[Allucid]

I was thinking of getting the Croc Black with my Matte Black. Not a huge difference but still worth trying.

Croc black and shadow will look amazing! I had the LP2s in croc red, and it was droolable.

Looking forward to my Matte Black M100s! I sold my Shadow M100s and bought the Matte black.

Shadow looks good, but it wears pretty easily and you have to clean it with microfiber cloth every so often, else it looks tacky instead of lethal cool.


What do you all think? Shadow or Matte?

MATTE vs. SHADOW - A SALES # QUAGMIRE

PRE-PS- Sorry typos do not have much time!

Forum team - the sales data of Matte vs Shadow is AMAZING and a quagmire that we cannot solve.  When we first launched M-100, Matte Black destroyed Shadow in sales.  After New Years, Shadow beat Matte Black.  Since then, it is wildly neck to neck and has huge variations month to month that we cannot make sense of. I will ask my CFO if we can share a graph of Matte vs Shadow vs White sales, but it is quite amazing.  There is ZERO logical sense in the drastic sales patterns.  We just have to make black models equally.  

Perhaps it is customization and the adoption of M-100 as a standard for DJ use too?


Here is my theory variables:

1) Matte black is better for customization as it works with all color shields and cables (early adopters had time to customize but normal customers did not) 
2) Shadow is unique with the suede (our suede is durable as we coat it and we offer lifetime 50% off policies for extreme abuse)
3) Matte somehow is the weapon of choice for Musicians/DJs

It is sad as Shadow was the M-80 "launch color" and was inspired from Italian sports car interiors, Apple's retail team friends and even Deadmau5' manager who said we should make a mouse hair headphone. However, we chose not to make an XS in Shadow color right now as we are making more shields and cable colors to complement them.  

Many other brands pushed red/black too hard and it was copied by everybody. We moved our brand logo and everything to a dark red years ago from Pantone 186 to 188c to stay different.  The red we chose is deep and sexy compared to others. However, we still wanted to rocket ship to venus versus zag so we moved to black/white with a hint of orange as a brand that declares we are all about vintage virtues. (ROYGBIV? - no we'll skip yellow for sure) 

I admit, I love dark red, suede and stitching as it is like high-end cars so it will be a staple to the V-MODA collection forever.  However, we will be more seasonal in our CMF selections (Colors/Materials/Finish). 

#SOMEZIGSOMEZAGVMODAROCKETSTOVENUS

Future Shields or Ideas?
We made a lot of variations of M-100 in development including Avicii Headphones made from Ralph Lauren Denim & Supply denim  (that are in stores) and a 24k edition, but we never sold them.  What do you want in the future if we release a special color?  I made a matte green shield that is AMAZING with Matte Black, the best IMO... it'll be available in a few days. SURPRISE.

-V

You're totally right. Shadow only allows some colors to be customised, and I loved the color. I switched to matte black for customisation and the fact that the 'leather' is more durable than the 'velvet' in waterproofing and cleaning. I found shadow to be too glossy and pick up prints. I compared my shadow M100 to my Matte XS, and personally the matte XS won in color. The shadow looks lethally cool, but is a short-term investment in terms of durability, the gloss paint can chip easily and scratches show up more, probably the reason why DJs choose Matte - waterproofing, don't have to clean it, customisation.

Mix brushed metal with matte. Best of both worlds. To be honest, shadow gets boring after a while. With Matte, which I experienced with my LP2, buy about 4 shields and wing plates, and you get 8 variations of a 'new' headphone which can be unique.

In the future I'd like to see Midnight blue croc shields, and gold (hopefully not 24k hold!) croc shields. I saw the carbon fibre shields on Facebook and I approve as a designer.

Keep the good work up, Val!

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well not everyone is into customization or "paying for looks" in other than clothes perhaps. I buy headphones for listening to them, not as a fashionita statement. Besides I only listen at home so customization is a moot point then.

