I like this headphone a lot.
 
My initial thoughts are... undertones of cherry walnut, infused with Goji berry from the fifth mountain of Ming valley watercrest, beckoned by the hurricane of Sakura, the tiger can't reach the candle.
 
 
Read more here - http://www.head-fi.org/t/545288/audio-technica-ath-es-10-appreciation-thread/120#post_8522317
 
 
 

 
This is still my favorite headphone, when something else impresses me beyond this then I'll upgrade.
 
When I compared this to my Audio Technica A2000X, the A2x sounded thin and delicate, the T5p had more life, it sounds alive, the T1 is smoky and refined, STAX has a different sound, transparent.
 
In fairness, I listened to the A2000X a little more, so perhaps the T5p sounds very impressive, but isn't as ethereal.
 
It has an "r type" sound, but the bass is extremely good quality, like the rest of the frequencies.
 
I've heard people say it's overpriced... is it really?  If it's my favorite headphone ever so far, and sounds significantly above and detached from the DT770/DT880/DT990 series, then the price is fine.
 
The smell of real leather on the headband and earpads is very nice, like an expensive black leather couch.
 
At the end of the day, I prefer speakers and IEM's to headphones, so I'm not an avid critic, but the T5p can make me listen to music and albums I'd never touch with cheaper gear, so it serves my music fuel very well in that sense.
 
Mine has scratches on it, so I may as well start using it outside now, but it doesn't look very sleek, and I'm a bit concerned what will happen if it starts raining
 
The first time I auditioned the T5p, I also listened to -
 
Audio Technica W5000
Audio Technica W1000X
Sennheiser HD800
Ultrasone Edition 10
Ultrasone Edition 8
LCD-2 (revision 2)
 
In that audition, the only one I'd consider is LCD-2.
 
I think I'd enjoy metal music more with the Grado SR325, and violin and trance music slightly more with the A2000X.
 
I think the vital question here though, is... which is better, the Tesla T1 or the Tesla T5p?
 
 
I really enjoy/love the T5p, but I think I just want to sell this and pick up a new speaker or custom IEM, call that my individual preference and continual curiosity. - I really don't think I'd sell this and get the T1.
 
I suppose what the T5p has really done to me, is not make me impressed by how good it sounds, rather I'm just so acclimatized to it now, that all other full-size headphones (like the DT770 / DT880 / DT990) sound completely useless to me.
 
It has an immense depth to the sound, it's the most alive sound you'll ever hear, I am pretty sure this is the driver technology.
 
The bass sounds like a sub-woofer (on low volume), if you can imagine that, not like the typical air-moving bass, you sense it more than you hear/feel it.  If you touch the outer cups lightly, the bass will pulse into your fingers, just like a sub-woofer pulses into your feet.
 
The mids are the highlight here, the natural sound is very good, it sounds like quicksilver / mercury, not quite liquid and not quite air^{[size=x-small] (yes, liquid metal, whatever)[/size]}
 
The highs are extended and very nice, like fresh summer, and dark winter at the same time.
 
I can't hear any specific resonance to speak of.
 
The drivers are very angled and sensitive to the distance to your ear, so moving the headphone around changes the projectile of the sound i.e. layering effect and the frequency response.  The Sony SA-5000 has angled drivers too, but I can't recall that effect right now.
 
It's possible this headphone isn't clear as glass transparent, it could have unnatural overtones or whatever.
 
It has a somewhat fixed sound.  It has a "T5p-ness" to it, irrelevant of source.  I usually imagine music (the electrical signal) as pure white, and then headphones individually colour the signal to differing extents, which is what I call source-transparency, or lack thereof.
 
I don't consider it to score high in source-transparency, however it will shine with amplification (my stereo receiver is fine) and it's slightly synergistic, however only one third of the A2x in that respect.
 
I may extend the review one day to cover synergy one day.
 
The OPA627^{[size=x-small]1[/size]} sounds very good with the T5p, they intertwine nicely giving a sense of completion to the sound, lacking in neither X nor Y, however not exactly an uplifting sound, more like a dark misty night.
 
