[ardgedee]

I haven't had the chance to try the SRH 940. The 840 is the only Shure headphone/earphone I've tried, actually. I thought it was good for the price, though. Disappointing to know that deadness might be the house sound. Well, for background music while working I can't let the music get too interesting, so it works out.
 
Interesting that you thought the construction of the SRH 940 was poor. The 840 is bulky, but reasonably solid.
 
Shure's new TOTLs interest me, but in an abstract way. I'll let others try them first. They do look handsome though.

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

Interesting that you thought the construction of the SRH 940 was poor. The 840 is bulky, but reasonably solid.

The materials are the sort of plastics I'd expect from a headphone at its price, and the overall look is OEM enough to be inoffensive. It's mainly the folding mechanism that bothers me. They don't lie flat when the cups swivel out and instead fold up in a rather bizarre fashion that doesn't seem helpful. There's a spring-like resistance to the cups when folding them as well that seems like it would be easy to inadvertently break. The headband is also pretty uncomfortable for me.
 
Interestingly enough, the recently released AKG K550 has some of the best build quality I've encountered in a $300 headphone. Unfortunately the sound is not that great.

 

[Sylverant]

Quote:

The materials are the sort of plastics I'd expect from a headphone at its price, and the overall look is OEM enough to be inoffensive. It's mainly the folding mechanism that bothers me. They don't lie flat when the cups swivel out and instead fold up in a rather bizarre fashion that doesn't seem helpful. There's a spring-like resistance to the cups when folding them as well that seems like it would be easy to inadvertently break. The headband is also pretty uncomfortable for me.
 
Interestingly enough, the recently released AKG K550 has some of the best build quality I've encountered in a $300 headphone. Unfortunately the sound is not that great.

I was hoping they'd be an upgrade to my K271 considering how great they look...I guess this isn't so? Or if they are better is the difference just not worth twice the price? (K271 MKII go for $150)

 

[kiteki]

Quote:

Never tried the SRH 840. As a whole, I'm not really interested in the Shure brand. Their products always struck me as a bit bland, coupled with the fact that I owned some of their IEMs back in college and had them fail on me.
 
The SRH940 is the first of their products I've used since, and I was pleasantly surprised by the sound quality. Their construction is a bit unfortunate, though. Overall it has me a rather intrigued about their upcoming flagship.
 

The only Shure products I thought were good were the SRH-940, SE210 and the SE425, the rest is dull and uninteresting, very "plain jane".
 
Even so, the SE210 was severely bass-light*, and the SE425 was quite dark in the highest frequencies, so really the only Shure I like is SRH-940.
 
When they painted the SE535 shell pink and painted the cable white, and increased the price to $700 USD, I became quite skeptical about their new flagships, or lets just say their marketing division.
 
Yeah, they're open-air and use aircraft grade aluminium, they have more sub-bass and high-high extension than conventional headphones, yada yada, there's no way I'm buying one of those until I can hear the SRH-940, SR1440 & SRH1840 side by side in a store. 
 
I talk about the SRH-940 a lot because I was really impressed with it, but I heard the EX600, EX1000, SRH-940, A2000X and a lot of others all on the same day and decided the EX600 and A2000X were the ones for me, I was very close to buying the SRH-940 but then I ended up with the A2000X and can't justify the 940 since I don't want a multitude of full-size headphones, only my favorite picks, I would like to hear vocals on it again though, I'll visit my local store that has it one day.
 
According to the SRH-940 thread, the closest rivals to the SRH-940 are the KRK KNS6400, KNS8400 and Audio Technica A900X.
 
According to the review the A-T, it "smashes it" or something like that, so I'm guessing it was a case of synergy or favortism and they have completely different signatures lol.
 
I went to a couple local music stores and they don't have KRK, only Behringer and something else, I think KRK is more an American thing, and they look really bad, but I would love to A/B the 6400 and the 940 just to find out if there's any truth to it, since the 940 already performs well for $299.
 
 
To clarify on the SE210, the early model had really excellent acoustics and sounded severely bass-light, I suspect the driver could only handle mids and highs, the later model has a different driver, with a decent amount of bass apparently, and I suspect the later model doesn't sound as good either.
 
As for SE535, there are definitely love/hate views on that IEM, there's a Chinese review saying "the bass sounds like knocking on corrugated iron".
 
Personally I think it's tailored for on-stage musicians, and that's why I didn't like it, but as Maverick Ronin has pointed out he says you can listen to it all day long, which would be a disaster with something like the CK10.
 
