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[Antiwhippy]

I'm... kind of seriously considering getting a Ocharaku Flat4 nami if I manage to get onto this deal.

It's been one of those headphones that I plan to collect one day. Either that or the Kuro.

 

[The Lamonster]

If you wanna go tube I like the Little Dot series, the III has enough output power for the T1, a hybrid might be a better choice though like the Valli 2 or Lyr 2 would be good choices. But hell the new Geek Out might even power them adequately if you want something more portable.

I wish there was a Vali 2. Right now there's only one Vali (but it's awesome).

 

[HiResDes]

I wish there was a Vali 2. Right now there's only one Vali (but it's awesome).

Err I meant the Valhalla 2

 

[e_i]

Hello everyone,

My dad is looking to purchase noise-cancelling earbuds/IEMs. He previously had some Bose QuietComfort 20 and liked them. I checked the OP but it seems like only budget earbuds are mentioned. What would you recommend? What model would have the best price/performance ratio?

He will be using them to listen to music on his iPhone during plane flights or for outdoor activities.

Try these

They're are noise isolating, not noise cancelling.

 

[MegalonJJ]

You've been reading hifiguy's "reviews" haven't you? The guy whose basically a paid reviewer who shills for whatever product he can get given.

The A20 isn't a particularly good headphone amp because it's so damn expensive. It probably pairs decently with Beyerdynamic headphones not because it's actually good but rather because it has an output impedance of over 100 ohms. Refer to impedance graphs for Beyerdynamic headphones - higher output impedance results in the bass being boosted so they sound more balanced + fuller out of it.

Same goes for a lot of tube amps. They sound warmer a lot of the time because they have high output impedance, which results in a bass boost with a good number of dynamics, mostly those from German manufacturers. There are other supposed benefits of tube amps but that varies from tube amp to tube amp.

Like the 1:8 damping factor ratio is a sort of industry standard for loudspeaker so amplifiers wouldn't mess with loudspeaker passive crossovers. But there aren't any real standards for headphones so some headphones I suspect are meant to be used with higher impedance outputs.

tl;dr you can probably get the same result if you used a bunch of resistors to increase the output impedance with a decent solid state amp like the Schiit Magni.

No, I haven't been watching hifiguy's reviews, but I just tried and it's unwatchable.

If I dislike the T1.2's I'll be happy to state so. Out of interest, have you spent a substantial amount of time with the T1 or A20?

 

[Tommy DJ]

No, I haven't been watching hifiguy's reviews, but I just tried and it's unwatchable.

If I dislike the T1.2's I'll be happy to state so. Out of interest, have you spent a substantial amount of time with the T1 or A20?

I've spent a decent enough of time with the T1 throughout the years. If there's lots of 10khz content (i.e. cymbals), its painful to listen to for a long period of time. If there's a lot of bass and know what good bass sounds like, you might notice the cups resonate which is not surprising when the T1 is basically a driver into a hollow plastic cup. Even if none of these issues existed, the treble just doesn't sound right.

Unlike the DT880, the T1s I've listened to don't sound very consistent between samples nor do they actually sound a whole lot better then the DT880s besides a better soundstage. No, I'm one of those people who don't equate boosting the treble as increasing headphone resolution and I don't think the T1 resolves appreciably better than the DT880.

Really, headphones that can't render all types of music well and are very DAC/amp dependent are headphones with problems. This is literally a non-issue in the world of speakers (i.e. I do not think there is a single sensible person who believes good full range speakers should not be able to play all genres of music extremely proficiently) so why should it be the case for top of the line headphones?

I'm sort of trying to turn you away from the T1 V2 because if you're paying $1,200 USD for a pair, you're doing the equivalent of purchasing a FX series AMD CPU in this day and age. If you don't know any better, you probably end up thinking its just as good as an Intel processor...except it really isn't. If you must have the T1, you can probably do a better job than Beyerdynamic by buying the T1 V1 for significantly cheaper and loading the plastic cups yourself with dynamat and cotton. I don't really believe for a second that they've made radical improvements with the T1 V2, considering they cared so little that they couldn't get driver matching right on their kilobuck headphones.

