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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 17:20:08 GMT
Dave, By notes 'hanging in the air' do you mean the bass is hanging on or is flabby? Or are you more aware of studio reverb? The different 'overhangs' mean the opposite in terms of resolution. If the bass hangs around, that's not so good but if you're aware of reverb on singers' voices, then that's really good. Sometimes, on a really good setup, reverb on singers voices can sound very synthetic and not natural. It can be poorly done in the recording and sounds 'electric'. That means the headphone is distinguishing low level detail well if you're aware of it. Ian Ian, thanks for your educational input, seriously, I'm relatively new to this game so always ready to benefit from advice from more educated ears. The phones are still connected to my Beresford DAC so I've not yet had another listen. I would certainly not describe the bass as 'flabby', rather the reverse, taut. By 'notes hanging in the air' I mean the slowly dying reverberation which I remember as being apparent across the sound spectrum but not always present. My thought was that it was there when the performer/engineer wanted it to be there but at times the score called for the 'damp' peddle to be pressed - that's my un-musically-educated thoughts on that aspect. And yes, I do recall hearing pleasant reverb on the fmale voices on ocassions. I'll have a firmer opinion tomorrow when I've had a good listen to a much more varied selection from my very eclectic collection of FLAC files. Cheers, Dave.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 17:35:53 GMT
The 661`s arrived this morning, thanks Mike.
First impression so far is that they are packaged very well, and look to be nicely made, in fact, very well finished for the price.
SQ wise, not too keen on the sound straight from the box, but will leave them on loop for 2-3 days before giving them a good audition.
Mick.
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Post by greenstiles on Aug 31, 2011 17:57:38 GMT
My 1st impressions , think these are a new pair ? Mike to confirm. On the head snug , very snug, tight but comfortable ! Lots of cable noise, ie knock or tap the cable when moving about and there is a lot of noise amplified to left ear cup. Expectational sound out of the box.(like the 1st half hour)... very very detailed, very good left and right separation. Bass good, but mid range very lacking giving an un balanced sound, making the treble sound fizzy at times. Intriguing detail. If these are a brand new pair and no ones else has had them yet.........give it time
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 18:00:30 GMT
Hi Mick. Nice to see you in the loop. Hope all's well.
Dave. Yes, you've understood what I was saying and Marcus has picked up on it.
You're kind of describing 'decay' and a good headphone stops dead but if reverb is there, it'll come through much more clearly on a 'clean' headphone rather than one which let's the sound kind of continue when in fact, it's not there!! The headphone adds a little 'extra' if you see what I mean.
With a poor headphone, the decaying reverb can be kind of 'mushy' whereas with a good one, you should be able to distinguish a natural reverb from electrical. (compare orchestral and pop)
I once had a recording of The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. I loved it to death until I got my first decent pair of headphones. At the end of the piece, there's an abrupt bang and I suddenly became aware of a serious flaw in the recording. An electrically added reverb that 'fluttered' in a very nasty way. After that, I heard it all of the way through the recording. Not bad headphones - they were blatantly pointing out a serious error on the recording. A British label as well!! Shame!!!!!
Anyway Dave, don't get up tight. It's more interesting to read reports from people not used to describing because you are merely saying what you hear with no agenda or with no worries about looking for 'common type' flaws that more experience tends to make you focus on.
To give you an idea - some peoples' ideas of what is termed 'sibilance' is a general term used for bright headphones. That isn't exactly what sibilance is but it is often described that way. So, someone with experience may well hear a bright headphone and instantly jump at the word 'sibilance'. Another common thing is to think that a bright headphone gives more detail. Not so every time!!
As Mike described, live music does have a tendency to jump out at you and naturally sound bright, but we accept it because we are there and also physically feel the bass.
Frans and Marcus mentioned brightness in the sound, but Frans also added sibilance. Ie; he's aware of both!! Marcus also picked up on a mid bass hump which in hi fi is often seen as not good, but can help a headphone sound more musical since it is trying to give you a more 'live' impression of bass in tiny speakers. Interestingly, Marcus also mentioned 'musicality' which is probably helped by that lifted mid bass! (swings and roundabouts)
I would give them a serious blast for a while though because my 681b's changed dramatically. It even surprised me and I do think that headphones need to bed in!!