 

 

[kiteki]

Quote:

 
Given Kiteki's love of the K1000 and for Sony devices, I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned them.

True, I think I read a couple negative reviews early on and received the impression it was a Sony experiment rather than a legit Sony statement, after all they do experiment a lot and some of that is lost in Sony history, talking about electrostatics and sapphire drivers and so on.  It also looks kinda peculiar and cost $500 or so last time I checked, audiocubes I think... a few revies there too...
 
The K1000 was like inserting a VHS tape and seeing blu-ray, I liked it musicality and captivation, not necessarily the presentation of the floating transducer theory.

 

[kiteki]

Quote:

Hey kiteki, what is your SA5000 set up like?

Non-existant.

 
Quote:

Kiteki, you should get that new head-fi guy man dude canadian wizard custom iem.

No thanks, it's not a legit product line and he is clearly focusing on very fine aesthetics, I'm not into ivory blackwood fountain pens and 900KG teak dining tables.
 
Now, as for sound, the exotic custom IEM's I know of are Rooth LS8, Gui Ling CX8, Starkey SA-43, the Hidition / Heir Korean products, like the 6 driver 5 way crossover lol??, and the Japanese Fit Ear and FitEar (two different companies lol).
 
Actually there's more than that, there's AlienEars that use Sonion drivers and are quite cheap, and there's that very high-end Polish company, 5-bore?  Average_joe is a good resource for all this stuff as he has resigned universal IEM's, full-size headphones and speakers all in favour of the ultimate custom IEM land I think he has 12 models or so. =p


Quote:

 
 
Transcendentals are indeed discovered through recollection. However music, as performance, is recreated through human action with variation. Numbers are not. It's like drawing a circle. The concept of "circle" exists apart from any one instance of a drawn circle. When a human draws a circle, it is an imperfect approximation of that eternal idea.
 

I've given this quite a lot of thought, there is no such thing as a perfect circle, whether a human idea, universal, or sub-atomic, a "circle" doesn't really exist, the correct word (in pure terms) would be "circular shape".
 
Every circular shape is perfect within itself, just like numbers and music.
 
 
Edit: Just to clarify, someone told me once the first 200 digits of Pi is enough to make a circle the size of our galaxy, accurate to the millimetre, well that is pretty damn perfect, but there is no "true perfect", like the number 5.
 
As far as music is concerned, we could call Britney Spears "Oops! I did it again.flac" played on a Sony CD900ST "the perfection of music", the musical score and design of the CD900ST were drawn by the Oracle at Delphi, and the blueprints handed down for many generations until Britney Spears and Sony could realise this perfection, this spiritual pure white fountain of music and sound.
 
The limestone statue of Britney in Egypt wearing the CD900ST, carved by Imhotep himself in 2626 B.C., is further evidence to this innate universal archetype of transcendental music from which all other scores are ill-tainted deviations.
 
Actually Vivaldi once played Oops! I did it again on violin in what's known as "automatic writing" (except on violin), no one liked it so he didn't write it down.
 
You can read more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing

 

[james444]

Quote:

The kde250 is my most oft used headphones ATm. What do u think of them James? I got over the fit issues. And understand that they isolate like crap but these are very good sounding my god. I don't even use the vsonic gr07s anymore 

I haven't come to a conclusive opinion about the KDE250 yet. Luckily I don't have fit issues and don't need isolation. I'm a bit torn regarding their sonic qualities, on the one hand deeply impressed by their handling of large orchestra with powerful dynamics, deep and wide stage and wonderful strings and horns, on the other hand they're a bit lacking in layering and separation and every now and then the highs get slightly too shouty and resonant for my taste, especially with some female vocals. But that's (unfairly) compared to the $800 Final Audio Design 1601SB, which I mostly use for A/B with the Koss, since these are the only phones I know with somewhat similar 3D presentation. The FADs are shamelessly mid-centric and fall clearly short of the KD250's extension at both ends, but their midrange separation and layering makes the Koss sound rather underwhelming in comparison.
 
Anyway, I'm curious about where the PFR-V1 will fit in and (if time permits) would love to write a comparative review of all these uniquely open and spacious phones.
 
Quote:

Awesome!
 
Yeah, I love unique headphone / earspeaker technology and designs. When I saw the PFR-V1 last year I knew I had to have them, but like you I sort of forgot about them for a while. Some people think they're like mini-K1000s, at least in terms of the music presentation.
 
Given Kiteki's love of the K1000 and for Sony devices, I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned them.

