Alright, picked these up from my FedEx office today, and have been listening to it for 3 hours now... not much, but thought I should write some opening impressions here. First of all, I'd like to thank Flavio and Headphonesolutions for helping me bring this over here across the border. Truly fantastic to deal with. Canadian Head-Fiers, deal with them with confidence, and if you need any helping out, ask and they'll help.
My first impression was that I GREATLY underestimated the size of these. These are pretty big and I don't think that Headroom picture did the size justice... on my 7 1/4 sized head (normal I reckon), they look pretty big. This gives me second thoughts about whether I want to use this as portable cans or not... however, in almost everything else, they're full of win in my books, even this early in the testing stage. Here are some things I've noticed:
- There's definitely a lot of that SE530 SQ in there. Forward liquidy mids, and well extended bass (which is bit rough in the edges and boomy as of now, but I'm sure the burn in will make the corners round eventually). But I find that these are bit more forward and "in your face" than the SE530's. I dont' find them laid back at all, at least as of now. These remind me a lot of general Denon sound sig plus whole lot of mids. Do beware though, a lot of people find 530's mids somewhat unnatural and little bit too upfront. Since these have almost identical mids IMO it means that its mids may not be to everyone's liking.
- Main difference between this and 530's though, is the highs. There's a lot of sparkle there and you're not missing out on anything at all. But at the same time, I hear ZERO sibilance. Well done!
- I find the soundstage very respectable for a closed can, but it's still very much intimate. But I find the instrument positioning very decent.
- These are pretty efficient. I find that volume 18 on my Sony S639 gives it more than enough juice alone. Definitely great enough to use alone with a portable source.
- Related to the previous point, when amping on my EF1 + Tungsram 12AU7, they had more than enough power... as a matter of fact, I had to set my volume level to 9 o'clock, which is bare minimum on my amp without disturbing the right/left balance. With the Tungsram tube, which is thought of as a bright one with good extensions on both ends, it matched up very well. It had forward enough mids on its own already (and Tungsram in general leaves the mids alone I find), and the amping with this EF1 combo helped a lot with more treble extension and bass control. So amping isn't necessary in general, but does help quite a bit.
- Contrary to SE530's, I don't find these particularly forgiving. Bad recordings/lower bitrate songs didn't sound great on these. You'll want good quality songs for these (but hey, we all do over here, right? Nothing to worry about
)
- I forgot how HOT closed cans + pleather pads get (since I main HD650 and K701 the most these days). These get pretty hot on my ears and they would definitely make good winter cans IMO.
- They're otherwise very comfortable. Very little clamping force. As much as my D1001, which isn't much at all! Other than the hotness I feel that I can wear these for a long time.
- The build quality is EXCELLENT. They're tank calibre, enough said. Nothing is filmsy, and only possible weak point is the protuding cables on the side. Otherwise bulletproof.
- I think I don't mind the coiled cables at all. They keep the length short for portable purposes, although they'll bulk up your pockets a bit. But overall they feel very solid with minimal microphonics on the coiled side.
- And lastly, the isolation is superb. I'm going to put it through more real-world test tomorrow during commuting, but as of now, they seal very well and let out almost nothing. Should be excellent for studio purposes.
So, overall, I'd say I've found a third headphone to join my main rig rotation! This is reference level stuff. Very impressive stuff from Shure, and it's hard for me to imagine a closed can in this price range besting these. Definitely a keeper, and an absolute bargain at its current price.
I'll post more stuff as I notice them. Okay, back to listening!
