[aleki]

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I really dissagree that the mids are recessed, they are not forward compared to the bass but by no means are they recessed! If you want to hear recessed mids listen to the DT770

I dont know man.. I've listened to a bit of headphones myself, and thought the mids came across as distant to me. By contrast, it makes the M-50's sound like reference headphones

 

[danny93]

I dont know man.. I've listened to a bit of headphones myself, and thought the mids came across as distant to me. By contrast, it makes the M-50's sound like reference headphones :blink:

Hmm that's strange as the DT770s mids are meant to be recessed as are the M50 where the M100 could be classed as laid back I suppose but compared to the Beyers novway are they more recessed

Is weird how different people hear differently haha

 

[329161]

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Curious, if you're skeptical about burn-in but hopeful that they'll improve, what's the explanation of the improvement? Actually I know if you ask Val, he'll say it's the pad moulding to your ears rather than driver burn-in. But what are your thoughts?
 
By the way, at least in my opinion, all of audio is "perceived" .

That last statement may be true, but I think preconceived expectations can alter how we experience audio. For example, the mere fact that many say that burning in audio equipment will lead to better sound will influence us into thinking that we actually hear better quality audio, when in reality we do not if scientifically observed. This is discussed at length in a current long running thread in these forums (as you probably know). When I said I was skeptical of the "burn-in" theory, I mean that I have doubts, but I'm not totally convinced either way. 

 

[AnakChan]

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That last statement may be true, but I think preconceived expectations can alter how we experience audio. For example, the mere fact that many say that burning in audio equipment will lead to better sound will influence us into thinking that we actually hear better quality audio, when in reality we do not if scientifically observed. This is discussed at length in a current long running thread in these forums (as you probably know). When I said I was skeptical of the "burn-in" theory, I mean that I have doubts, but I'm not totally convinced either way. 

 
Personally for me at least, the burn-in isn't so theoretical. It's an easy test 'cos I can access multiple units of the same product (ok not every product but for some products) and burn in one unit but not the other. Admittedly some products are more susceptible to burn in whilst others are not. e.g. with BA's I've found it hard to hear any difference in burn-in but for dynamic drivers and some amps I can hear the difference.
 
In fact, for my very M-100 if I don't use it for some time, I find I do have to "exercise" the drivers again for a couple of hours to get it to "full performance".
 
Anyway, in the end I respect each person's opinion about this, just sharing my personal experiences.

 

[musical-kage]

Quote:

I really dissagree that the mids are recessed, they are not forward compared to the bass but by no means are they recessed! If you want to hear recessed mids listen to the DT770

The mids don't feel warm though so that takes a lot of the pleasure from listening for me.
 
You know somethings wrong when my M-100s were beside me and on my head were 20 quid Sony MDR-XD200s all night.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

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The mids don't feel warm though so that takes a lot of the pleasure from listening for me.
 
You know somethings wrong when my M-100s were beside me and on my head were 20 quid Sony MDR-XD200s all night.

 
Different strokes for different folks, I also prefer warmer/fuller and a bit forward/in-your-face mids why I haven't given M100 a try. Actually the upper mids are not recessed on M100 but the lower mids are, especially around the critical 500Hz area that gives fullness to instruments, vocals etc. This headphone had been so much more universally likable if it hadn't that 500Hz drop, such a small thing that differs it from being the "all-purpose" heavy recommendable $300 headphone. Shame you never get to betatest headphones.
 
I can tell you this, if it had had the lower mids as the limegreen drawn line, we'd have heard much more praise from it.
 
 

 

[musical-kage]

Quote:

 
Different strokes for different folks, I also prefer warmer/fuller and a bit forward/in-your-face mids why I haven't given M100 a try. Actually the upper mids are not recessed on M100 but the lower mids are, especially around the critical 500Hz area that gives fullness to instruments, vocals etc. This headphone had been so much more universally likable if it hadn't that 500Hz drop, such a small thing that differs it from being the "all-purpose" heavy recommendable $300 headphone. Shame you never get to betatest headphones.
 
I can tell you this, if it had had the lower mids as the limegreen drawn line, we'd have heard much more praise from it.
 
 

But you can have a warmer set without sacrificing detail?
 
Is it for example a fact that if you have detail, and clarity etc, everything sounds colder?
 
Something I've just been wondering because the MDR-XD200's do show some detail, but the mids feel so warm, but they are obviously not all that great at detail because they aren't premium phones.

 

[danny93]

But you can have a warmer set without sacrificing detail?

Is it for example a fact that if you have detail, and clarity etc, everything sounds colder?

Something I've just been wondering because the MDR-XD200's do show some detail, but the mids feel so warm, but they are obviously not all that great at detail because they aren't premium phones.

The M100 is warmer than my DT770 yet the M100 has more detail

 

[Craigster75]

Quote:

 
Different strokes for different folks, I also prefer warmer/fuller and a bit forward/in-your-face mids why I haven't given M100 a try. Actually the upper mids are not recessed on M100 but the lower mids are, especially around the critical 500Hz area that gives fullness to instruments, vocals etc. This headphone had been so much more universally likable if it hadn't that 500Hz drop, such a small thing that differs it from being the "all-purpose" heavy recommendable $300 headphone. Shame you never get to betatest headphones.
 
