[shamrock134]

I'd say find a way to audition them somehow before buying either.

 

[BournePerfect]

Here's some comments I made in the gaming thread that are probably better suited here:
 
I never tried the Kees mod. Reason being is that after reading probably every Pro 900 thread on this site-I came to the conclusion that pretty much everybody who had fully burned in their Pro, did not benefit at all from the Kees. The concensus was that it was basically beneficial during the first few hundred hours of ownership. With that in mind, I burned mine in right when I got them for about 3 weeks straight, with a few breaks in between.
 
The silver pads are definitely made differently than the black ones. They are a bit softer and spungier if you will, and much more comfortable imo. I never tried the J$s because I didn't want to mess with the sound that much. I believe colmustard has a few impressions with them...and his feelings seemed mixed about what they did to the sound-especially when used in conjunction with the silver pads Blue Dragon. Another user (can't remember who) seemed to really like the combination of the silver pads and the BD though, which is another reason I want to try that combo sometime-it's supposed to do wonders for bringing out the mids.
 
One area that never seemed to improve with my Pro was that the highs were always kinda harsh, and my ears never really adapted to them. That would be the main reason for me to get the BD, and also the supposed jump in transparency.
 
One thing that has always bugged me, is that there is not really a consensus in regards to amping these things. Yes, it can be easy to drive blah blah...BUT. With these absolutely stiff titanium drivers, I'm wondering if ANY of us has heard these to their potential. I think we may eventually find out that these require some serious amping, much greater than what the specs would tell us. I wish I still had my AGD SA-2, as I feel that it would be an almost perfect match for these. 6 watts into the Pro 900s, overkill yes, but massive headroom. It is also a pretty musical amp, and has an all-around slightly softer tonality that I feel would perfectly round all of the harsh edges off the 900s, and help improve the metallic tonality of them as well...too bad it's discontinued lol.
 
-Daniel

 

[MetroBBOY]

I tell you now, and this is my experience only.

The Kees mod is great, well by doing a half job. What I did was exactly how you would normally apply, however instead of blocking the outside middle hole with a felt disc (area where you don't need to unscrew) just don't apply any felt.

I have first hand experience, and when you do block that hole, the bass will literally get crushed from the sound frequencies. I was like What??

I then removed it after a few days, and the bass is prominent again. Of course caveats apply and YMMV. This was my experience anyway.

 

[winkyeye]

I think what affected the bass the most for me was putting in additional layers of material inside the cup. I don't notice a huge difference with changing out the felts on the outside. My impression from KeeS's post was that the outer felt pads were to get rid of the metallic sounding treble. I could be wrong though.

 

[n-phect]

Quote:

I think what affected the bass the most for me was putting in additional layers of material inside the cup. I don't notice a huge difference with changing out the felts on the outside. My impression from KeeS's post was that the outer felt pads were to get rid of the metallic sounding treble. I could be wrong though.

my silver dragon (imo) got rid of that , that didn't go away with 400 hours of burn in and an amp

 

[MetroBBOY]

In theory you might be right. By dampening the inside cup, you should be reducing the bass. My case seems unique, but I've tested it twice and it was definitely occurring for me regarding the outside felt. Hmm..

 

[MetroBBOY]

Up for sale now....

 
http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/563679/ultrasone-pro-900#post_7623225

 

[Leander7777]

So my Pro2900s arrived today. I'm guessing I'm the only one that currently owns both the pro900 and the pro2900.
I'm not goning to make any premature judgments, but these might very well be the headphones you are looking for MetroBBOY.
More on that soon...

 

[winkyeye]

Did you have to hardwire over the stock circuit board for the silver dragon cables?
 
Quote:

my silver dragon (imo) got rid of that , that didn't go away with 400 hours of burn in and an amp

 

[Sanctuary]

Already posted a much larger initial assessment of these in the gaming headphone thread, but here's the condensed version:
 
1.  The default cables probably are extremely inefficient.  It's nice that they have the screw in feature, but I had a lot of problems with the straight cable.  It took me four attempts to even get it to lock into place correctly.  I had no issues with the coiled cable.
 
2.  These require an amp OR nothing but lossless audio.  It's already been stated that they accentuate the flaws in lossless audio, and that's an understatement.
 
3.  The default black pads suck, period.  They leak too much, and also barely isolate more than an open headphone.
 
4.  Will these "get better" after 40 - 200 hours of burn in?  Who knows.  There's not been any real scientific proof that it has any drastic effect on the sound, and most reports are anecdotal.  Some of these cases could be true, but often it's a matter of you simply acclimating to the sound.  I'm not really able to judge one way or another yet, so I'll save that criticism for two or three months from now.  Out of the box the bass is "fine", but it's nowhere near what I was expecting from all of the complaints as well as praises.  There is a very minor bump at certain frequencies, but it doesn't actually sound that much better than a cheap pair of HD280s (which people seem to love to trash, but they were kings of their price bracket for a very long time).
 
If recabling and repadding these ends up bringing out their "true" nature, then great.  Except, if you're literally required to spend an additional $350 just for the extra parts, it almost makes them seem like a complete waste of money over simply spending $350 + what you paid for the 900s and just buying another pair of headphones that are better by default.