About the amps: I don't really don't need to listen to the A20 to know its nothing special when stuff like the Bottlehead Crack + Speedball, ECP Torpedo, those Meier Audio amps with hardware crossfeed, like the entire Schiit Audio collection, and Cavalli Liquid Carbon are in the same price range. And that's just some off the stuff from the top of my head. If there was any single thing remotely special about it you'd have far more people buying it...yet no one really talks about it. Really, the only special thing about it is that it uses a 100 ohm output impedance to impart its "warmth".

 

[Antiwhippy]

Welp.

Pulled the trigger on a Flat 4 Nami.

At a considerable discount, so that's how I'll justify it to myself.

Time to really stop though. Still haven't spent as much as I would if I bought a TOTL headphone can like I was planning (not even considering the accompanying amp/dac), but I think right now IEMs suit my lifestyle more. ASG2.5 for general portable out and about listening (which is where I am for the majority of the day, and Flat 4 for home listening. Wanted something with poor isolation for home use anyway.

 

[Zeth]

Damn it, anyone know where I can order some Phillips SHP9500 (I'm in the US)? Seems like the buzz around them has caused the price to jump to ~$100 from various amazon sellers. Though I'm not sure if that's MSRP.

 

[HiResDes]

Damn it, anyone know where I can order some Phillips SHP9500 (I'm in the US)? Seems like the buzz around them has caused the price to jump to ~$100 from various amazon sellers. Though I'm not sure if that's MSRP.

You could get some refurbs for cheap


If you're into bass though and are sensitive to treble I would think twice about getting them though, they were in the OP because of the detailed they offered at their former price...If they stay at $100 they're no longer a good value.

 

[Zeth]

You could get some refurbs for cheap


If you're into bass though and are sensitive to treble I would think twice about getting them though, they were in the OP because of the detailed they offered at their former price...If they stay at $100 they're no longer a good value.

Thanks for the link - looking to get some cans for my dad. He's got mild/moderate hearing loss and not much of an audiophile, but he's using some bargain bin Skull Candies at his desktop which I think can be majorly upgraded for relatively little. Anything else look as comfortable as the SHPs in that ($60) price range?

 

[HiResDes]

Thanks for the link - looking to get some cans for my dad. He's got mild/moderate hearing loss and not much of an audiophile, but he's using some bargain bin Skull Candies at his desktop which I think can be majorly upgraded for relatively little. Anything else look as comfortable as the SHPs in that ($60) price range?

Takstar HI2050 are comfy as hell. Sound just as good in my opinion too,though they're not quite as efficient and benefit quite a bit from a little amping.

 

[K.Jack]

Was totally wrong in mu assumptions of the KC06A, it's actually a retune "done right".

I'd written up a fairly long, more detailed post, but I lost it and don't feel like writing it again.

In the '-A' Ostry kept everything I like about its brother, while adding mid and sub-bass thump, and taking the right touch out the the highs, which causes them to be less bordering on fatiguing. The great soundstage and imaging are still present, as is the beautiful treble. Mids are slightly more forward, but not enough that they lose the characteristics of the base KC06.

Sold the Havi to my dad for $20 on some fuck outta here stuff. Why even bother?

 

[Tenebrous]

Greets, headphone GAF... Is this an alright place to ask for portable music player suggestions? If not, can I have directions please?

Sony MDR-10RC on the go, HD598's at home through a Marantz PM6005/CD6005 pairing.

 

[HiResDes]

Greets, headphone GAF... Is this an alright place to ask for portable music player suggestions? If not, can I have directions please?

Sony MDR-10RC on the go, HD598's at home through a Marantz PM6005/CD6005 pairing.

Price range?

 

[Tenebrous]

Price range?

Ideally sub £400 but would need plenty of room for lossless files. Looking at the FiiO X5 & Apple iPod G6 (128GB) at the moment. The NWZ-F886 would already be on the way if it had MicroSD support.

 

[HiResDes]

Ideally sub £400 but would need plenty of room for lossless files. Looking at the FiiO X5 & Apple iPod G6 (128GB) at the moment. The NWZ-F886 would already be on the way if it had MicroSD support.

I'd also consider the Ibasso DX90. Although honestly I don't myself ever needing anything more than an X3.

 

[Tenebrous]

Not heard of that one before - Cheers!

