[waynes world]

Hey geko, do you have tried taping the vents?

 

[kova4a]

I'm still waiting for my ATH pleathers but even with stock pads I caught myself using eq 2 with my e11. The s500 and the e11 are a pretty good match though.

 

[Leo888]

Hi, A Happy New Year to all.
 
Have been following the thread for the last few days and think I am ready to pick up my 1st portable headphone. I'll most probably be making the purchase from ebay and would like to know if anyone have experience dealing with ebay seller hkasiamall. Seems that they are the only seller with stocks in Hong Kong and would send out in one day from confirmation of payment. I'm assuming it will reach me faster as I'm from Singapore rather than from being shipped from Japan. They also have a 30 day return policy compare to all other sellers offering 14 days and only ships the item out 2-5 days after payment confirmation. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[rickdohc]

Still loving my S500.... not purchased more headphones since then.

Hope those 200's iems ends my need for iems too.

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

Still loving my S500.... not purchased more headphones since then.

Hope those 200's iems ends my need for iems too.

I haven't purchased any since I bought my S500, but I did make a trade for a pair of HFI-780s. I love both of them equally but the S500 gets more head time because I can walk around with them and still have my glasses on....the 780s require me to have my glasses off. 
 
I also have a set of CAL! coming ( a gift from a good friend)  and I look forward to comparing them to my others....but at this point S500 and HFI-780 are the kings of my collection.

 

[waynes world]

Quote:

I'm still waiting for my ATH pleathers but even with stock pads I caught myself using eq 2 with my e11. The s500 and the e11 are a pretty good match though.

 
First of all kova4, I really liked that tune you posted above - that Alexz really has an amazing voice. Regarding the e11, I received one a few days ago, and I agree that the s500 and e11 seem to work very well together. I also find that I am using eq2 more often than not and that it sounds great.

 

[Lifted Andreas]

Quote:

Hey geko, do you have tried taping the vents?

 
No mate, not yet.
 
I only put the pads on yesterday and had a listen to them for a bit today.
 
So far I have to say I'm enjoying the openness with melodic Trance. 

 
Quote:

I'm still waiting for my ATH pleathers but even with stock pads I caught myself using eq 2 with my e11. The s500 and the e11 are a pretty good match though.

 
Hmm... I tried that with stock pads but the bass seemed to be a bit much for me on EQ2.
 
 
Quote:

Hi, A Happy New Year to all.
 
Have been following the thread for the last few days and think I am ready to pick up my 1st portable headphone. I'll most probably be making the purchase from ebay and would like to know if anyone have experience dealing with ebay seller hkasiamall. Seems that they are the only seller with stocks in Hong Kong and would send out in one day from confirmation of payment. I'm assuming it will reach me faster as I'm from Singapore rather than from being shipped from Japan. They also have a 30 day return policy compare to all other sellers offering 14 days and only ships the item out 2-5 days after payment confirmation. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 
I advise you to use seller jpken, hes a great guy and ships immediately. 

 

[kova4a]

Quote:

 
Hmm... I tried that with stock pads but the bass seemed to be a bit much for me on EQ2.
 

Well, it depends on what kind of music you're listening to and at what volume. I did listen to some bass heavy songs very loud yesterday and eq 2 on the e11 was too much. I have to give some props to the s500 for being very forgiving to my ears even at very loud volumes. I seriously blasted my ears for 6-7 hours straight yesterday and afterwards I was perfectly fine. Usually after a session like that my ears are ringing pretty bad and I'm always wondering if there's someone at the door LOL. I might have to repeat the same session another time though because I was pretty wasted yesterday and that might have protected my ears from ringing in some way.

 

[vsls]

I must say that anyone that has tried my s500 has been thrilled and some of my friends even tried to steal them

Also it is more than common the "WOW" response as a short review on sound impressions.

 

[rickdohc]

Quote:

I must say that anyone that has tried my s500 has been thrilled and some of my friends even tried to steal them

Also it is more than common the "WOW" response as a short review on sound impressions.

+1
 
same here..

 

[waynes world]

Quote:

Well, it depends on what kind of music you're listening to and at what volume. I did listen to some bass heavy songs very loud yesterday and eq 2 on the e11 was too much. I have to give some props to the s500 for being very forgiving to my ears even at very loud volumes. I seriously blasted my ears for 6-7 hours straight yesterday and afterwards I was perfectly fine. Usually after a session like that my ears are ringing pretty bad and I'm always wondering if there's someone at the door LOL. I might have to repeat the same session another time though because I was pretty wasted yesterday and that might have protected my ears from ringing in some way.

