For those wondering if they should grab the XL pads for these. I suggest you don’t unless the comfort for you is very bad on the stock pads.
Here is my analysis below for you to determine for yourself. please keep in mind two things:
1. I am testing the sound via WIRED connected to a Schiit audio Lyr 2 with Lysst solid state tubes fed from a mojo
2. I listen wiith THiS earpad placement on my head. VERY important: there are two positions that I can wear these pads in, either fully on the ridges of my ear, as in, the back of the face of the pads lines up with the back curve of my ear and sits on top of my ears fully, or I can slide them back to havethe backs of my ears sit inside the pad and the front of the pad rests on the little bump at the front of my ear. The first position has much better imaging and depth. The second has better soundstage and everything in the stage moves VERY forward. If things were happening a few inches in front of your face, they now sit on the surface of your eyes. With the XL pads my ears fit completely inside the pads like an over ear, which I love because it is SO much more comfortable. For the stock pads, I prefer them the first position, even though its much less comfortable, it sounds better.)
The XL pads:
With the XL pads on, mids lose body, female vocals sound shrill. Midrange sounds “canned”, like youre listening to it through a cup. Sub bass becomes subdued and loses it’s rumble. mid bass still prominent but gets more punchy and becomes much closer to linear(still north of neutral about 2DB. I am actually happy with the amount of bass there is, although the qualities of the bass im not a fan of here.. headphones lose dynamics and gains lots more air, better treble detail, vocals become more raspy, but the overall tone sounds.. hollow. There is better soundstage. For a midrange lover, you will not like this change. For the treble heads, the XL pads add some glare here, and the qualities of the highs hint at the possibility of sibilance. The XL pads have horrible isolation now. I hear like everything happening in the gym now.
The Stock Pads:
Putting the pads back on, immediately the vocals have a much better timbre, they become more natural and lifelike, but now the lower midrange/upper bass is very forward. Bass emphasis is now +3 or 4 db. Sub-bass is great now, although midbass suffers. Vocals sound beautiful. they’ve lost that gross raspy feel and sound like a real person and the emotion of the vocals come back, but at the cost of air. , the bass has lost much of its linearity. It now has its rumble back, and the punch seems to be softer, but it is much weightier of a punch. It kind of feels like the bass lost a bit of texture. Imaging is much better with the stock pads . Depth is much better. Staging feels much better defined. Placement and separation is more accurate. Treble has become very rolled off with the stock pads. It is a weird difference, the XL pads brought the treble out too much, and the stock pads obscure the treble too much. Here is to hoping Val is putting effort into R&D for an XL version of these new pads.
Final thing I wanted to mention. The difference between wired and wireless is HUGE. I was pretty disappointed by how the crossfade 2 wireless sounded with Bluetooth, even though im using APTx with the rose gold version, but the wired mode makes up for it. Its like I was listening to a whole different headphone. Lets be clear again. They need some power. Straight out of my phone or out of my XDP100R it sounds better wired than Bluetooth, but it really comes into its own and even SHINES when amped. I don’t want to get too into it because this Is pretty long already, but almost everything about the sound improves. The wired performace was really a surprise to me since I did not know ahead of time that they tuned this headphone with wired mode first, wireless second. Kind of a bummer because I only bought these because of the wireless capabilities and because they are the only headphone out of my pile of headphones that I can actually wear in public and not feel like a goof.
I hope this helps. I was looking for a post just like this but couldn’t find it on this thread so I got some XL pads to try it out myself. Because I needed answers. LOL
Here is my analysis below for you to determine for yourself. please keep in mind two things:
1. I am testing the sound via WIRED connected to a Schiit audio Lyr 2 with Lysst solid state tubes fed from a mojo
2. I listen wiith THiS earpad placement on my head. VERY important: there are two positions that I can wear these pads in, either fully on the ridges of my ear, as in, the back of the face of the pads lines up with the back curve of my ear and sits on top of my ears fully, or I can slide them back to havethe backs of my ears sit inside the pad and the front of the pad rests on the little bump at the front of my ear. The first position has much better imaging and depth. The second has better soundstage and everything in the stage moves VERY forward. If things were happening a few inches in front of your face, they now sit on the surface of your eyes. With the XL pads my ears fit completely inside the pads like an over ear, which I love because it is SO much more comfortable. For the stock pads, I prefer them the first position, even though its much less comfortable, it sounds better.)
The XL pads:
With the XL pads on, mids lose body, female vocals sound shrill. Midrange sounds “canned”, like youre listening to it through a cup. Sub bass becomes subdued and loses it’s rumble. mid bass still prominent but gets more punchy and becomes much closer to linear(still north of neutral about 2DB. I am actually happy with the amount of bass there is, although the qualities of the bass im not a fan of here.. headphones lose dynamics and gains lots more air, better treble detail, vocals become more raspy, but the overall tone sounds.. hollow. There is better soundstage. For a midrange lover, you will not like this change. For the treble heads, the XL pads add some glare here, and the qualities of the highs hint at the possibility of sibilance. The XL pads have horrible isolation now. I hear like everything happening in the gym now.
The Stock Pads:
Putting the pads back on, immediately the vocals have a much better timbre, they become more natural and lifelike, but now the lower midrange/upper bass is very forward. Bass emphasis is now +3 or 4 db. Sub-bass is great now, although midbass suffers. Vocals sound beautiful. they’ve lost that gross raspy feel and sound like a real person and the emotion of the vocals come back, but at the cost of air. , the bass has lost much of its linearity. It now has its rumble back, and the punch seems to be softer, but it is much weightier of a punch. It kind of feels like the bass lost a bit of texture. Imaging is much better with the stock pads . Depth is much better. Staging feels much better defined. Placement and separation is more accurate. Treble has become very rolled off with the stock pads. It is a weird difference, the XL pads brought the treble out too much, and the stock pads obscure the treble too much. Here is to hoping Val is putting effort into R&D for an XL version of these new pads.
Final thing I wanted to mention. The difference between wired and wireless is HUGE. I was pretty disappointed by how the crossfade 2 wireless sounded with Bluetooth, even though im using APTx with the rose gold version, but the wired mode makes up for it. Its like I was listening to a whole different headphone. Lets be clear again. They need some power. Straight out of my phone or out of my XDP100R it sounds better wired than Bluetooth, but it really comes into its own and even SHINES when amped. I don’t want to get too into it because this Is pretty long already, but almost everything about the sound improves. The wired performace was really a surprise to me since I did not know ahead of time that they tuned this headphone with wired mode first, wireless second. Kind of a bummer because I only bought these because of the wireless capabilities and because they are the only headphone out of my pile of headphones that I can actually wear in public and not feel like a goof.
I hope this helps. I was looking for a post just like this but couldn’t find it on this thread so I got some XL pads to try it out myself. Because I needed answers. LOL
It is now my main gym headphone