I can tell you this, if it had had the lower mids as the limegreen drawn line, we'd have heard much more praise from it.
 
 

I suppose frequency variation is about tradeoffs and I would imagine Val considered the impact of a low-mid dip on vocals, but this looks like it also helps explain the dynamic bass punch of the M-100.  Vocal presentation is important to me, even more than bass impact, and I don't hear this dip to the extent that it appears on the graph.  While mids could benefit from being more forward, I would never call them distant.  Certainly, the detail is there which doesn't appear on this graph.  I can listen to artists like Sade, Jewel, Sheryl Crow, Emeli Sande, Christina Perri and seriously enjoy the vocal presentation through the M-100.

 

[YSoElmo]

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Yes, although I'm a little skeptical of the benefits of burn in on perceived listening quality, I am hopeful that they will improve with time. As it stands, I do think they are an enjoyable headphone- just not as good as all the build-up on Headfi made them out to be. 

Burn-in actually does help a lot. And rather then "from memory" listening, I know that from "back to back" listening. They accidentally sent me shadow headphones when I ordered Matte Black. So I stopped playing my ex-shadows, put the Matte Blacks in, and they sounded so horrible I wanted to cry. I was so missing the shadow headphones sounds, but not looks. But I boxed them up anyways, and let the Matte Blacks burn in, and they are back to normal. Burn in use to be a "theory" for me, but now I know otherwise. =)

 

[miceblue]

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Quote:

Yes, although I'm a little skeptical of the benefits of burn in on perceived listening quality, I am hopeful that they will improve with time. As it stands, I do think they are an enjoyable headphone- just not as good as all the build-up on Headfi made them out to be. 

Burn-in actually does help a lot. And rather then "from memory" listening, I know that from "back to back" listening. They accidentally sent me shadow headphones when I ordered Matte Black. So I stopped playing my ex-shadows, put the Matte Blacks in, and they sounded so horrible I wanted to cry. I was so missing the shadow headphones sounds, but not looks. But I boxed them up anyways, and let the Matte Blacks burn in, and they are back to normal. Burn in use to be a "theory" for me, but now I know otherwise. =)

^ That's for a K 701 headphone, which is infamous for being a headphone that "requires" a lot of burn in. Graphs indicate a very small difference, not a big one and whether or not it's audible is still in question.
 
While I still think burn-in was pretty negligible for the M-100, I would say burn-in is beneficial for providing solid opinions about an audio product so that people don't yell at you. I did my tests from memory because if you can't hear a difference, then burn-in didn't really help and/or occur. Listening "back to back", you can develop a bias for the sound and your brain might adapt to the sound as well. I purposely didn't listen to any headphones/earphones for the week I let the M-100's burn-in exactly to avoid this "brain bias". You can listen to a burned-in headphone that sounds bright and you'll probably think it's piercing. Listen to the same burned-in headphone again two hours later and you might think otherwise.
 
Anyway this is getting off-topic, there's a huge discussion for this in the Sound Science section and people often bring up the psychology behind the "brain bias" I was talking about. That plus as what tinyman392 mentioned, the burn-in could be a result of the earpads adjusting to your ears (during my burn-in period, I had them folded in storage, not on anything), or the cable being oxidised.

^ My burn-in setup. Human interaction was minimal to avoid any biases.

 

[YSoElmo]

Quote:

 
While I still think burn-in was pretty negligible for the M-100, I would say burn-in is beneficial for providing solid opinions about an audio product so that people don't yell at you. I did my tests from memory because if you can't hear a difference, then burn-in didn't really help and/or occur. Listening "back to back", you can develop a bias for the sound and your brain might adapt to the sound as well. I purposely didn't listen to any headphones/earphones for the week I let the M-100's burn-in exactly to avoid this "brain bias". You can listen to a burned-in headphone that sounds bright and you'll probably think it's piercing. Listen to the same burned-in headphone again two hours later and you might think otherwise.

That could be true for some. However, in my case I have no...erm... "brain bias" (Lol?). As the concept of burning in wasn't familiar to me before I came up with the decision that the Matte Black's sounded like ****, whilst the Shadows sounded great. I actually thought maybe my Matte Black unit was defective or something. So I did research and decided to wait to see if they would sound better, and they did. Although, since you were aware that people claim burn-in and you tried to test that theory, you probably did experience "brain bias" opposing that concept.
 
Edit: Keep in mind, your headphones were also from the VTF-100 batch. All of those headphones were tested by Val & company (mentioned in a previous post, from a while back) before being sent out. Giving them time to "burn in" by someone else, before you even received them. =)

 

[kskwerl]

From right out of the box they sound pretty dark and the mids are clearly pretty recessed but for some reason I feel that I'm really really going to like these. Very relaxing and smooth.

 

[clairyvic]

Try the paper towel thing! ^^^

 

[wes008]

I've been ignoring this thread because I've been enjoying my M-100s too much ^_^ However, I've returned because I got a little moisture in them recently, and following that I've noticed a pop or clip in some songs. Listening for those specifically, I only hear them occasionally in lossy tracks, and not at all in lossless files, but I'm thinking that might be psychological. Anyone have an idea of what it might be? (oh yeah, this is unamped out of a macbook, might try it with my dac/amp)