The nicest default looking color scheme for me personally is the Shadow. White to me is too classy and in general I try to avoid white gadgets as I don't want to be associated with the Apple fanbase either. Matte is too boring to me, I had a LP2 (matte) for a while and it looked just too plain to me (I was going to trade it but got scammed). 

Shadow has some nice accents with the Suede with red stitching and very deep red glowing "V", the brushed aluminium is also the nicest looking shield to me on its own and fits this scheme perfectly. Glossy finish to me is in generally nicer looking than matte, as a piano player it reminds me of that glossy piano black look. 

Hopefully the Shadow theme won't totally disappear now, my next V-Moda product I try *cough Revolver cough* I'd prefer to be that theme.

 

[x RELIC x]

Posted this in the X5 thread and thought it may belong here as well.

All of my sources are REDBOOK CD lossless rips or high resolution 24bit 48-192kHz. The m-100's are very bass heavy and can sound muddy on a lot of tracks. I think the bass is pretty tight and fun to listen to, but it's really too much sometimes. However, with the EQ I can make the X5 and m-100 combination sound a lot closer to my LCD-2.3. I can hear all of the details in the highs and mids and still enjoy a fun bass without it overwhelming the the other frequencies and with no clipping. Fiio reduced the output for the EQ by 6db for clipping headroom and it really works out great to 'cut' the undesired frequencies instead of boosting. I really like this sound and I find myself listening to it more than my LCD/Pan Am combination (very good together BTW), partially because it's more convenient but mostly because I really like the sound. I don't get the same liquid sound as from the LCD-2, but it's very good. Fun.


Here is my EQ for the m-100's.

Adding the Fiio e12 seems to add more space to the sound.

Cheers

Edit: I should point out that High Gain at a volume of 80 would be too loud for me with the m-100's. I was testing the X5 with the LCD-2 and have since hooked up the line out to the e12 and haven't reduced the volume and gain since. I don't want others to hurt their ears by mimicking what they see in my pic.

 

[DrHouse]

  Maybe too simple, but did you try to gently pull it back?

 Umm...I woke up this morning and the cables had magically readjusted to original length again. OK these headphones can fix themselves, V-Moda FTW.

 

[plakat]

They can vanish into the cups as well, so maybe that happened. In that case it can be pulled out quite easily, i.e. by moving the cups.

 

[golferbrad6664]

my little Yorkshire terrier pup just tried chewing my speak easy cable. Cable stood up well except for the one button that she managed to chew just enough for it not to work but I still get quality sound.  These cables are built tough!

 

[Allucid]

@rpgwizard
True, but I wanted the matte so they would hold up for longer with the 'leather'. The 'velvet' didn't hold up too good for me.

 

[chuckle490]

Posted this in the X5 thread and thought it may belong here as well.

All of my sources are REDBOOK CD lossless rips or high resolution 24bit 48-192kHz. The m-100's are very bass heavy and can sound muddy on a lot of tracks. I think the bass is pretty tight and fun to listen to, but it's really too much sometimes. However, with the EQ I can make the X5 and m-100 combination sound a lot closer to my LCD-2.3. I can hear all of the details in the highs and mids and still enjoy a fun bass without it overwhelming the the other frequencies and with no clipping. Fiio reduced the output for the EQ by 6db for clipping headroom and it really works out great to 'cut' the undesired frequencies instead of boosting. I really like this sound and I find myself listening to it more than my LCD/Pan Am combination (very good together BTW), partially because it's more convenient but mostly because I really like the sound. I don't get the same liquid sound as from the LCD-2, but it's very good. Fun.
Here is my EQ for the m-100's.

Adding the Fiio e12 seems to add more space to the sound.

Cheers

Edit: I should point out that High Gain at a volume of 80 would be too loud for me with the m-100's. I was testing the X5 with the LCD-2 and have since hooked up the line out to the e12 and haven't reduced the volume and gain since. I don't want others to hurt their ears by mimicking what they see in my pic.

