and delivers the best music experience, i want to feel the music , get goosebumps you know

Note: i am also planning on buy the Fiio X1 Player
any additional suggestions are welcome

thank you all in advance

You are looking to get a "wow" experience and goosebumps I urge you toward the Fidelio X2. It's open design will impress you with its large soundstage. It has very enjoyable presentation that isn't light in the bass area but not overwhelming. It's easy to drive and should be fine out of the X1.

Second to that would be the Fidelio X1 and HD598.

The closed pairs you've mentioned are good but can't quite compete in terms of overall sound quality. Close cans can offer isolation, and portability if that is important.

Just listened to the Ath-m50x earlier today and it's very good, but not as deluxe and lush as the Fidelio.

I just picked up an Amperior for the second time. Incredibly good for the price I got it at. A great street portable, but good for the office, and DJing work. Nicely detailed highs.