 

[Digital-Pride]

Quote:

So my Pro2900s arrived today. I'm guessing I'm the only one that currently owns both the pro900 and the pro2900.
I'm not goning to make any premature judgments, but these might very well be the headphones you are looking for MetroBBOY.
More on that soon...

Awesome!  I, with great anticipation, look forward to your more detailed thoughts on both and how about some photos as well?

 

[shamrock134]

Quote:

 

...

It's unfortunate you aren't enjoying them, but I can't imagine your impressions will change due to 'burn-in'. What are you running them with? Can you still return them before it's too late?

 

[BournePerfect]

Man you are gonna make a LOT of people happy with this comparison!! I'm mainly curious to hear if they have a more natural sounding tonality/timbre to them...as I always felt that was the 900s glaring weakness.
 
-Daniel
 
Quote:

So my Pro2900s arrived today. I'm guessing I'm the only one that currently owns both the pro900 and the pro2900.
I'm not goning to make any premature judgments, but these might very well be the headphones you are looking for MetroBBOY.
More on that soon...

 

 

[Sanctuary]

Quote:

It's unfortunate you aren't enjoying them, but I can't imagine your impressions will change due to 'burn-in'. What are you running them with? Can you still return them before it's too late?

They aren't really "amped", which is why I said they will require an amp (or I would hope that's the issue here, because quite frankly this is inexcusable).  I've had them running through my PC, that has a relatively good onboard sound chip, and I've also tried various EQ settings through Foobar.  Doesn't really do much.

I've also had them running through the Pioneer DD/DTS box.  It's strong enough to power them loud enough, but even so these are absolutely awful for movies fresh out of the box--and without an amp (most likely).  And awful is a gross understatement.  The bass sounds fine, but the dialogue in Dolby Headphone is absolutely crushed.  It's so bad, that when I turn the volume up so that it's loud enough that speech is audible enough to understand the words being said, anytime environmental effects in the higher register happen, I have to rotate the ear pads so that they are off my ears quite a bit because the highs are so ear piercingly shrill that it seriously hurts my ears.  That might actually be why BournePerfect prefers watching movies in stereo.  It's not because S-Logic is so good in stereo, it's because they just sound terrible in Dolby Headphone by comparison.

There's also a major issue with what sounds like distortion in the frequencies right between the "low" and midrange, and the midrange to high.  Often punches or explosions sound like they are coming out of a busted speaker.  So far the only thing that they've sounded "ok" on are my Cowon S9, and with lossless audio tracks only.  No headphones at this price range and above should sound like a Wal-Mart $10 special until you babysit it for months, praying to the speaker gods to bless your drivers and hope it does anything.

By contrast, the default pair of wireless headphones that came with my Pioneer box actually sound a hell of a lot better than these in every single area other than the very low bass, and it also doesn't have as much of an impact.  That being said, it's not like they have no bass, yet they utterly destroy these for clarity.

*Edit - Yeah, something is definitely wrong.  I'm watching Saving Private Ryan and the explosions sound extremely distorted.  Like turning on "Bass Boost" with an old pair of crappy Walkman headphones.

 

[winkyeye]

Quote:

Already posted a much larger initial assessment of these in the gaming headphone thread, but here's the condensed version:
 
1.  The default cables probably are extremely inefficient.  It's nice that they have the screw in feature, but I had a lot of problems with the straight cable.  It took me four attempts to even get it to lock into place correctly.  I had no issues with the coiled cable.
 
2.  These require an amp OR nothing but lossless audio.  It's already been stated that they accentuate the flaws in lossless audio, and that's an understatement.
 
3.  The default black pads suck, period.  They leak too much, and also barely isolate more than an open headphone.
 
4.  Will these "get better" after 40 - 200 hours of burn in?  Who knows.  There's not been any real scientific proof that it has any drastic effect on the sound, and most reports are anecdotal.  Some of these cases could be true, but often it's a matter of you simply acclimating to the sound.  I'm not really able to judge one way or another yet, so I'll save that criticism for two or three months from now.  Out of the box the bass is "fine", but it's nowhere near what I was expecting from all of the complaints as well as praises.  There is a very minor bump at certain frequencies, but it doesn't actually sound that much better than a cheap pair of HD280s (which people seem to love to trash, but they were kings of their price bracket for a very long time).
 
If recabling and repadding these ends up bringing out their "true" nature, then great.  Except, if you're literally required to spend an additional $350 just for the extra parts, it almost makes them seem like a complete waste of money over simply spending $350 + what you paid for the 900s and just buying another pair of headphones that are better by default.

These sound unamped for me, and I highly doubt you'd be able to differentiate anything over 256kbps anyways. When I put them on for the first time everyday, I hate them, however, the more I listen, the more I like them. I don't know if it's their sound signature that takes a lot of getting used to or not even though I think I naturally prefer the V shaped response, but they sound VERY thin when I first put them on. After usually 15-30 minutes into listening to them though, they're clearly the most superior phones I've listened to.
 
Sucks that you didn't like them though