Today, January 23rd, is a special day.
It was one year ago today -- at the Houston airport on the way in to the U.S. to visit family -- that I bought my first pair of V-Moda Crossfade M-100 headphones at a Brookstone store there (after comparing prices online). My old, fake pair of “Beats by Dr. Dre” headphones that I got at a cheap electronics market in Chongqing that previous fall had kept breaking on me, so I decided to get a genuine pair of V-Moda M-100s after hearing a lot of great things about them on the Internet.
Little did I know that this would be the first step in a lonnnng journey that would improve my portable headphone system so much that, today -- one year later -- my system sounds so amazingly incredible...that if you compared the way it used to sound -- even during my visit to the U.S. last winter -- the sound would be absolutely and completely unrecognizable.
So,...that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it! You can view the “complete user guide” to Version 4.0 of these illustrious EQ presets by clicking on the following link: http://www.head-fi.org/t/795363/discoprojoe-s-rockbox-eq-presets-version-4-0-complete-user-guide
And so,...one year after getting my first pair of M-100s, as a hardcore V-Moda Crossfade M-100 fanboy inside and out, I can happily say...Thank you, Val Kolton ( @valkolton ), for putting out the most awesome headphones in the world.
A year ago at that Brookstone store the Houston airport, I remember one of the main songs in my music collection that I used to sample the M-100 model on display there was the Karaoke Version of Utada Hikaru's "Beautiful World." (It's especially a great tune to enjoy while looking out an airplane window.)
With my old, fake Beats headphones (and the even-cheaper Skullcandy and Radio Shack ones I had before those), I would typically use one of the simple V-shaped EQ presets on my iPod Classic (in the original Apple firmware). It was non-customizable, so I usually chose the "Jazz" or "Rock" presets.
So when trying out the V-Modas at the Brookstone store on that day, I remember immediately turning off that EQ (and setting it to flat), since the M-100s had so much better treble and bass than any of my old headphones. I remember thinking, "Wow! I don't even hardly ever need to use the 'Jazz' or 'Rock' presets to boost the treble anymore. Cool!"
So earlier this evening (today), I was listening to "Beautiful World" again -- this time while using the DiscoProJoe Rockbox EQ Preset "Ultra Lite Less Treble 0." It had a massively-throbbing low end, spectacular soundstage without coloration of the upper midbass or lower midrange, decent highs, and the song seemed to wrap all the way around me as I could notice every part of the music.
By contrast, I then decided to see how far I'd come in the last year.
I turned off the EQ and bass boost feature in Rockbox and set everything to flat, turned off the Cayin C5 portable amp, and plugged my pair of M-100s directly into the iPod to hear that same song again -- with a practically-identical sound signature to the one that had "wowed" me a year earlier.
My impression of it, now, with this song? Very, very little sub-bass, bloated midbass and lower midrange that sounds "colored" and drowns out other parts of the music, no soundstage or wrap-around sound, but the highs still sounded OK. Overall, a very boring and weak sound.
And so I thought, "Holy cow,...I actually thought this sounded great a year ago!"
Maybe I've unknowingly become...an.........audiophile........over the last year?
But maybe just a weird kind of one, though,...as I don't actually consider myself one.
Oh well,...just some fun musings for this 1-year anniversary with my V-Moda headphones!