X2, that's what drew me to FAD 1601 and Koss KDE250. Looking forward to your thoughts about the PFR-V1...

 

[MuppetFace]

 
Quote:

I've given this quite a lot of thought, there is no such thing as a perfect circle, whether a human idea, cosmic, or sub-atomic, a "circle" doesn't really exist, the correct word (in pure terms) would be "circular shape".
 
Every circular shape is perfect within itself, just like numbers and music.
 

That's a very intriguing thought.  
 
Might I ask, where do you think the idea of a circle comes from? To put it another way, where do we get the concept of "circleness?" Would you say we know what circles are because we've seen many of those individual examples (the "non perfect" circular shapes that are each unique which you refer to) throughout our lives?
 
Apart from these examples of circular shapes, would you agree that we have an idea of what a circle is, in an abstract sense? And would you say this idea is itself nonphysical, and exists apart from those individual examples of "circular shapes?" Could I not, looking at two drawings of a circle---one made by a 2-year-old and one made by an adult with a compass--determine that the one made with the compass is closer to a perfect circle than the other?
 
I'll put it another way. There is a mathematical formula that can be used to represent a circle. This formula is itself not a physical thing, and does not itself correspond to any one particular circle, does it not? It is a representation of "perfect" circularity. Now when the adult tries to draw a circle, even using his or her compass, he or she will invariably stray from perfect circularity. Indeed, in our physical world, there is no physical embodiment of a "perfect" circle. And yet we have a formula to represent a perfect circle mathematically, in a non-physical sense.
 
What I'm getting at is that there exists a non-physical realm of pure form. Pure ideas. This is the "divided line" that Plato talked about thousands of years ago.

 

[MuppetFace]

Keep in mind I am fond of/study/teach ancient literature, so my views on this sort of thing are quite dusty and antiquated.

 

[DigitalFreak]

 
Quote:

 


That's a very intriguing thought.  
 
Might I ask, where do you think the idea of a circle comes from? To put it another way, where do we get the concept of "circleness?" Would you say we know what circles are because we've seen many of those individual examples (the "non perfect" circular shapes that are each unique which you refer to) throughout our lives?
 
Apart from these examples of circular shapes, would you agree that we have an idea of what a circle is, in an abstract sense? And would you say this idea is itself nonphysical, and exists apart from those individual examples of "circular shapes?" Could I not, looking at two drawings of a circle---one made by a 2-year-old and one made by an adult with a compass--determine that the one made with the compass is closer to a perfect circle than the other?
 
I'll put it another way. There is a mathematical formula that can be used to represent a circle. This formula is itself not a physical thing, and does not itself correspond to any one particular circle, does it not? It is a representation of "perfect" circularity. Now when the adult tries to draw a circle, even using his or her compass, he or she will invariably stray from perfect circularity. Indeed, in our physical world, there is no physical embodiment of a "perfect" circle. And yet we have a formula to represent a perfect circle mathematically, in a non-physical sense.
 
What I'm getting at is that there exists a non-physical realm of pure form. Pure ideas. This is the "divided line" that Plato talked about thousands of years ago.

 


Quote:

Non-existant.

 

No thanks, it's not a legit product line and he is clearly focusing on very fine aesthetics, I'm not into ivory blackwood fountain pens and 900KG teak dining tables.
 
Now, as for sound, the exotic custom IEM's I know of are Rooth LS8, Gui Ling CX8, Starkey SA-43, the Hidition / Heir Korean products, like the 6 driver 5 way crossover lol??, and the Japanese Fit Ear and FitEar (two different companies lol).
 
Actually there's more than that, there's AlienEars that use Sonion drivers and are quite cheap, and there's that very high-end Polish company, 5-bore?  Average_joe is a good resource for all this stuff as he has resigned universal IEM's, full-size headphones and speakers all in favour of the ultimate custom IEM land I think he has 12 models or so. =p

I've given this quite a lot of thought, there is no such thing as a perfect circle, whether a human idea, universal, or sub-atomic, a "circle" doesn't really exist, the correct word (in pure terms) would be "circular shape".
 
Every circular shape is perfect within itself, just like numbers and music.
 
 
Edit: Just to clarify, someone told me once the first 200 digits of Pi is enough to make a circle the size of our galaxy, accurate to the millimetre, well that is pretty damn perfect, but there is no "true perfect", like the number 5.
 
