[hansonsc56]

The Grado SR80 might be a bit over budget, but i'd say they're very much so worth it.

It charges while being used as DAC.

as long as you aren't trying to make the earth move with bass, the sr80's are definitely theway to go. outstanding mids and highs in an open back headphone.

 

[hkfriends]

After the X5 preview in Jan/Feb, I am dreaming to get my own baby... finally it comes true today ^^
 
It is damned good vs preview unit.
 

 

[Ripvanlink]

   
P7 pairs up well with anything, X5 is not an exception.  Hope you had a chance to read Tyll's review: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/sumptuous-and-sonorous-bowers-wilkins-p7 since he really nailed it, especially with "withdrawn mids" comment.  P7 looks very classy, and it has a top notch build and materials.  But the bass is a bit too strong, and overall sound is v-shaped.  I'm EDM semi-basshead, so these were up my valley.  But while using these when watching movies, it wasn't my cup of tea because of bass being a little exaggerated and drowning some speech details.  You might have some issues with classical music using P7 where I would think a preference to have a more balanced sound, maybe with some extra bass.  But v-shaped fun signature might not be as desirable for your style of music, though YMMV.  But hey, paired up with X5 it sound great! 

Thank you, twister6 for bird-dogging the Tyll review. What I'm wondering is if the X5s could EQ the sound to make up for the over-bassiness and recessed lower mids and still maintain the excellent quality that the P7s otherwise show. I'm not experienced with EQing so I don't know how that could negatively affect the SQ. What do you think?
You see, the fact that they are portable, look so good and the build quality is so good, those qualities are steering me towards favoring them even though they might be somewhat disappointing for classical listening. If I could adjust the alleged deficiencies w/o sacrifice then I'd strongly creep towards buying them. What I'll do is go Best Buy once I get the X5 and give them a listen.
My main consideration for my headphone purchase is a balance between SQ and portability. The classy look is of course an added plus.
Funny, it was just about 5 years ago, I think, when I tried the P5s there and was roundly disappointed by a very noticeable reticent quality of the sound. When I remarked upon that to the salesman, he was very surprised that I thought so. Evidently though, that's not the case with the P7s... good!

 

[Loquah]

Mine skip track when holding the volume up/down buttons when the screen is off - Lockscreen 2 - Is this how it's supposed to work?

 
Yes - it's a feature that some like and some don't. I personally love it, but understand others' perpectives too
 

as long as you aren't trying to make the earth move with bass, the sr80's are definitely theway to go. outstanding mids and highs in an open back headphone.

 
If the SR80s are too far out of the budget that the OP mentioned ($100), I have found the AKG K420 to be excellent value. It's different to the SR80 and in a different league overall, but it's a great budget headphone IMO

 

[ClieOS]

  Hey folks, I hope you all don't mind a stupid question...  I apparently wasn't thinking clearly, and I ordered a FiiO L12S optical cable (http://fiio.com.cn/products/index.aspx?ID=100000018364884&MenuID=105026009) for connecting the X5 to an E17.  So, am I right in assuming I can't use an optical cable with the X5?  I'm not sure why I thought the X5 had optical and coax, but it doesn't appear as though this cable will do me any good.  Is there maybe something I'm missing?  I'm guessing I just need to stop shopping online before having a second cup of coffee. 

 
X5 only has coax-out, so optical cable is indeed useless in this case. However, given X5 has a better internal DAC, using E17 as external DAC is only going to be a downgrade anyway.

 

[Scorpion667]

When you guys spin the scroll wheel, can you hear it rubbing? I don't think the store demo did it, felt nice just the click click. Mine has an obvious rubbing sound, although I don't feel any resistance. Hopefully it won't cause issues once dust gets in there.

 

[nmatheis]

After the X5 preview in Jan/Feb, I am dreaming to get my own baby... finally it comes true today ^^

It is damned good vs preview unit.

How so? Just because it's your new toy, or are there other reasons it's better?

 

[Loquah]

  When you guys spin the scroll wheel, can you hear it rubbing? I don't think the store demo did it, felt nice just the click click. Mine has an obvious rubbing sound, although I don't feel any resistance. Hopefully it won't cause issues once dust gets in there.

 
No obvious running here - just the feel of the wheels turning (i.e. like a smooth bearing movement feeling)

 

[Ripvanlink]

I would like to explain that I do have a prejudice against using EQ at all, coming from a time when I had Jadis tube  amps/preamps, Basis turntable and Duntech Marquis speaks and read Absolute Sound religiously, lol. I was also strongly influenced by my friends, the local sound purity fanatics that I associated with.
That was well before the digital era, however. I think that consideration has gone through some evolution since then and it has become not such a no-no, am I right?

