[jjss]

Every headphone gets polarizing reviews at Canjam. That's just how the show works. You can get good impressions but you need to know what to do and calibrate expectations with gear you are intimately familiar with. Even then, it works better if the upstream is designed to have synergy, and even better if you have one of the quieter side rooms.

Sony could not possibly have a "house sound". The 3-4 main designers and product managers of the high-end audio products all have their own ideas, and I know for a fact that some of them don't see eye-to-eye. I would be absolutely shocked if the YH-5000SE team talked to their network player team more than once a year.

I usually avoid making judgement esp "final judgement" on gears listened to in any audio shows, and such occasions are good to meet friend and manufacturers and ask them questions that otherwise may not be able to by emails. But overall are enjoyable events!

If one asks the "Sony fanboys" there is definitely a thing called the Sony house sound esp when it comes to its signature series products, and its not a kind of "unique" sound per se, but an orientation of a kind of sound profile (like warmer, denser, balanced tonality etc, all in relative terms of course). The thing about house sound is that it may not be trivial in and by itself but when one say A/B to compare and contrast with other brands, its quite possible to pick up the diff. Of course those who lives and breaths only measurements esp those common electroacoustic measurements would tell you that this is poppycock but then as it stands now the science of sound and hearing is far from reaching the final chapter of the book ..

 

[adrianm]

I usually avoid making judgement esp "final judgement" on gears listened to in any audio shows, and such occasions are good to meet friend and manufacturers and ask them questions that otherwise may not be able to by emails. But overall are enjoyable events!

If one asks the "Sony fanboys" there is definitely a thing called the Sony house sound esp when it comes to its signature series products, and its not a kind of "unique" sound per se, but an orientation of a kind of sound profile (like warmer, denser, balanced tonality etc, all in relative terms of course). The thing about house sound is that it may not be trivial in and by itself but when one say A/B to compare and contrast with other brands, its quite possible to pick up the diff. Of course those who lives and breaths only measurements esp those common electroacoustic measurements would tell you that this is poppycock but then as it stands now the science of sound and hearing is far from reaching the final chapter of the book ..

Yeah, I agree. My Z1R are not very balanced, but I could actually call them "unique". When you have to EQ stuff up/down 8-9 db to get to Oratory's recommendations, you're not really looking at minor differences.

 

[lewisflude]

I asked but they didn't want to do that. This was at the Yamaha room at the Bristol Audio Show which lasts through the weekend. So while I was the first person to try at the show I suppose they didn't want to change anything for anyone else thereafter. The other pads looked like hybrid ones with a velour surface and fenestrated leather on the inside + solid leather on the outside. If anything, that might just make the sub-bass dip more pronounced and I didn't have any comfort issues with the stock leather pads anyway.

Me and @koenoe got to try these before the show officially opened on Saturday. Was very impressed! Definitely considering going for a pair.

 

[bneiderman]

Surprised there aren’t a bunch more impressions on here. I was looking forward to hearing about these in much more detail.

 

[omega1990]

There are more impressions listed in the canjam thread. I believe it was somewhat mixed, but I did notice users prefering the leather pads instead of the suedes.

 

[doctorK53]

Against my general conclusion above, I cannot miss the price difference between the option balanced cables.

4.4mm (HBC-SC020) : 71,500 yen
xlr 4pin (HXC-SC020) : 93,500 yen
Difference = 22,000 yen
(All with VAT)

It is already confirmed that the difference of the two cables is only the plug. (Info from participants at the audio shows' Yamaha booth) . The xlr plug is made by Neutrik, so it should not be more expensive than a few thousand yen. If the 4.4mm cable is not a bargain price, I should agree with those who say Yamaha is greedy on the price setting of the cables.

The accessories are on sale from today in Japan. No change in price.
I am not going to order xlr 4pin cable right now because my amplifiers (at-bha100, ud-505, and gryphon) have 4.4mm outputs.

 

[drummerman1]

They were enjoyable and up to Utopia 22 standards imho (heard on different amplification). Whether any HP is wort 5 big ones ... only the beholder could possibly judge.

 

[ostewart]

A few days ago, while traveling in Japan, I heard the YH-5000 at the e-earphone Akihabara.

Its appearance was to my taste, very beautiful, and it comfortably wrapped around my huge, big-eared head.

The DAC and amplifiers for listening were the RME ADI-2 and Benchmark HPA4.

I started with Dua Lipa's 'Levitating (feat. Madonna and Missy Elliott) [The Blessed Madonna Remix]'.

At that moment, I was able to experience the YH-5000's tremendous distortion.

As I turned up the volume (around 100dB), the bass sounded like it was breaking up, and I thought the HPA4 was broken, so I asked the staff and they said it was normal.

I plugged in my DCA Stealth to see if there was a hardware problem with the amplifier, but the amplifier sounded perfectly normal.

The overall sound is delicate, with no particular band being emphasized, so my ears don't get tired after a long time of listening, but I felt that the bass was a bit lacking.

I think these headphones would be great for classical music or small band music, but not for hip-hop or modern pop.

In particular, these headphones don't sound great when paired with a very powerful amplifier and used at high volumes, so you'll need to be careful when choosing an amplifier.

I'm really curious to hear those who have listened to this alongside the Final D8000 - very similar drivers it would seem and the D8000 also "cracks" at high volume due to their air film damping system. But we are talking levels that no-one should listen to for long periods of time, the D8000 Pro was tweaked to be able to handle slightly higher power.

 

[Pictograms]

Yamaha seems to indicate fit is very important to the sound, so not too surprising the variety of impressions.

From the YH-5000 website:
“It is crucial that the housing fits snugly into the space behind the ear in order to eliminate bias in localization due to air leakage and compensate for the lack of volume in the low range.”

 

[HiFiDJ]

They were enjoyable and up to Utopia 22 standards imho (heard on different amplification). Whether any HP is wort 5 big ones ... only the beholder could possibly judge.

What other amplification have you heard it with?

 

[adrianm]

 

[stacey]

Only thing that Yamaha doesn’t make is cars.
Anyone give the YH 5000 a try with L&P DAPs yet?

 

[ScornDefeat]

Good Day All, just wanted to share my brief impressions with the YH-5000SE here with this group:

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/can...read-february-25-26-2023.967080/post-17430010

Happy to further discuss any feedback. I think my last line stands to be important, which is that the nature of this pair made it particularly more difficult to demo at a CanJam than other headphones, although I did listen at rather loud volume.

 

[BlueEmperor]

Does anybody have measurments of those beauties?

 

[Tachyon88]

Does anybody have measurments of those beauties?

You can find them in a video in post #791.