Kunlun
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2010
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No one will want to hear this, but I got my new ciems, the Harmony 8 Pro's... and they completely obliterate the W60's in every sonic area literally. The only advantage the W60 has is that it doesn't need as much power, the W60 sound ok from my DX90, but the H8P can't do without a powerful amp like PB2, E12, Pico Power etc.
There really is not point comparing the W60's to the Harmony, lets see, Harmony has much better of everything: sound stage, separation, imaging, bass definition, bass extension, bass texture, mid clarity, mid transparency, mid texture, mid openness, mid balance, treble extension, treble texture, naturalness-timbre and decay of all frequencies is spot on, and finally the coherence and balance between bass, mids and treble is much superior.
There is one quirk with the Hamrony 8 Pro, the treble is extremely extended, to the point where its really sparkly (not sibilant).
There are two versions of the Harmony, the 8 and the 8 Pro, the only difference is increased treble extension of the 8 Pro in the high treble between 12-20K. I got the 8 Pro, if you are sensitive to treble, you should get the normal Harmony 8, as the 8 Pro has way more sparkly treble than the W60, I do not find the treble sibilant, but sparkly to the extreme, its hard to explain the difference, but basically treble sibilance occurs in the lower treble between 5-8K, so the Harmony is not sibilant, but it has extreme sparkle in the 12-20K region, any way, if you are not a fan of pronounced treble it will bother you, it is even too much sparkle for me with some pairings.
But there is an easy fix for this, either get the normal Harmony 8 that doesn't have the insane treble extension, OR the higher performance way is getting the Harmony 8 Pro and using it with a warm amp, like a tube amp, or a solid state amp using warm op amps like OPA627, AD797 etc. Thus you get to keep the treble extension of the 8 Pro, but reduce the treble sparkle to perfect levels, now you have a treble that sounds night and day better than the W60, its like there is nothing missing and perfect balance, its so darn natural, the W60 treble sounds completely half baked in comparison, sounds like its missing a bucket load of info in the 12-20K region and 5-8K region.
To sum up, Harmony 8 Pro + Warm Amp = Perfection, and remember these guys need to be amped well, its a night and day difference, It's a similar difference to amping my K701 or DT770 which are not listenable without an amp. The 8 drivers in the Harmony just beg for power.
Harmony 8 isn't hyped sound, the treble on the pro version is though, I can understand that the sound sig is a preference thing, but the areas that are undeniably better on the Harmony are the sound stage, holographic imaging, separation and cohesiveness.
W60 has very intimate sound to my ears, vocals and mids especially are intimate and they sound really silky, but to me it feels like the W60 is adding its own color, nonetheless, the W60 mids are special and unique. The harmony mids sound transparent, natural and open, mids sound like they are coming at you from further away, yet they are more upfront [ed note:]and clear than the W60, its an amazing type of holographic imaging the Harmony have. The bass on the Harmony is the best I've heard period, it has less mid bass bloat than the W60, its tighter and solid, yet extends lower with more authority and remains natural by keeping the sub bass lightly rolled off only at the very extreme end. The Treble of the Harmony is variable as there are two versions, the Pro version does have a bit too much treble quantity and I prefer usiung it with a warm amp to counter that. But after that, the W60 treble sounds like its missing air and extension, I find the timbre of the W60 treble also off.
Okay guys, here's a fixed version of TRANCE's review, just read the bolded parts!
TRANCE, bro, I tease because I love!