Damn that's one ugly looking DAP, haha.

 

[Antiwhippy]

As much as I do like my Fiio X3 II, I'd say that unless your phone is struggling to power your headphones (or if it has a very bad DAC, which I feel like most mid-high tier smartphones shouldn't have), I generally wouldn't recommend getting a dedicated DAP unless you have specific reasons that aren't SQ related.

The only areas I'd say that the X3 II beats my smartphone in (having had the LG G3 which was apparently one of the better phones SQ wise, and now a Moto X play) is in taming the sibilance in certain recordings and also slightly better imaging and dynamics in terms of note separation and a quieter background, but that difference is so small that I sometimes feel that it's all psychoacoustics, except for the sibilance part which is nice.

I still use it because even if the differences seem small I feel that they are there, the volume control has more steps so I can actually find my sweet spot volume wise, and it's nice to have something that can also double as a desktop DAC/amp which actually does provide a much clearer sound improvement to me over my onboard PC sound.

On the other hand you need to consider the inconvenience of carrying 2 devices (still infinitely better than daisy-chaining a DAC/amp stack to your phone), plus losing internet radio/music streaming.

Also having auditioned various DAPs, including the upper-tier Astell & kern stuff, I feel like there's such little differences between each player that there's no real point going further. Granted, I haven't had extended listens of them, but if the differences aren't night and day I'm not going to spend 2x the price of what I have, not to mention 10x the price. Plus there's some real snake oil in the DAP business, just like most audio stuff.

 

[Tenebrous]

I don't use a phone, so there's no point spunking more than double the cash on a 128GB 6s for the price I could get a FiiO/6G Touch for.

 

[HiResDes]

I'd just get an X3 at most if I were you. I'm happy with my Sansa Zip Clip though.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Yeah I'd say just go for an X3 than.

If you would like to use stuff like spotify maybe the touch, but it doesn't have expandable storage and apple price gouges on storage space to the point of insanity. Plus it has a much more limited selection in playable formats.

 

[Tenebrous]

I'd just get an X3 at most if I were you. I'm happy with my Sansa Zip Clip though.

I've heard nothing but good things about the Sansa players. I'm using a Sony NWZ-A845 at the moment, but the space is really limiting... Going to keep it and throw lots of 320kbps MP3s on it for running and whatnot, though.

Yeah I'd say just go for an X3 than.

If you would like to use stuff like spotify maybe the touch, but it doesn't have expandable storage and apple price gouges on storage space to the point of insanity.

The X3 does look like a good little device, but I would get some use out of the iPod's extra features... I'll mull it over. Might end up with both. Might end up with neither. Just depends how much room I need after everything is on the PC.

Cheers both.

 

[Antiwhippy]

The sansa clip is a very nice player. Keeps breaking on me though which is why I shied away after awhile.

 

[HiResDes]

The one cool thing about the X3 is that you can use it as an external DAC as well.

 

[Tenebrous]

The one cool thing about the X3 is that you can use it as an external DAC as well.

Sounds like a great feature, but not one I'd have any use for. While at home, I'm listening to music through the hi-fi, not the PC.

 

[HiResDes]

Sounds like a great feature, but not one I'd have any use for. While at home, I'm listening to music through the hi-fi, not the PC.

Hell you might even be happy with the X1 then. They finally removed the 5800 track limit.

 

[Dynamite Ringo Matsuri]

Welp.

Pulled the trigger on a Flat 4 Nami.

At a considerable discount, so that's how I'll justify it to myself.

Time to really stop though. Still haven't spent as much as I would if I bought a TOTL headphone can like I was planning (not even considering the accompanying amp/dac), but I think right now IEMs suit my lifestyle more. ASG2.5 for general portable out and about listening (which is where I am for the majority of the day, and Flat 4 for home listening. Wanted something with poor isolation for home use anyway.

The Flat-4 series were some of my favorite earphones til I got the K3003. Super detailed, layered and open sound. Will sound quite different coming from an ASG. I sometimes flirt with nabbing a Kaede Type II from time to time, but there's so little in the way of impressions on it, and resale on those things is like zilch since the Ocharakus are so niche.

