[bunkbail]

My Fostex TH900MK2 produces rattling noise on the left side below 50Hz at any volume.
Oh, what I would give to trade problems with you...

Dude, what if I tell you 2 weeks ago I went to a large headphone store in Japan (e-earphone), I did the bass shaker tests on almost all headphones I tried, there are no rattling at all on all headphones. Some of the headphones I tried extensively are TH900MK2, THX00, HD800S, HD800, HD700, HD650, HD660S (which I ended up buying), HD600, Fidelio X2, Onkyo A800, AD5000X, AD2000X plus some other Beyers, Denons, AKGs, Staxes (L700 and SR-009) and Audio-Technicas. This leads me to believe that rattling in headphones is indeed not normal.

 

[BenF]

Dude, what if I tell you 2 weeks ago I went to a large headphone store in Japan (e-earphone), I did the bass shaker tests on almost all headphones I tried, there are no rattling at all on all headphones. Some of the headphones I tried extensively are TH900MK2, THX00, HD800S, HD800, HD700, HD650, HD660S (which I ended up buying), HD600, Fidelio X2, Onkyo A800, AD5000X, AD2000X plus some other Beyers, Denons, AKGs, Staxes (L700 and SR-009) and Audio-Technicas. This leads me to believe that rattling in headphones is indeed not normal.

Of course it's not normal - but it still happens, even with 1700$ headphones.

 

[Miguelbazil]

I just want to add a little something about my experience with them outside of music. I find the imaging on these so good! I was playing Aragami last night with a friend, and started warning him "look out, guy on the right, and one on the front" while we were behind cover and couldn't really see them. He asked me how I knew. Apparently, he had one of those gaming headphones and couldn't properly hear the steps. Welp...

I've been really happy with these, and not only in music.

 

[BenF]

Some people are lucky.
Some people are very lucky.
And some people have 4 Pro 82s...

 

[Miguelbazil]

Seriously, you guys are really forcing me to go quad?

 

[BenF]

To end the discussion of the old "thick" and new "thin" pads:

 

[BenF]

Some bad news for future Pro 82 buyers.
Starting tomorrow, China Post is raising prices for large/heavy packages.
As the result, it will cost 2-3$ more to ship Pro 82 without the case, and 4-5$ with the case.
I don't know if the stores will raise the prices right now, or will wait until after CNY - but you may want to hurry.

 

[J Mirra]

I just want to add a little something about my experience with them outside of music. I find the imaging on these so good! I was playing Aragami last night with a friend, and started warning him "look out, guy on the right, and one on the front" while we were behind cover and couldn't really see them. He asked me how I knew. Apparently, he had one of those gaming headphones and couldn't properly hear the steps. Welp...

I've been really happy with these, and not only in music.

The Imaging for gaming is just spot on, with Dolby surround its crazy good, and switching to Dolby Atmos on Overwatch wow.

Pin point

 

[J Mirra]

Some people are lucky.
Some people are very lucky.
And some people have 4 Pro 82s...

Two will do for me, one is boxed up as a back up if anything ever happens to the primary set, too good just to have the one.

That is some back up set's

 

[Miguelbazil]

I wish I could like overwatch, really. Well, gaming is wide, so there's always something else

 

[Miguelbazil]

Btw, since the EL-D01 is rather cold sounding, would the NX1s (which seems to be warm) be a good pairing?

 

[BenF]

Btw, since the EL-D01 is rather cold sounding, would the NX1s (which seems to be warm) be a good pairing?

While a good pairing with EL-D01 requires the amp to be warm, that may not be enough:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/tak...iscussion-thread.849965/page-69#post-13984514

Synergy can't be predicted, it's either there or not.

 

[BenF]

"New" vs "Old" Pro 82

EDIT: Turns out that there are two differently tuned versions, even though the difference in sound may not be too obvious if you are listening to them side-by-side:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/tak...scussion-thread.849965/page-122#post-14197897


I listened to both (black and silver) new pairs, and at first I thought that they sounded same as the old black one, only with smaller soundstage. Vocals were spot on right away.
However, listening to my bass test tracks, it became apparent that the bass response was severely reduces and was lacking "meat".
I panicked a bit.

Luckily, I had to drive to a meeting in another city, so I left both new pairs to burn in.
Seven hours later I came back to the office, and tested them again.
Now bass has clearly improved, but it still wasn't on the level with the old black pair.
Even worse - the synergy with both combos was gone! Panicking again...
Then I tried the old black one, and the synergy was gone there too! Maybe it wasn't the best idea to test headphones at 4 AM...
So I continued the burn-in process.

After 24 hours of burn-in soundstage was as expansive as it should be - on both pairs.
Bass on the new silver pair became almost identical to the old black pair - maybe just a bit less control, but we are comparing pairs that were burned in for 1 day and 8 months - I expect it to continue to improve with further burn-in.
The new black pair is still missing couple DBs in the lower bass - this may be a result of variance in driver/diaphragm, or a variance in the pads, I don't know.
Most importantly - synergy is back!!!

So far my conclusion is - there are no "new" and "old" Pro 82s, just a variance in production - despite changes in driver's/diaphragm's appearance.

Just for fun, I will measure 2 "old" ones and 3 "new" ones (a colleague bought Pro 82 as well) when I'll get my MiniDSP EARS later this month.


P.S. I keep my old silver Pro 82 not burned in, so I can try to measure the effects of burn-in later.

 

[Supa Boy]

All this talk about the Pro 82 not doing very well with vocals (or otherwise), fortunately that does not bother me since 95% of the material that I listen to are instrumental music, mostly smooth jazz and jazz fusion (Earl Klugh, Lee Ritenour, Chris Geith, Bill Evans, Chris Spheeris, Dan Siegel, Dave Grusin, Pat Metheny, Fourplay etc.) As long as they are comfortable and feel good on my head, that's all that matters.

.

 

[BenF]

As if the China Post price increase wasn't enough, some more bad news.

Takstar factory has some stock (don't know how many) of black Pro 82, but none of silver.
TakstarAudio has a stock of 40 black ones and 15 silver ones. The stock of silver ones is displayed incorrectly (34/40 without/with case), so they updated it - but it may take up to 24 hours for the change to take effect.

So we are about to experience a shortage of Pro 82 again - first the silver ones, and then possibly the black ones.
Takstar factory has already stopped production, and they are likely not coming back to work (as all factories in China) until mid-March. Since they are dependent on their supply chain, it's unclear when they will be able to churn out more Pro 82.
There is no need to panic, just setting expectations here.

Most important takeaway from this - if you are about to order a silver Pro 82 from a store other than TakstarAudio - chat with them first and verify that they have it in stock, ready to be shipped - because they won't be able to source them from the factory anymore.
Otherwise you may find yourself in the fake shipping hell, like many Pro 82 buyers in the past:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/tak...iscussion-thread.849965/page-30#post-13871997