Excellent, Even Surreal, Once EQ is adjusted
These are excellent headphones, with unbelievable bass(read-accurate).
As equalized they are not particularly accurate though-no doubt to the intention of having them used in noisy environments. Though lacking a documented frequency curve, I would guess it has a pronounced dip in the upper midrange to lower high frequency region, combined with a slightly heavy midbass band. No doubt many people will find this exciting, I am sure this was done again to compensate for an expected noisy external environment.
I am a sound engineer, and I have been looking for very high quality noise reduction headphones for mastering purposes. I suspected when I first auditioned these, that with a little tweaking, I could get them "perfect".
In mastering, one of the biggest problems is dealing with any extraneous noises that may "mask" details in the recording you are working on. traditional headphones simply cannot block all of this noise out. You would be amazed at the noise that creeps into your audtioning that you aren't aware of. The headphones do the finest job of removing this noise that I have ever heard. It is simply amazing. I never realized, even in a controlled listening room, just how much noise was present. In silence with the headphones powered off, then on, I realized I could hear my breathing! Yes, even the smallest amount of noise can effect the quality of music, and how wonderful to have almost everything eliminated.
As stated earlier I had to adjust my eq when using these for mastering, involving listening to hours of reference recordings to get it right, but I got there.
Now I have to say I almost listen exclusively to these headphones for all my audtioning. I have B&W speakers for my reference-anyone who knows anything about speakers, know these are the best, and I still prefer my headphones. NOW this is primarily because of the noise elimination, you simply will not believe the details in music that are buried beneath a noise floor that you don't even perceive.
I can even plainly hear differences between 16bit and 24bit when I am mastering! Its almost frightening.
One last thing. they are VERY comfortable. mastering can often take hours, and its wonderful to have a pair of cans that you can leave on without any ear pain.
Highly recommended. I will be happy to write another review with the supplied eq settings in the future if anyone is interested.
