yes off course sound is unbalanced in the beginning, but I have never seen a headphones transforming so much on a good burn out. like someone told me to keep these headphones playing for 100s of hrs straight and I am currently doing it (into 50th hr may be) and boy do they open up, the mids starts coming out, the sound starts getting more colorful. The projection / soundstage was amazing even in begnning, through bass was overpower everything and making things apparently muddy, but i could see that the drivers are, independent of their dominant bass, trying to express the sound stage almost as good as an extreme comparision to my PX-100 of a open back sound stage and projection. i could feel its only their closed back ness and overwhelming bass thats eating up all the spectrum.
only once you burn them out good do you see that expression coming out and challenging its lows.
instruments on left or right were on good left or right, strings that are to be "airy" were as adequately "airy" as i can expect on a 100$ buy (yes i got on sale!! yippie!!)
Yes "airy", and i dont know what is the term for expressing that instruments sound seem to be coming from heaven, like from everywhere rather then linear projection in ear. musicians sitting back on stage were really coming from back. as you burn them out, bass still remains strong but starts getting seperated from low mids and mid. it doesnt over power the soundscape as much, infact the bass bleeding muddiness is reduced to impressive levels. then you start getting brighter music. low frequency is, off course, never a problem right from the beginning you open the box and hook them bad boys in to you player. I have never seen a pair of headphones rattle your head, you can feel your brains leaking out of your nose on every thump. the movement of drivers and vibration of air due to it can be so boldy felt in your ears, its like, crazy man! 80s dance rock / EDM / glam rock is a heaven on these. i dont think you can get a pair for this price that will transform your dance / pop rock /eletronic world.
For other genres, after this burnout, now even expressiveness is coming along. interestingly, more you burn them i have observed, they seem to be leaking relatively more, a open back phenomenon, as they are even starting to almost sound like a open back with colors and brightness. its strange, they are supposed to be in a stone cold closed back league and they break that rule.
super tight snares in those british metal bands and progressive rock / metal, is astonishingly expressed nicely, though i know nothing comes close to Grado and the league for those mean tight snares. its ok, my Px-100 were also ever so tight and mean on those snares. my sound references has got used to very slight valley curve i guess. though it would great to get tighter snares and mids in general.
These still get muddy when they are super overwhelmed with mids, like one of those six peice metal bands with 3 overdriven guitars, strings and gothic opera thing going on, thats still too much for these to handle and at some peak points of mids, they almost do a band pass filter like act (those who spend time in composing and recording studio will know of compression and band passing / filtering), it handles everything well and suddenly at the overwhelming mid point, it does a v notch act and goes back to opening mids up after that fraction of second.
I am not sure that kind of extreme mids would be expressed, or even handled by these ever. hoping they do after the alleged 600+ hrs burn out. crossing my fingures but putting no stock, its unfair to expect so much from a closed back headphones that does such a good job in bass. But most other non eletronic acoustic genres like glam rock, straight rock. alternative / punk, they can handle a 4 piece or 3 piece band still very well after this burn out. ok i wont go as far as saying jack johnson or jason mraz or guitar trio would be expressed 100% in these, always remember these are closed back, basic physics / sound engineering principals dictates that they shouldnt.
Jazz guys, those extreme low airy bass of organs and cello, which i never saw, before these, any headphones even pick those frequencies, these bad boys can! but i think it it would be colors in mids and feelings in vocals that would slightly still turn down jazz guys.
Bottomline, folks who own these and have huge listening spectrum like me (from dance rock to trash metal), would want constantly burn these in spare time (like overnight) against high mids and guitars and acoustic instrument for 100s of hours and see them shine.
Dance music / electronic / hip hop / house guys, enjoy them after unboxing! ("unboxing"!!!, never really got the hype associated with it)
have fun! great headphones, great buy when on amazon sale (i got for 100$, definitely worth more than 100 and i feel lucky, though 250 i am not sure)