Smart phones are great. Well, the iPhones are at least. I can hardly tell the difference between the iPhone vs. some of the thousand dollar DAPs out there, and some of those DAPs either have pathetic output (Sony ZX2) are weirdly high OI (A&K's AK series... why higher than 1 ohm when so many people use multi crossover IEMs that are susceptible to impedance curves? I mean A&K partnered with JHA to design flagship IEMs that sound worse through their flagship AK240 than on an iPhone5? Wut?), terrible, terrible UI or terrible, terrible battery life. The people on HF who constantly tout that you need some insane thousand dollar DAP for your IEMs and claim that it makes a night and day difference are just the worst.

 

[Antiwhippy]

How does it differ from the k3003?

Though from what little I've read about your preferences on here I thought you prefer headphones which aren't treble-happy?

 

[Dynamite Ringo Matsuri]

How does it differ from the k3003?

Though from what little I've read about your preferences on here I thought you prefer headphones which aren't treble-happy?

The K3003 has better treble quality/timbre for sure, better midrange, and sounds better at lower volumes. The F-4s kind of need volume before coming alive. The Flat-4s and K3003 are fairly similar tho, all things considered. I had all the Flat-4s at one point in time - SUI, Kuro and Kaede and I didn't feel that any of them were better than the K3003. At the time, and for the price, the SUI was a really impressive phone. It was the phone that started my love affair with dynamic driver phones. Treble was always the weak point of the Ocharaku phones though (prone to sibilance/glare build up). Their Donguri Keyaki is probably the best in maintaining extension with a reasonably smooth treble response. Haven't heard the Kaede Type II tho.

Oh I'm not treble averse at all. Most of the phones I've retained over the years lean brighter/neutral actually. I just care about the timbral characteristics of treble and how they affect the overall signature. Some of the hybrids I've heard just sound really off in the treble. Like the Dunu 2000J is a really impressive phone in a technical sense, but there was so much treble that the phones just sound really cold, and incredibly bright to me. I dunno, most hybrids sound really flawed to me. The TWFK is just not a great driver for treble, and it's the most commonly used. It often sounds brittle or shrill, and is innately resonant at problematic frequencies.

I still think the K3003 was the most refined of all of the hybrids to date, and I've heard a lot of hybrids. And even it's prone to sibilance and glare. I just got much pickier about that sort of thing over time since most of my listening is done portably and a lot of my music isn't exactly well recorded/mastered, so having something that's very high resolution without the treble fatigue that usually accompanies that sort of thing is a must for me.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Ah alright, I think it was your impressions on the dunu phones that gave me that impression. Definitely curious about comparing the asg to the flat 4. Almost expecting the sound sigs to be direct opposites.

Yeah I do love dynamic headphones too. I know it's a really dumb reason to not be interested in a headphone but I find just taking an off the shelve twfk BA driver and tuning it to be pretty boring. Plus the current race to see who can cram the most BA drivers into a earpiece just seems so uninteresting. Which I know are really dumb reasons and I did like what I heard of the Angies.

 

[andylsun]

Hell you might even be happy with the X1 then. They finally removed the 5800 track limit.

Long Hard Work brings Concrete Improvements indeed. Best firmware update release notes ever.

I'm using my X1 with my Sennheisers (HD565 and HD595) and it's great. Plenty of power for driving those.

Edit: Spin Fit update. Switched from the stock biggest sureseal tips to large spinfits on my flight. They are slightly smaller, and a little tougher to get a decent seal, but once they are seated, they are very comfy and work well. Not quite as good isolation as the sureseal tips. For now the spin fits stay in place. The comply's were a disaster. even Large wasn't big enough and they failed to seal at all.

Narita airport was a complete bust. Turns out all the items sold there are world wide goods and there's no Japan only electronics, and they don't sell any video games anywhere in the international terminal. The 'tax free Akihabara' shop didn't have anything you can't get in the USA. They sell Sony Overseas Models that have worldwide warranty.

On the plus side, my flight was delayed so I went through customs and spent a couple of hours in Narita town and visited a temple. First time on Japanese soil and I loved it.

My hard case arrived from Aurisonics. Very nice, and made by s3cases in the USA. Can't decide if I want to keep my rockets or my Fiio X1 in it.

