So when I got my HD800, they were so good from the first hour with every song and genre, when compared to other top tier flagship headphones, that I wrote a quick review to give them a no brainer five stars and then filled that review in slowly. Same deal here. These are getting close to the resolution, spatials and sound quality of a good full sized headphone. Not quite there yet -- for example, they're not as detailed, e.g., as my HD800 driven by a Burson Conductor ES9018, and they're similarly noticeably deficient in other respects when compared...

First a bit of background on my experiences with headphone amps. I have tried the Fiio E17, Objective 2, the 2.3W amp built into my laptop, my Yamaha receiver's headphone out and a cheap $40 Chinese tube amplifier. I got rid of the E17 and Objective 2 because after careful listening, they did nothing my 2.3W laptop amp couldn't do and so were a pointless waste of money. The tube amplifier though did impress me, it was super powerful, brought out deep bass that none of the other amps could do (although the Yamaha receiver got close), and added a nice...

Just doing a quick review of this amplifier that I got from China. If you look at my other amp reviews, you'll see that I have tried the Alpen E17 which I thought was underpowered and had an average DAC making it a total waste of money, and that I also tried the Objective 2 which wasn't underpowered, but wasn't something I would call powerful either.   Please note I tested this with a $14 bulb I purchased off of Ebay, an RCA model. So I'm not using the bulb it came with although I didn't listen to see if that made a difference.   Well this thing...

First the preliminaries, like, where do you find this and does it work? You can find this on ebay by searching for PCM5102 (called that because it has the high-end Burr Brown i.e. Texas Instrument PCM5102 chip), and you get the drivers from the link below (the purple baidu link) http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=35324113465 which work fine with both windows 7 and windows 8. I don't even know if the brand is really Breeze Audio but that's what it says on the case.   As another preliminary, please note that I am reviewing this amped. I connected its...

Let me start with the good, and then explain why you should never buy this IEM.   Sound signature: The treble, mids and bass are sort of like that of an HD800, except downgraded. For example, one of the songs I use to test headphones is Michael Jackson's The Way You Make Me Feel. One of the key parts I listen for is that initial drum blast. On this, it sounds very close to the way it sounds on the HD800, except it's just missing a little bit. Moving on to a treble heavy song, it sounds similar to the HD800, but slightly muddier and the highs seem a...

The only other IEM I've ever tried is the Shure SE425. The SE846 has not only better bass (obviously) but I confirmed that it has better treble and mids. The SE425 sounds downright muddy relative to these. The treble is very slightly rolled off on the SE846, I think, but that's subjective so it might be just right for you. The bass on these is like everyone says, tight, deep, natural and undistorted. But it's not at all like beats or other boomy headphones. Play a bass heavy track and you'll hear it with quality, but it doesn't inject bass where it...

Please be advised that I am only writing this review to help other buyers. I am not trying to upset any T1 owners and it's my honest opinion. If you think it's unfair please state so in the comments and I can reconsider although I have enough experience with headphones now to know what I like.   First, let me note for the reader that if you google the three words beyerdynamic t1 deal, you'll see that every month or so an internet retailer sells brand new T1s for $750 to $780 (and these seem to be authorized retailers, for example one deal was from...

As I noted in my reviews of the Alpen E17 and the O2 amp, those two did nothing that my laptop couldn't do. However, unlike those two products, this thing might actually be doing something. I sense a little more bass and treble coming out of my HD800 which makes some songs a little bit more interesting. Not all songs -- for example, Swan Lake definitely sounds better on my laptop's dac -- but certain pop songs sound better on this.   To give you a few technicals, this has the same DAC chip (ESS9023) as these much more expensive DACs...

The objective facts   Background: I listen to music on a higher-end (purchased for $800) Asus laptop, or my Galaxy Note 2 smartphone. With my SRH940s, the phone sounds better in terms of sound signature, but with my Sennheiser HD800s, the laptop sounds better for some reason. But they're both very close. All of these experiments were done listening to music on Spotify 320kbps; that's how I listen to headphones 99% of the time so that's the only way to test for my purposes.   How I tested this: I connected the O2 amp, with low gain, to my laptop's...

Will fill this in later but based on the fact that it absolutely kills every single song and genre of music that I've throw at it, the final rating is clear.   Edit 1: After listening to this and the Aude'ze LCD XC for four days, I've reached a point where I will never grab for the LCD XC if the HD800 are available. The HD800 simply sound more natural (all of the other headphones I have sound "synthetic," like they almost auto-tune or digitize the sounds very slightly if that makes any sense. With the HD800 it sounds like the band is singing and...

I have an odd history with these headphones, which I'll explain in detail so no one is misled by my rating. If after reading it, you think the rating is unfair please let me know in a comment.   My first headphones were in the sub $500 range, and I have always wanted to own one "best" headphone so that I could stop wondering if my music could sound better. I went around my city investigating options. In doing so, I listened to the LCD XC at a store where they sounded amazing. Great bass, mids and treble. I was really impressed. However, that store...

I use these when exercising next to cars. I used to use sealed closed back headphones which didn't block out noise well, but these definitely do. When outside in a loud environment and wearing these, I set the MP3 player's volume to the same level I use when listening to these IEMs in a quiet room. The isolation is that good (I use comply sleeves, but the sleeves included were also pretty decent).   However, I was definitely disappointed by the sound quality, relative to a $300 over the ear headphone. I will never choose this over a headphone if...

These headphones should be valued for providing an ultra-bright sound signature not offered by any other headphone that I'm aware of. Comparisons with the HD800: If you compare the 30hz and 300hz square wave measurements from the innerfidelity charts between these and the Sennheiser HD800, you'll see that the two are almost identical. I own the HD800s and this, and I can say that the SRH940s are much much closer to the HD800s than their prices would suggest. The HD800s handle bass and mids better, and their treble is a little smoother, and they have...