Would you recommend the X5/M-100 combo? Miceblue really disliked the combo, but he is the only other person I've seen talk about the two.

 

[MCImes]

Would you recommend the X5/M-100 combo? Miceblue really disliked the combo, but he is the only other person I've seen talk about the two.

 


I thought the X5 had a little low frequency boost and in some music it came across as muddy to me. I personally liked the DX50 more than the X5 with my m100s. Here is an except from my review:

To my ears, the Lows on the X5 are boosted. They seem more present than on my DX50. This really comes through with things like a bass guitar, and the lower notes metal guitars with distortion. I think I heard the upper lows bleeding into the lower mids on a lot of rock songs like Godsmack’s Bad Religion, Weezer’s Pork and Beans, and Disturbed’s Voices.

The Mid’s also seem very prominent to me. The vocals come across very nicely in general with a good, natural sound. Once thing I noticed: there is a certain frequency in some rock songs, a medium-high guitar note, that really pierces and seems overly loud. I noticed this in some of the rock songs mentioned above, and specifically in Korn’s Reclaim My Place.

------------------

It was most prominent in Rock music with distorted guitar. It was less noticeable in other types of music.

 

[chuckle490]

Would you recommend the X5/M-100 combo? Miceblue really disliked the combo, but he is the only other person I've seen talk about the two.

 


I thought the X5 had a little low frequency boost and in some music it came across as muddy to me. I personally liked the DX50 more than the X5 with my m100s. Here is an except from my review:

To my ears, the Lows on the X5 are boosted. They seem more present than on my DX50. This really comes through with things like a bass guitar, and the lower notes metal guitars with distortion. I think I heard the upper lows bleeding into the lower mids on a lot of rock songs like Godsmack’s Bad Religion, Weezer’s Pork and Beans, and Disturbed’s Voices.

The Mid’s also seem very prominent to me. The vocals come across very nicely in general with a good, natural sound. Once thing I noticed: there is a certain frequency in some rock songs, a medium-high guitar note, that really pierces and seems overly loud. I noticed this in some of the rock songs mentioned above, and specifically in Korn’s Reclaim My Place.

------------------

It was most prominent in Rock music with distorted guitar. It was less noticeable in other types of music.

I think I'll stay with my iPod classic/C5 then. I can't really justify purchasing the X5 unless I'm guaranteed better sq.

 

[SpArkLeS]

When I use my m-100 with my asus xonar essence stx the sound is so low an hollow even when I amp it. Strange, luckily I only use it on phone and macbook

 

[SpiderNhan]

When I use my m-100 with my asus xonar essence stx the sound is so low an hollow even when I amp it. Strange, luckily I only use it on phone and macbook

Which audio cable are you using? There are compatibility issues with the SpeakEasy on certain device. Try flipping your cable around so the 45 degree plus is in your M-100 and the straight plug in his our Xonar and see if that helps.

 

[plakat]

Or maybe try to pull out the plug just a tiny bit if you're using the Speakeasy cable (i.e. with mic). Might be a connectivity, caused by the TRRS 4-contact connector.
Switching to the Shareplay cable should help in that case.

 

[Mediahound]

Originally Posted by valkolton /img/forum/go_quote.gif

What do you want in the future if we release a special color?  I made a matte green shield that is AMAZING with Matte Black, the best IMO... it'll be available in a few days. SURPRISE.
 
-V

 
Hi Val,
 
How about a camo version? Or maybe military army green or khaki.  
 
I know it may sound strange but I think would look way cool and definitely fits in with the 'durability' ethic. 

 

[SomeGuyDude]

   
Hi Val,
 
How about a camo version? Or maybe military army green or khaki. 
 
I know it may sound strange but I think would look way cool and definitely fits in with the 'durability' ethic. 

 
OOoooooo, digital camo XS would be STUNNING. Imagine this kind of pattern on the XS.