 

[Antiwhippy]

I'm not sure if it's just the sureseal tips that I have, but mine eventually actually changed shape in a way that conforms to the shape of my ear canal. Actually made it seal really well and super comfortable, but I find the spinfits to be comfortable and I do prefer the sound of them on the ASG 2.5.

 

[Dynamite Ringo Matsuri]

Ah alright, I think it was your impressions on the dunu phones that gave me that impression. Definitely curious about comparing the asg to the flat 4. Almost expecting the sound sigs to be direct opposites.

Yeah I do love dynamic headphones too. I know it's a really dumb reason to not be interested in a headphone but I find just taking an off the shelve twfk BA driver and tuning it to be pretty boring. Plus the current race to see who can cram the most BA drivers into a earpiece just seems so uninteresting. Which I know are really dumb reasons and I did like what I heard of the Angies.

Yeah they're going to pretty much be complete opposites. The flat-4 has a much leaner and more open/out of the head feel than the ASG. Not sure about the Nami though since those are retuned for Olasonic. The Sui and Kaede had some of the most impressive headstages I've ever heard. Extremely airy, and layered and similar to an open headphone.

I've only heard a handful of phones that remind me of it, in particular, the K3003, modded R2, and 1plus2. I remember the first time I'd heard the flat-4, felt like I'd heard instruments and vocals for the first time. Really great timbre. Only thing is the treble can be rough due to some ringing at 5 and 8 kHz. You can mitigate this with comply or teabags, but I dunno, it gets fatiguing with certain music and over time. Not ideal for relaxing really.

Dynamics are actually my favorite of phones for their presentation and timbral characteristics. The best of them possess an out of the head presentation combined with pitch black space, and a rightness of tone that I don't hear in things like hybrids or BA based phones. Problem is, most of them aren't tuned to be neutral enough. They've either got way too much bass or way too much treble, or both.

 

[HiResDes]

The speed of many BA's while impressive in some respects also can sound a bit artificial, it's as if the decay is too short and sounds more precise than the actual performance would sound live on many songs.

 

[MegalonJJ]

If you wanna go tube I like the Little Dot series, the III has enough output power for the T1, a hybrid might be a better choice though like the Valli 2 or Lyr 2 would be good choices. But hell the new Geek Out might even power them adequately if you want something more portable.

Actually I was considering the above (or the LDMKIVse) but the issue with Little Dot (and Schiit and Woo) is generally they aren't the easiest to get a hold of in the EU and the import/customs isn't great either.

However, I did come across the Feliks Audio Elise which, being based in Poland, is more agreeable particularly if any issues arise with the product.

I've spent a decent enough of time with the T1 throughout the years. If there's lots of 10khz content (i.e. cymbals), its painful to listen to for a long period of time. If there's a lot of bass and know what good bass sounds like, you might notice the cups resonate which is not surprising when the T1 is basically a driver into a hollow plastic cup. Even if none of these issues existed, the treble just doesn't sound right.

Unlike the DT880, the T1s I've listened to don't sound very consistent between samples nor do they actually sound a whole lot better then the DT880s besides a better soundstage. No, I'm one of those people who don't equate boosting the treble as increasing headphone resolution and I don't think the T1 resolves appreciably better than the DT880.

Really, headphones that can't render all types of music well and are very DAC/amp dependent are headphones with problems. This is literally a non-issue in the world of speakers (i.e. I do not think there is a single sensible person who believes good full range speakers should not be able to play all genres of music extremely proficiently) so why should it be the case for top of the line headphones?

I'm sort of trying to turn you away from the T1 V2 because if you're paying $1,200 USD for a pair, you're doing the equivalent of purchasing a FX series AMD CPU in this day and age. If you don't know any better, you probably end up thinking its just as good as an Intel processor...except it really isn't. If you must have the T1, you can probably do a better job than Beyerdynamic by buying the T1 V1 for significantly cheaper and loading the plastic cups yourself with dynamat and cotton. I don't really believe for a second that they've made radical improvements with the T1 V2, considering they cared so little that they couldn't get driver matching right on their kilobuck headphones.