Main thing is keep your confidence in what you hear Dave.
Actually this is going to be really interesting!
Ian
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 19:15:29 GMT
Hi Nige,
ALL of the ones I have shipped are totally brand new / unopened and will require a few hours on them before giving their best.
Mike.
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Post by greenstiles on Aug 31, 2011 19:24:04 GMT
Well continuing on my 1st impressions things are changing already ! midrange is there now, treble is not fizzy but just has it's ''own separate place'' or compartment, not just a thing squeezed into the top ! Dynamic, yes........detail is still very, very impressive.......would really like to hear these phones with a very warm very very expensive (good)amp.........very toe tapping pace.........starting to think £30 is going to be a big bargain. Perhaps softer cloth type ear cups and a slightly larger circumference ear enclosure..........gonna leave it now till a very long in terms of hours/ days listening. A jolly headphone indeed
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 19:38:23 GMT
Hi Ian (mainly , But first to Mike - I forgot my manners earlier and didn't thank you for your efforts in getting them to me so quickly and in absolutely pristine condition - very well wrapped IIMSS . Ian, one of the reasons why I volunteered for this review is that I thought a review from someone who is a rank and novice amateur when compared with some of you guys may provide a welcome 'other' approach, so I have no qualms about posting what I hear, or think I hear . If I post something that confirms with the rest of you that I have serious hearing problems, so what? One man's meat ..... and all that. Now the negative stuff . I notice that Greenstyles reported hearing lots of cable noise - I wonder if that's another manifestation of what I've found tonight. My earlier test was conducted with the shorter lead (iPod Touch as source) but tonight I connected the longer lead and plugged it back into the Beresford much modified 7520 DAC which had been playing into it for about 8 hours through the shorter lead (hope you're following this, wake up at the back, there'll be questions later ). My immediate impressions were "OMG, this is shite, what's happened", then I realised in quick succession that the right channel was dead, the left channel was fuzzy, muddy, and when I moved I got lots of crackling with the right channel coming and going. The problem is now identified as an 'iffy' connection between the HP jack and the long cable socket. If I push the jack fully home the above is what I get but if I carefully withdraw the jack about 2mm everything slots back into place, soundwise, and the crackling stops. The little plastic holder is very useful in maintaining the connection in the best position . It is worthwhile pointing out that I did not have this problem with the shorter cable which performs as it should when fully pushed home. At this point I have to say that I preferred this morning's SQ to that I'm getting now, it seems to have gone downhill in the intervening 8 hours, not quite so clear somehow, and the reverb and 'hanging' note decay isn't so apparent. The thought has just occurred to me that the 'iffy' connection referred to above may not be helping here also?? One more slightly negative point is that I am beginning to find the phones a little tight on the head after about an hour. I can't do much about the size of my admittedly big head so I may have to use a bigger cushion overnight to try to loosen them a bit. Sorry for the long disertation, Dave. EDIT: just listened to a track with a very low bass line and the lower notes are really blurred and muddy - this had better change or it will be a big minus point.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 20:30:51 GMT
Hi Dave, Try the shorter lead and see what happens.... could be an anomaly (there's a good word ) with the longer lead. I have been bedding Ian's HD-661 in today, they sounded like shite at first, sounded great by the afternoon, sounded shite again early evening and have now started to sound OK again...... this is all to be expected (with some 'phones) and we don't advise a GOOD bed in period for no reason The K-501 (in my opinion) don't sound right until they have had a YEAR on them (and a few others agree with me on that one) so "do" expect a few ups and downs for the first few hours. By the way, if the short cable performs the same then it's a headphone socket thing. Mike.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 20:44:44 GMT
Hi Mike, I can confirm that I have no such problem with the shorter lead - it's definitely a problem with the socket on the end of the long lead, which is stablised by the little plastic clip. FWIW I'm now listening to Ms Jenkinson singing, a voice I'm very familiar with, and if I hadn't have recognised the particular track I would not have immediately recognised her voice - very strange., maybe the phones are still sorting themselves out. Dave.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 21:06:42 GMT
Blimey - better get a boutique cable. Never even considered this, but there's no real difference between long and short with regards to impedance is there?
