wje
Unmodified = Not worth listening to.
7keys said:
The Sens PX 100-11 arrived in the mail yesterday so I decided to do a fast test last night. I had made a cup for testing with a slot in the side hoping I could keep the original cable attached and just slip them right into the cup like a liberated grado. I was able to do this with the headband of the Sens dangling underneath as you can’t keep the cable attached because of the way it runs through headband. I didn’t liberate the driver out of its plastic sheath as I was able to tightly fit the plastic covering right in the cup which had been fitted for a grado driver.
I have three headphones and a couple of IEM’s. I have a virgin SR60I, a modded Fostex T50RP and a Magnum V4. I did a direct comparison between the Sens and the Magnum.
Now maybe it’s because I didn’t fully liberate the driver and tightly fit it in the cup…… or…… possibly it’s because I didn’t change the cheap cable………… but I didn’t find these sens drivers to be giant killers, at least in my configuration. The Magnum V4’s sounded so much better, in a whole other class.
In the next week or two I’ll liberate the sens drivers, fit them to a new cup, add a nice cable and do another test.
It will be interesting to see what round 2 brings in this regard. For the moment, I've somewhat stabilized my likes on the combination using the PX100 II driver. It is impressive on where it takes off from where the Grado and Magnum left off. Then again, that's just the impression that I have based on the time that I've been spending with it. I've been bouncing between the G-Cush, L-Cush and reverse-quarter-modded Sennheiser 414 pads to see where the ultimate combination exists. They all fare well, but I really like the G-Cush pads due to additional bass provided by the Senn driver.
The PX100 II does briefly remind me of the PS-500 headphones I had, but the quality of bass in the Senn driver, to my ears, is much better. Plus, the bass doesn't take over the highs and the highs remain, but do so with a presence that is not overwhelming. Even if none of the other members favored the combination of the Senn drivers in wooden cups, I'd still be pleased with the combination myself. To me, it has just filled so many voids that I sought from the Grado line. The PS-500 couldn't fill it, the RS1i was pretty close, the GS-1000 was just delicious - while a bit bass-light, it had so many other qualities that should never be overlooked. This would have been the non-"i" version. If I saw another pair of the GS-1000 at a decent price, I know I'd move on it.
The only recent change I've applied to my system was the implementation of an oDAC and the Asgard v.1 amplifier.