About the amps: I don't really don't need to listen to the A20 to know its nothing special when stuff like the Bottlehead Crack + Speedball, ECP Torpedo, those Meier Audio amps with hardware crossfeed, like the entire Schiit Audio collection, and Cavalli Liquid Carbon are in the same price range. And that's just some off the stuff from the top of my head. If there was any single thing remotely special about it you'd have far more people buying it...yet no one really talks about it. Really, the only special thing about it is that it uses a 100 ohm output impedance to impart its "warmth".

Very much appreciate your opinion.

I'll post impressions of the T1v2 once it arrives and will no doubt be returning it should I find it to be inadequate. Equally if it's excellent then I'll be keeping it.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Yeah they're going to pretty much be complete opposites. The flat-4 has a much leaner and more open/out of the head feel than the ASG. Not sure about the Nami though since those are retuned for Olasonic. The Sui and Kaede had some of the most impressive headstages I've ever heard. Extremely airy, and layered and similar to an open headphones.

According to my seller it is pretty similar to the kuro. From what I've read they're all pretty similar to each other.

Would you say that they're pretty neutral? Or is it more that they're treble coloured? I consider the asg to be pretty bass and MIDs coloured. Wasn't looking for a neutral phone though so that was fine.

It would be interesting to see how the strengths of both are compared to each other. I'd consider the vocals, percussion, imaging and BASS to be the asg's strengths. I actually really like the treble too but it's definitely laid back.

The speed of many BA's while impressive in some respects also can sound a bit artificial, it's as if the decay is too short and sounds more precise than the actual performance would sound live on many songs.

Hybrids man. Best of both worlds. Though from what I've read some implement it better than others.

 

[LQX]

Anyone here has a new Z170 high-end motherboard and can vouch for the audio quality?

Damn it, anyone know where I can order some Phillips SHP9500 (I'm in the US)? Seems like the buzz around them has caused the price to jump to ~$100 from various amazon sellers. Though I'm not sure if that's MSRP.

I got these from Newegg very cheap a few months ago and I have been meaning to post a mini review as they impressed me enough to keep and sell off some of my more expensive headphones. They are a little too open for my taste but they great headphones that are on par with the Sennheiser 598 IMO. They look very good in person and feel great but I sort of wish they had bit more clamping force them as they sort of feel loose on the ears. I still love the build quality though as they are not a fragile mess like some headphone costing 3X as much.

Also they debuted at well over a $100 as some of the first reviews I found made mention of this.

 

[Bloodember]

Anyone here has a new Z170 high-end motherboard and can vouch for the audio quality?

Matter's what motherboard it is, many use different audio chips and DAC's.

 

[leng jai]

Anyone find it ironic that the HD800s are becoming one of the best "value" headphones on the high end market? In Australia they're actually cheaper to get than the LCD2/HE560 and close to half the price of the LCD3/Ether.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Australia is super weird when it comes to markup though.

 

[br0ken_shad0w]

Anyone find it ironic that the HD800s are becoming one of the best "value" headphones on the high end market? In Australia they're actually cheaper to get than the LCD2/HE560 and close to half the price of the LCD3/Ether.

Dat planar mark-up.

 

[HiResDes]

Anyone find it ironic that the HD800s are becoming one of the best "value" headphones on the high end market? In Australia they're actually cheaper to get than the LCD2/HE560 and close to half the price of the LCD3/Ether.

They aren't though when you can get a pair of cheap Stax for a little under $500. Hifiman HE-500 are only $500. While the Sennheiser HD800 are still over $1500 here in the states lol. The opposite of a good value in my eyes. I've never been too crazy about the Sennheiser sound though outside of the HD600/650.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Though having a look around it's cheaper than audeze now only at sales price at various retailers. The RRP is still AUD$1999.

 

[Waikis]

Speaking of headphone prices...

Audeze LCD-4

$3995.....

 

[Tommy DJ]

The planar markup is generally pretty insane when you consider planars, as noted constantly in a recent series of interviews on Inner Fidelity, are generally pretty inconsistent in terms of driver quality control. There's more drift between left and right channels in a single Audeze headphone than entire HD600 samples.

You'd think for the price (like as much as my first car) they'd get around to carefully driver matching them like (I think) Enigmatic Audio does or implement some passive correction circuit like solderdude does.