 
You're a wild man kova4a! Be careful of destroying your hearing. I was always pretty careful (ie putting in earplugs when at concerts etc), and even so, my hearing is far from perfect (now that I'm a geezer). But I'm still able to enjoy iem's (would be difficult with hearing aids one would think) and headphones. So, I'm glad I was careful. Sorry for the preaching!
 
Anyway, eq2 with the stock pads would probably give me a headache. Right now I have the HM5's over ATH pleathers with vents taped, and eq2 seems to work very well. In comparison, the bass with my Uptowns and eq2 sound slow and boomy (actually, they sound slower without any eq). The S500's seem to be able to handle what's thrown at them very well - the bass just sounds amazing, detailed and fast (just like the rest of the fr).

 

[wje]

Quote:

 
Anyway, eq2 with the stock pads would probably give me a headache.

 
Just a headache?  What about virbrating the fillings in the back of your mouth loose? 

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

I haven't purchased any since I bought my S500, but I did make a trade for a pair of HFI-780s. I love both of them equally but the S500 gets more head time because I can walk around with them and still have my glasses on....the 780s require me to have my glasses off. 
 
I also have a set of CAL! coming ( a gift from a good friend)  and I look forward to comparing them to my others....but at this point S500 and HFI-780 are the kings of my collection.

 
I just used my Clip Zip with both of my Audio Technicas earlier.... I forgot that with a little careful EQ tweaks that these are also pretty impressive 'phones. The thing I love about the S500 is no EQ required....in that regard it betters everything else I have, except in soundstage, where the 780s clean house. 
 
So at the moment, I have four headphones I really enjoy, a few others that are decent.....and another set coming in the mail soon. Life is good! 

 

[koreanzombie]

How do the s500's compare to the hd25's? I see that nearly every commentator on tv wears them. If I remember someone said that the s500's  are about 90% of the hd25's. In what ways are they better? Clarity?

 

[sfwalcer]

As the prize for the S500 contest, Ds sent me the RHA MA-350 and I have a pretty good grasp of how they sound by now.  "Clean" and "balanced" are the 2 words that adequately describe their sound signature. 
 
These RHA MA-350s have an aluminum housing, so combined with an extremely light fabric cable makes them really good for everyday use.  I was afraid that the fabric cable might be extremely microphonic (lots of cord noise) but it wasn't the case. In fact I went on a long run with them and there was little to no microphonics, that is with a clip on of course. When music is on, isolation is average to above average, so even when the cable rubbed against my clothing/ fingers, cord noise hardly affected the music quality. For a fabric cabled iem these RHA MA-350s are pretty awesome in it's lack of microphonics. Here is a pic of how they look:
 

Now onto the sound of these RHAs. I was surprised how good they sounded tbh. Their soundstage and instrument separation is on par, if not better than the FX40s, the soundstage is bigger than the 40s for sure. Like I said earlier, these RHAs have a "clean"/ "balanced" sound signature and by this I mean that the entire sonic spectrum is well represented; with extended highs that do not have harsh treble or sibilance, as well as forward mids along with snappy punchy bass/ lows. These are not analytical or "flat" iems but they do have a rather cold/ clean but not lean sound to them.  Hence when paired with my ELE DAC (also has a clean/ colder sound siggy), they don't really gel as well as say with my Sony MH1Cs (a warmer/ more bassy sound siggy). 
 
These RHAs are not basshead iems either, but the lows are no slouch and is present when called for, therefore this allows the mids/ highs to shine along with the bass. They are pretty "accurate" in their sonic presentation, so I would venture to say that these RHAs fall right in between the more mainstream "fun"/ warm sound signature and the more "cold"/ analytical one. I think both audiophiles and your average mainstream music listener will really like these RHAs because they offer the best of both worlds without compromising on anything.
 
On the side note I also received the monoprice 8320s from Ds as well, and I'll say that to me they sound better than the Thermaltake Tts. I expected harsh highs/ sibilance and lack of bass from them but surprisingly it was not the case. Listened with medium stock rubber tips and detected only slight sibilance with a pretty clean bass end, albeit lighter than the RHAs. Soundstage is nice and the mids are lush, hence acoustic music sound fantastic with them. When all said, these 8320s are out classed by the RHAs in very aspect but surprisingly not by that much.  That was why I was more shocked by what I heard from these 8320s than the RHAs initially, but I soon realized that the RHAs does everything better and with more refinement than the monoprices.