Headphone shootout at Jerry Towers.
Well, actually these 3 are the end result of a bit of a recent headphones journey.
Vintage Yamaha HP-500 orthodynamics.
B&O Form 1
Beyerdynamic DT-150
The Yammies are more obviously 'vintage' - a little boxy sounding, but good rez and dynamics. Nice to have and use occasionally.
The B&O surprised me. I bought them only because of the lovely (to my eyes) visual design.
But actually they are surprisingly good sounding - providing you can whack up the bass by a solid 10dB or so and reduce the treble a bit with a handy set of tone controls!
The Beyers are the main set for 'proper' listening before Mrs J gets up in the morning (she's a late sleeper). Pretty damn good, actually. Quite hi-rez, good tonality, a fair bit of oomph in the bass but not overpowering like some modern 'phones. And the earpads don't crowd my ears like some so-called over-ears do. Maybe I've just got big ears.
I tried a couple of other pairs before settling on those ...
Harman Kardon CL. On-ears that sounded very good, but I just couldn't settle with the on-ear feel. I much prefer circumaural over ears.
Audio Technica M50. Bought these ex-dem, with obviously very little play time on them. To start with they were very bass light and a bit peaky in the treble, not at all what I was expecting from the reviews! So I left them pounding away to Massive Attack's Mezzanine for 24 hours. Whoo - what a difference a day makes. After the break in they turned from bass light to rather bass heavy. The treble smoothed out nicely. Voiced for the Dr Dre crowd who want to move on to something a bit more sophisticated, I suspect.
And before any of these I had Flare Audio R2a in-ears. Great sound but I just couldn't adjust to the in-ear experience. Hence the above journey to find a replacement.
And before the Flare Audio there were Grado 325i. Superb headphones but the sound leakage was just too much for the Mrs.
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Bass and treble, and a fixed set of 6 equaliser settings. I like the tone controls! - just a plus or minus 1 nudge (out of 9) for bright or dull recordings, yay.
- a very different presentation to the Monarchy class A amps that are so popular here, for example, although I suspect that Marco would love it. Very upbeat, somewhat 'brightly lit' allowing its startling clarity to be showcased, and it lets a very healthy dose of musical pizzaz and excitement thru. Within the power limits, bass is deep and very well controlled - more than a bit awesome, actually.
Originally Posted by User211
