This Is Not a Review, Rene
Though I do enjoy writing formal reviews, they often lack the breathless energy, the pivot-points of sudden insight -- those flurries of revelation in transit -- which flow so easily in musical diary entries. Sometimes it's exhilarating to watch the chrysalis of opinion change into something airborne and chromatic before becoming fixed. (I'm a hulking Ovid fan, if you hadn't gathered as much.)
The following impressions are just (but not simply) that.
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Quick notes (since I'm only just hearing the M-100s tonight and am cheating in the sense of listening without burn-in):
Even if V-Moda had missed a detail in the packaging and inclusions with my pre-release M-100s -- and I'm not saying they did -- aesthetically, they missed nothing. The box might have been shipped in a manila bubble-wrap-lined envelope after being slipped into open plastic wrap, but that's actually rather evocative. It makes you feel the level of care was couture: handmade things are rarely factory-sealed.
Every post-order email I sent to customer service, every request down to the disposition of graphics on each shield, was lovingly observed. The obsessive attention to extras shows a level of care you're unlikely to find anywhere else. It's as if the one customer service foont who made an exception for you at some superb but faceless audio company had quietly taken over said company and trained its attention solely on you.
Re the supposedly unbreakable build:
You have to be extremely careful with the matte black plastic or it's likely to scratch. There was already a slight ding on the left cup just above the metal shield when I received them. I'm still wondering how I feel about that -- whether that sort of ding is inevitable with daily use or not.
False calamity 00.010a:
When I first plugged into my work computer via my Fiio E10, the resultant din was depressingly familiar: that silk-moth post-mortem gumbo, that '70s-car-stereo cavern effect, which afflicted the Crossfade LPs and, thankfully, never managed to infect the M-80s. Heartsick, I found that my long-anticipated M-100s chirped, echoed and clicked as if the music had been run through an HLF.
Then I remembered I hadn't used Fiio's LU1 extension to connect to the E10, which is necessary whenever an iPod cable is used. Immediately, the bass and treble extension filled out and the soundstage became natural. In the name of the fjord, what a monumental relief!
If only that had worked with the LPs!
To truly get a sense of the quality of these headphones, I'll have to compare them to the rest of the skull Edisons at my disposal, not my memories of the 'geists of noggin-sets past.
The surprising aspect of the sound so far is not the lows but the highs. Listening to the music of Anton Webern (as I tend to do while editing) and then switching to composer David Lang's "sunray" as played by Bang on a Can, it was the separation and clarity of the higher strings and percussion that interested me. That sound we call "air" (really the sound of protracted exhalation) was quite forward, and the relationship between the instruments had the sort of detail I'd never gotten from V-Moda in the past -- and I've listened to nearly everything by that company, from their earliest IEMs to their circs.
Likewise, Bang on a Can's orchestration of Conlon Nancarrow's "Piano Study 11" conveyed such clarity that I could follow the sub-harmonies of each secondary or tertiary instrument (any of which outlined one of the contrapuntal voices) as if it were the lead.
At first listen, the M-100's soundstage, though broader than that of the M-80, seems slightly more intimate than wide. And truthfully, I'm more interested in detail than stadium simulation.
In the course of the night, I listened to DJ Food's 2012 album,
The Search Engine (more modern digital production values than on the historically more important albums), Bill Evans' "Twelve Tone Tune" from
Blue in Green (a bit boxy sounding on the M-100s -- the
Live in Tokyo version was far more open and listenable because of the treble emphasis of the recording), Fred Frith's album of music for string quartet,
The Eleventh Hour, DJ Hidden's
The Words Below, Kangding Ray's album on Raster Noton,
Automne Fold (talk about air -- the pads were positively breathy). I'm still trying to decide what to think about the representation of low and muted instruments. What I will say is that the M-100s can make you very conscious -- possibly too conscious -- of their sig when the music contains natural acoustic lows. I'm thinking specifically of classic studio jazz with upright bass.
(I don't intend to listen to any rock because, frankly, I've had to play on a lot of rock albums to make a living and that music always seems more anthropological than fresh unless I'm writing the arrangements for strings, which is always fun. I've always found hiphop and electronic sessions more interesting than rock sessions, in which everyone's a musicologist whether they know it or not. I do find black industrial music amusing.)
Deadmau5 is another matter completely on the M-100s: If you play it on a source which is able to convey a club sound's ambiance and thunderous frequency emphasis, the warmth and rumble are practically tactile. Resonance filter sweeps tickle viscerally like the slow flourishes of foreplay in an upstairs dressing room as your nerve-ends register the spread of that endless pulse from the dance floor somewhere below.