I presume there's some kind of clip to hold it on the cups as well? There was me thinking it was an ordinary jack plug connection.
These changes are strange, Mike. I've never heard as big a change as I did with the 681b but it never went back to 'shite' again once I blew it through.
It's the 'Fight Back of the Cones' part I.
Or 'Send in the Cones'.
I think I've been breaking the K701 for a year now. It's still not ready.
Ian
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Post by pcourtney1 on Aug 31, 2011 21:44:17 GMT
many thanks first to Mike for organising ten of us to hammer these babies :-)
received my pair this morning, and quickly connected them to my X-CAN amp and an old CDP on repeat with 15 widely differing tracks to establish some sort of burn in before I got home (12 hours later), turned the volume pot on the X-CANs to 2 o'clock, and that is pretty loud, about 12 o'clock seems good for normal listening to me.
first thing, they do look good, and nice simple packaging but smart packaging too, I like that a lot !
they weigh more than I thought they would, that's a good thing, too many budget phones weigh less than 100g, and these weigh a respectable 227g, my AKG K-340's are 450g, the AKG 240M are 250g, so the 661's are very similar to the 240M's weight wise.
Right, down to the job of listening, source is a Squeezebox Receiver, WAV files only, the SBR has ten seconds worth of buffer for wav files, and has proved over the years to be a great transport for all my music, and a lot of different amps, but tonight I am using the MF X-CAN V2 amp (upgraded by MF back in April 2010) , using the short cable from the 661 to the amp, grab the iPad and let's see, bam, Christina and Stripped, the second track "Can't hold us down" sounds spot on, wow, well done Superlux, jeeezzz, sounds terrific, bass is good on this track, Christina sounds fab too, her singing voice does not sound this good with other phones I have tried, wow, wow ! I have the X-CANs at 12 on the volume pot, and it is just right, good slam, good sounding stuff, sounds like I am in the recording studio, and she is bang in the middle of the room fondling the microphone, right in the middle of my head space. The third track is "Walk Away" , a tough one for most budget cans, as it is a big presentation, lots of very well done sound engineering going on with this track, and the 661's nail it, bloody hell, I think I am getting carried away, I need to grab my K-340's and do some A-B ing.
AH - more bass with the K-340's, and I have to notch the volume to 2 o'clock to get the same sound levels, but the K-340's are smoother and more laid back than the 661's, the 340's are bigger, the difference is listening to music in the recording studio ( the 661 sound), and the 340's present more of a jazz club room sound, which is what I absolutely adore about the 340's
Back to the 661's, and some Ashanti, track 2 "Foolish" , running back to you, treating you so bad........, the 661 handles all that fine, and track 3 "Happy" , not bad either, and this is only after 12 hours of burn in, it all sounds right to my ears, nothing wrong
now for something different, Whitney Houston, yep, she sounds nice and lots of good orchestral coming through without stressing the 661's too much, might try some classical later on.
Dire Straights next "Brothers in Arms" an album I have heard too much over the ears, but probably a good test all the same, here we go, and crack open a rather nice bottle of cognac, here we go - "so far away from me, your so far away from me, so far I just can't see" - not bad, sounds good too.
Walk of Life sounds as good as ever, wow, love those keyboards, wish I could bang out a tune like that, foot tapping or what.