As far as music is concerned, we could call Britney Spears "Oops! I did it again.flac" played on a Sony CD900ST "the perfection of music", the musical score and design of the CD900ST were drawn by the Oracle at Delphi, and the blueprints handed down for many generations until Britney Spears and Sony could realise this perfection, this spiritual pure white fountain of music and sound.
 
The limestone statue of Britney in Egypt wearing the CD900ST, carved by Imhotep himself in 2626 B.C., is further evidence to this innate universal archetype of transcendental music from which all other scores are ill-tainted deviations.
 
Actually Vivaldi once played Oops! I did it again on violin in what's known as "automatic writing" (except on violin), no one liked it so he didn't write it down.
 
You can read more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_writing

Thanks, you two just blew my mind and now I'm going to be up the rest of the night thinking about whether such a thing as a perfect circle can exist and the the finer points of Pi. Considering I despise math that's not a good thing.
 

 

 

[MuppetFace]

Aw, you got rid of the part of your post on Russian Literature. I was all set to ask you whether you liked Solzhenitsyn.

 

[DigitalFreak]

Quote:

Aw, you got rid of the part of your post on Russian Literature. I was all set to ask you whether you liked Solzhenitsyn.

I see I have to edit quicker in the future. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (I think I spelled his name right) are my favorite. My favorite book of all time is Crime and Punishment. I must have read it 30 or 40 times over the years and it never gets boring no matter how many times I read it. Letters From The Underground is another favorite of mine and of coarse I also like War and Peace. Everyone should read those three titles at least once in their lives they're just wonderful reads.

 

[MuppetFace]

 
Quote:

I see I have to edit quicker in the future. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (I think I spelled his name right) are my favorite. My favorite book of all time is Crime and Punishment. I must have read it 30 or 40 times over the years and it never gets boring no matter how many times I read it. Letters From The Underground is another favorite of mine and of coarse I also like War and Peace. Everyone should read those three titles at least once in their lives they're just wonderful reads.

Well, you were fast enough to get it before I could quote you. 

 
Dostoevsky is a favorite of mine as well. But I also love Pushkin, Chekov, and especially Solzhenitsyn. I recommend checking out "The Gulag Archipelago" if you haven't read that.

 

[kiteki]

 
I'm just theorising now, I suppose the human eye, the sun and the moon have been nice circular shapes for as long as we can remember, and humans like to simplify their sensory input, because that makes us more efficient and the surroundings seem nicer.
 
The way I see it, we can have perfect concepts and ideas, but that doesn't mean they actually exist, on the other hand the number 5 is perfect and does exist, the idea of it's existence isn't necessary.  The idea of a circle is necessary, without the idea there are only circular shapes, none of them are perfect or non-perfect, they are all perfect.
 
 
As for the mathematical part, I'm not sure but I feel as though Pi is 'chasing' something that doesn't actually exist, since Pi is infinite.
 
As for 'antiquated', they probably had better intuition about some things back then.
 

 

[MuppetFace]

Quote:

 
I'm just theorising now, I suppose the human eye, the sun and the moon have been nice circular shapes for as long as we can remember, and humans like to simplify their sensory input, because that makes us more efficient and the surroundings seem nicer.
 
The way I see it, we can have perfect concepts and ideas, but that doesn't mean they actually exist, on the other hand the number 5 is perfect and does exist, the idea of it's existence isn't necessary.  The idea of a circle is necessary, without the idea there are only circular shapes, none of them are perfect or non-perfect, they are all perfect.
 
 
As for the mathematical part, I'm not sure but I feel as though Pi is 'chasing' something that doesn't actually exist, since Pi is infinite.
 
As for 'antiquated', they probably had better intuition about some things back then.
 

 
I'm not sure I follow when you say the idea of the number 5's existence isn't necessary. Are you saying that five, as a number, exists in a non-abstract sense in the natural world only? What about imaginary numbers? Those exist yet aren't material.
 
Ideas themselves exist and aren't physical. The question is thus: where do these non-physical entities "reside?" They don't just live in our brains. The number five is the same across time and space for all those who know what five is. There is something that "is" five that is beyond every mere instance of five of something.
 
Plato argued that concepts like circularity and even love are universal, existing apart from any particular physical embodiment of that concept. I realize by modern / post-modern standards that may seem odd. But at the very least, consider the circle: any non-perfect instance of a circle is going to have variance, but there's still a unifying concept that makes all those imperfect circles, circles. Just like there's a unifying concept that makes all people "people" despite all the differences from individual to individual. Species, for example. A species is more than the sum of all the examples of that species.