What I'm bleating about is the
equivalent of a 2.1 system -- or, more precisely, a
three-driver IEM -- in terms of the high sparkle and low rumble. If you're familiar with the shimmer and tickle of the UE TF-10s, you'll recognize that sound (though the M-100s do have a wider soundstage). However, to get it, you'll have to use an amp and source that bring out the lows (the highs stay sparkly).
I sampled DM5's
4x4 and thought the sound was useful flat and responsive to careful lower end emphasis. I didn't listen to the tracks with Melleefresh's voice because I have a girlfriend, for the love of ultraviolet chastity belts.
(OT: If you want to hear one of the most aesthetically nuanced resonance filter sweep tracks ever recorded, have a listen to Monolake's "ionized.")
In terms of headphones and electronic frequency emphasis, Monolake's
Momentum and
Ghosts, and Bola's
Gnayse and
Kroungrine, are what I'll listen to more often than Deadmau5. I still use the decades-old
Pole 3 to test low frequencies with desktop speakers -- if you can't hear them clearly and place them spatially, then buy a different set, It's like a mutated subterranean version of the classic DX100 bass -- with its square wave like a filled rubber tub with click transients floating on the surface -- that used to be de rigeur on so many reggae sessions.
I meant to refrain from posting, but something about the combination of a club-friendly sig with reference-level separation and detail left me prone to reminiscence.
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My hoary iPod Classic has been sucking on its USB iron lung for all this time. It seems to be charged at last.
Listening to dubstep (
My Demons by Distance) on an iPod Classic with a Ray Samuels Hornet, I can now hear the wider soundstage which other members are talking about. But the intimacy of the presentation is still there -- the particularity -- because I mean
intimate in the non-pejorative, non-euphemistic sense. For me, the word also implies
closer proximity to detail, which is one of the benefits of sitting nearer to the musicians during a live acoustic performance.
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Until just now, I hadn't heard the spatial/reverberant qualities which other members had mentioned. A different source and style of music seem to have brought out a widening sense of space and placement in the past twenty minutes. Later, I'll determine whether that's related entirely to the recording, the source or both.
Clearly, dubstep uses reverb and panned echoes in particular ways that will bring out spatial elements in an exaggerated fashion. But if the effect is really as striking as other members say, then it should be apparent with dry recordings as well.
Imaging and soundstage's stadium trails become a bit more pronounced when the recording gives you a sense of space -- the feeling of three-dimensional sonic objects floating all around you.
In the past, I've noticed that reverb seems practically to
awaken V-Moda headphones (like the right incantation does a mummy with a grudge).
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No Staircase of Smoke Rises from This Non-Pipe, Foucault
Checking the tracking page periodically on Friday, October 12, I learned that my M-100s had been delivered at last at 4:00 p.m. Since the package was shipped to my work address, that meant a messenger would pick it up from the post office on Saturday and bring it back to the building, where it would await me when I returned on Monday night.
I'll have four free days to listen to these headphones extensively, but I'm disinclined to post my impressions here.
At this point, we've been inundated with reviews, nearly everyone else who pre-ordered the M-100s now has them in hand, and Mr. Kolton has said he's already given the go-ahead to mass production because he has all the feedback he needs.
If I notice anything surprising about the M-100s, I'll mention it, but the actual need for a detailed report is officially over.
Recently, Mr. Kolton mentioned that certain people had received the M-100s and were pleased with the sound
but hadn't bothered to post about it. I'm only writing this post to respond to that particular comment.
I won't have the M-100s in time for my thoughts to meet the pace of this or any other discussion. That's the
only reason I haven't posted my findings and probably won't in the future. I'll probably be happy with the M-100s and I do feel lucky to have been included in the pre-order.
I'm also not commenting on delays because they're irrelevant. I appreciate the extra trouble and care this entire project involved.
But at this point, you don't need anything from me.
Reviewing the M-100s had a deadline in terms of interest and applicability. AnakChan had to spend weeks listening and formulating his words and I'm no different. Even if the M-100s had been delivered to me a week ago, there's a good chance my review wouldn't have been relevant by the time it appeared.
I'm very pleased about the M100s that await me. I expect them to be gorgeous and I'll be happy to get the chance to use them months in advance of everyone but the rest of the VTF 300.
This post should not be construed in any way as expressing dissatisfaction. It's point is that no one need be dissatisfied with me -- or with anyone else in my current situation.
And that's precisely why initial impressions shouldn't be treated as if they were an actual review. When I reviewed Ray Samuel's original Hornet, I went through twenty-four drafts before considering the review finished.
Since a plague of enthusiasts have reviewed the M-100 already, I'm only offering impressions on the fly (they're very difficult to zip when they're buzzing past you).
Besides which, disclaimers abound in that first post, Dear Skimmer. Was "I'm only just hearing the M-100s tonight and am cheating" not writ in letters as large as an aroused wooly mammoth?
. Hey which colour scheme did you go for?
. 