 

[twister6]

 
Thank you, twister6 for bird-dogging the Tyll review. What I'm wondering is if the X5s could EQ the sound to make up for the over-bassiness and recessed lower mids and still maintain the excellent quality that the P7s otherwise show. I'm not experienced with EQing so I don't know how that could negatively affect the SQ. What do you think?
You see, the fact that they are portable, look so good and the build quality is so good, those qualities are steering me towards favoring them even though they might be somewhat disappointing for classical listening. If I could adjust the alleged deficiencies w/o sacrifice then I'd strongly creep towards buying them. What I'll do is go Best Buy once I get the X5 and give them a listen.
My main consideration for my headphone purchase is a balance between SQ and portability. The classy look is of course an added plus.
Funny, it was just about 5 years ago, I think, when I tried the P5s there and was roundly disappointed by a very noticeable reticent quality of the sound. When I remarked upon that to the salesman, he was very surprised that I thought so. Evidently though, that's not the case with the P7s... good!

 
I think you will be better off trying P7 at BB or Apple store with X5 to see how effective the EQ tweaking to shape the sound to your liking.  As you know, even if you talk to someone who listens to the same type of music as you do, you can still have different sound preferences.  I personally look for headphones where I don't have to tweak the EQ.  I have quite a few in my collection and it's serious PITA to constantly change EQ setting depending on which wired or wireless headset you are listening to (between my Note 2 and X5).  The one headset I made an exception is Beyer T51 which does need EQ, but those on-ears are so comfortable and I love the design very much.  Just need to tune down the bass and brighten up mids.

 

[pe3ucTop]

I am a bit confused with what people are sharing about the volume. I can't imagine using the X5 at volumes suggested here(35-60 range). I am using Shure SRH840 and Meelectronics M6, plugged directly into the headphone out. I guess I can put the volume at 60 but it is pretty quiet there. I usually listen to it at 80-110 on low gain. Maybe I like my music a bit on the loud side, but still the difference is pretty big - is that normal? Is it possible that there is difference from one X5 unit to the next?

 

[ClieOS]

  I am a bit confused with what people are sharing about the volume. I can't imagine using the X5 at volumes suggested here(35-60 range). I am using Shure SRH840 and Meelectronics M6, plugged directly into the headphone out. I guess I can put the volume at 60 but it is pretty quiet there. I usually listen to it at 80-110 on low gain. Maybe I like my music a bit on the loud side, but still the difference is pretty big - is that normal? Is it possible that there is difference from one X5 unit to the next?

 
No, but there is a difference between each user's listening habit and what headphone is used. There is just no one-size-fits-all answer to how loud being the right loudness.

 

[Got the Shakes]

I finally got around to updating to 2.0 and adding some really nice sounding FLAC files to my X5. I have a question about the way things are displayed with FLAC tags though.  My stuff is tagged correctly as verified by MP3Tag and everything shows up correctly on the now playing screen of the X5.  My question is, when browsing my songs either through the "now playing" section of the "browse files" section, all of the songs are listed by the name of the file with the .flac extension and not by their tag information.  What I mean is that when I'm browsing on something like an iPhone I'm used to the songs being listed using the tag info so for example a song list for a given album would look something like:
 
Warehouse
Granny 
Bartender
 
and on the X5 it seems to not display the songs when browsing that way and instead it looks something like:
 
01 - Warehouse.flac
02 - Granny.flac
03 - Bartender.flac
 
Is there a way for things to be viewed with song title pulled from the tags only instead of with the file extensions?  Thanks in advance and I apologize if this didn't make much sense.

 

[Klipsch]

I usually listen, if straight out of player, on and alway on high gain, 30-40 max.   I don't think there are differences in volume between player.  I had observed some of my friends alway crank up the volume when they trying out my player.  I guess "comfort volume" varies from person to person.  
 
If you think i am xtreme, meet my son.  His comfort level is 20 and below.  I seriously wonder how that can sound "loud enough" for him.  Good thing i guess, his hearing isn't going get damage anytime soon.      

 

[goldendarko]

Is anybody having track skipping issues? What started out as a minor annoyance has turned into a full blown issue for me, and I am  not sure at this point if I have a defective unit that needs to be returned, or perhaps returning to FW 1.20 would be the best bet as I was not having this issue before. It albums almost every time I use the X5 now, on almost any album, I just started playing Grand Funk Railroad's Closer to Home album and after finishing the 1st track it started playing 1-2 seconds of the following songs on the album before finally playing the 8th and final song on the album completely. This is getting to be very annoying, can someone please advise what I should do here.