must stop now, as I am not making sense :-)
will listen to them some more over the weekend, when they have had another 48 hours on them, so far so good amigos :-)
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Post by pcourtney1 on Aug 31, 2011 21:47:10 GMT
the track "Your Latest Trick" Brothers in Arms, with the Sax is really really good with the 661's, smooth and accurate, that's nice :-)
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 21:55:43 GMT
You are Soooooo impatient Ian..... a "year"? Give the K-701 a MINIMUM of 7 years to bed in..... it will be worth the wait
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 22:12:51 GMT
My "personal" HD-661 have been changing so much I won't comment until this time next week My "personal" bed in technique is to attach them to a receiver (an old tuner amp) and crank the volco up to "near" distortion levels (just before clipping)..... let them exercise with that for 48 hours You can help the bed in process by adding "heat"..... position them on top of a central heating radiator (with a towel between 'phones and radiator) and blast music through them.... I know that all this sounds a bit drastic / off the wall but please BELIEVE me when I say it works THRASH them overnight (stuff a pillow between the cups if you live in the same room as the 'phones) but make sure you are thrashing them and not destroying them You don't want the amp to be clipping (this is what destroys coils)..... when I say "LOUD".... go as loud as you would normally listen to..... don't crank the amp up to full volume and go make a sandwich type of thing As loud as you would ever listen (without distortion), leave on for 24 hours
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 22:18:25 GMT
Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies Be-Bop-A-Lula, Baby What I Say
WORD!!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 22:25:49 GMT
You are Soooooo impatient Ian..... a "year"? Give the K-701 a MINIMUM of 7 years to bed in..... it will be worth the wait 40 years and 40 nights. Joseph, joseph, is it really you? If I peg it, I'll get the wife to box them up with me in case they improve. I do the radiator thing but daren't say anything in case people thought I was nuts. Ian
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 22:28:26 GMT
That's approx. when team B will kick in (Europe and beyond) Very much looking forward to joining in.
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 22:37:07 GMT
That's approx. when team B will kick in (Europe and beyond) Very much looking forward to joining in. Flying in your general direction as we speak
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Post by PinkFloyd on Aug 31, 2011 22:40:44 GMT
Buy a cheap multimeter and check it out for yourself It's not rocket science man
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2011 22:45:52 GMT
Now close to midnight and off to get some sleep. I've had the phones on now for pretty much the last 4 hours+ . I've bent the overhead wires nearly to straight to get them a more comfortable fit when they spring back - they're very springy Over the course of the evening I think the top end has tamed down a bit - certainly don't notice it going OTT like I did earlier, but the bass has become noticeably looser, more boomy, less taut. I'm going to leave them playing to a cushion overnight with the volume wicked up a bit and see what tomorrow sounds like. Night night everybody . Dave.
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mrarroyo
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Post by mrarroyo on Aug 31, 2011 22:57:17 GMT
Nice review, personally I prefer the ESW9 to the ESW10jpn. The ESW10jpn although better looking had piercing highs. BTW, if you get a chance compare an early ESW9 with a later production and you should be able to hear a significant difference in the bass department.
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Post by pcourtney1 on Aug 31, 2011 23:49:44 GMT
3 hours later, they are very comfortable, they fit my head well, in fact they are a very good fit for me, which is nice, the earpads are fine too, 3 hours is not normal for me in one session, so that must bode well comfort factor wise for the 661's tomorrow I will find some time to plug them in to my iPod, Ouverture, Discman, Avant TV, and anything else that has a headphone socket, they should sound OK with most devices that can output some sort of voltage I would hope, 68 ohms is more than most budget cans, which are normally sub 32 ohms, but I have some Audio Technica ATH-ES7's and BeyerDynamic DT75's which are 32ohm, and they work pretty well in almost everything I plug them into, so we will see, night night everyone. Mike - will take some photos inside the X-CAN, but can start off a new thread in the MF area if you want - by the way did you get my email sent 4 days ago, but resent just now
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Post by marcusd on Sept 1, 2011 2:39:23 GMT
Nice review, personally I prefer the ESW9 to the ESW10jpn. The ESW10jpn although better looking had piercing highs. BTW, if you get a chance compare an early ESW9 with a later production and you should be able to hear a significant difference in the bass department. I would say mine is the later production having only got it in April of this year. I intend to rewire it with a bit of silver later down the line but I may change my mind and keep the 'warmth'. Someone just mentioned bass on the HD661 was tight initially and then got a tad flabby - I think you maybe right
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Post by greenstiles on Sept 1, 2011 4:00:46 GMT
Davek, just to clarify.....my cable noise was not electrical.........it was like paper cup and string effect..........ie tap the cable with your finger or move about a bit a loud dull noise is heard in the ear cup.
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Post by marcusd on Sept 1, 2011 4:32:35 GMT
Davek, just to clarify.....my cable noise was not electrical.........it was like paper cup and string effect..........ie tap the cable with your finger or move about a bit a loud dull noise is heard in the ear cup. Some people term this as cable microphonics. Though not technically the right term it seems to be widely used nevertheless.
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