 

[Dynamite Ringo Matsuri]

The speed of many BA's while impressive in some respects also can sound a bit artificial, it's as if the decay is too short and sounds more precise than the actual performance would sound live on many songs.

Yeah, there's also the issue of note weight, in which a lot of BA driver configs feel either too thick or thin to come across as convincing. The Heaven VII and LAB I are two of my favorites for note weight. There's this density to the notes that I've not really found in anything else BA based.

According to my seller it is pretty similar to the kuro. From what I've read they're all pretty similar to each other.

Would you say that they're pretty neutral? Or is it more that they're treble coloured? I consider the asg to be pretty bass and MIDs coloured. Wasn't looking for a neutral phone though so that was fine.

It would be interesting to see how the strengths of both are compared to each other. I'd consider the vocals, percussion, imaging and BASS to be the asg's strengths. I actually really like the treble too but it's definitely laid back.


Hybrids man. Best of both worlds. Though from what I've read some implement it better than others.

The Flat-4s aren't neutral, no. They're all pretty much U-shaped. Elevated bass and treble, semi recessed mids. I prefer the bass of the Flat-4s to the ASGs. It's really tight and textured with more emphasis towards deep bass than mid bass. The Flat-4s are endowed with BA like speed. The overall sound is extremely detailed and has great dynamics, easily competing with stuff like the K3003 or the FIBASS in detail retrieval but the treble just has this thinnish character to it. I can't remember if the Kaede had that issue, but the SUI and Kuro did. Anyway, all this Flat-4 talk got my reminiscing so I just hopped on a Kaede Type II. I'm hoping that shigzeo's take on em is accurate and that they're more balanced than the Kaede V1.

I'm not overly fond of hybrids. The only ones I liked were the K3003 and the ASG 1Plus really. They don't really have the best of both worlds so much as they tend to inherit the worst issues of both technologies lol. So many hybrids are problematic in tuning as a result of using the TWFK. I just do not like the way that driver sounds for stuff like cymbals. Usually comes across as either sibilant or brittle.

I've heard hybrids that use proprietary drivers such as the Sony XBA series (H3/Z5) or the REF 1 as well and they too sound like crap to me. Usually as a result of way, way, way too much distorted bass and/or going in the opposite direction with super smooth treble/sucked out upper mids/lower treble. Then there's stuff like the Altones which hilariously enough, sound thin and muddy all at once or the Dunu 2000J which sound way too bright to me even after being putty/teabag modded.

Speaking of headphone prices...

Audeze LCD-4


$3995.....

Hecan'tkeepgettingawaywithit.gif

 

[leng jai]

Dat planar mark-up.

At least the LCD4 looks to be reasonably priced.

 

[Antiwhippy]

Yeah, from what I've read the asg uses a Knowles BA but not the twfk. It definitely sounds smoother than the pure BA phones that I've listened to.

Sub bass focus sounds good to me. It's really where my bass needs lie (also one of the strengths of the asg2.5, whereas the asg2 is more mid bass focused I believe). I never liked BA style bass though. It is speedy but it's speedy to the point where the faster decay just doesn't sound natural to me. Bass in a live environment has a slower decay and texture that I haven't heard yet from a BA driver.

Also yes, the kaede II looks beautiful.

 

[Jex]

Dear Headphone GAF,

You served me well awhile back when I needed some headphones, so I've returned to your bosom to seek further advice:

Can anyone recommend any good headphones for use while exercising outside fairly rigorously (e.g. Insanity)?

Price range - up to £50.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Antiwhippy]

Got my trinity hyperions in. They really made full use of that 7-14 days delivery period.

First impressions, great packaging. Like, shockingly good for what I've paid. Great box, really nice case for you to store your headphones, a really good selection of tips, including some foamies.

Thank God for that too, because they are so small I was getting crazy vacuum seals from the silicon tips. This thing is ridiculously tiny. It's like 1/3 to 1/2 the length of the aurisonics rocket and about the same diameter from what I remember of the rockets. They basically disappear into your ears.

Also very brief listening impressions: these seem incredibly good fit this price range. I'll post more about it once I get more listens, but I'm already really impressed.

I have yet to listen to the current kings in this price range (the tenore, havi b3 or the ostry) but from what I've heard from this price range, it is seriously impressive.