If you want further reading, I'd recommend this review - http://www.avguide.com/review/beyerdynamic-t5p-headphones-playback-38
 
As the introduction states "The Beyerdynamic T5p is certainly not a sonic clone of their T1".
 
That's correct, I should note it's not a closed-back T1 with lesser performance (as per 600 versus 32 ohm).
 
I don't think higher ohms indiciate higher performance in my experience, that's just Beyer's advertising in DT series, which may hold true there for some reason, but 16 and 32 ohms usually have a cleaner and less filtered sound in IEM's compared to when I increase them to ~100 with the Etymotic cable, however in some cases (such as the ER-4) the extra resistance seems to improve the FR, imaging and tone.
 
If the T5p is actually the T1 with less resistance and less ventilation and that's it, I really don't care, the T5p sounds extremely nice.

Remember the part of the review where I called the T5p quicksilver, in that respect the T1 sounded like
Helium.
 
I'd like to extend the review to include synergy but I don't like sitting at home listening to music all day so I think I'll just sell it now in light of my IEM passion and their versatility to use anywhere.
 
 
Colour:  Very dark, with overtones of violet.
 
Season:  Winter, with stark sunlight and clear transparent blue water.
 
Character:  Natural, extreme depth, liquid metal, slightly volatile.
 
 
Looks:  6/10 (not a fashion icon)
 
Technology: 10/11
 
 
Thanks for reading and enjoy this headphone if you ever have the chance to hear it!
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
1979
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2010
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I'd like to voice my opinion on the Etymotic ER-4PT before I pack it up (trading), I didn't really like the sound very much, but it improved significantly with a 75 ohm adaptor (which turns it into the ER-4S) and brought out it's qualities.
 
The ER-4S is really much more spacious and impressive, it has fantastically clear highs, I love the decay of shimmering cymbals that just extends upward. Imagine that air on every instrument, piano, vocals, there's a really nice sense of air and decay, it's also fairly accurate.
 
Detailed, I think lends to this signature, that everything appears rather detailed, however I'd like to counter that and (imho) I think there are details that get caught up in the single driver, what I'm saying is they come from the same point in space, there's isn't much layering or imaging and thus detail suffers in this respect, compared to the CK10 I think the CK10 has more detail, and also more speed, in line with the J-phonic (however the J-phonic has speed in the highs and huge decay in the bass, at the same time).
 
The "microdetail" however (in the way I perceive that term) reminds me of the Shure SRH-940. Listening to the ER-4S and watching the oscilloscope visualizer in foobar at the same time is really fun.
 
On the negative side, I find myself analyzing the sounds of the music, intead of enjoying the music, so the enjoyment factor is a bit lower than ideal, the intimacy is low, the bass impact is low, and sometimes it feels like a stream of 1's and 0's, however this was even more true of the ER-4PT, I couldn't hear anything but that "1's and 0's" feeling. If the EX1000 is reading romantic litterature, the ER-4 is reading glossary's and phonebooks.
 
I'm really quite surprised at how much the adaptor improved the ER-4PT.
 
This is the first song I heard on the ER-4S (ER-4PT with the 75 ohm adaptor), this song is a great match for the ER-4, and I think my amplifier responds better to higher impedance IEM's (which might be tainting this mini-review, since my amplifier made the ER-4S that much better than it's low ohm counterpart).
 
The design of the packaging was really quite nice (I like the ETYMOTIC red text on the black box) and the FR sheet is something that I really hope other IEM manufacturers pick up on. Just to clarify, it's a frequency response graph of your IEM, with serial codes on the paper that match the serial codes on the ER-4's themselves, as confirmation.
 
As a final note the design of the IEM's themselves is horrid, it feels like an insect in your ear and you can't wear them over-ear.
 
The reason I bought the ER-4? http://sonove.angry.jp, thanks Sonove!
 
My first song experience on the ER-4S, please listen =)
 
http://grooveshark.com/#/s/Bittersweet/3Q2Irs?src=5
 
 
 

I used to use the ck10 and ex700 to complement eachother as my standard IEM's, which was a nice pair of two very different IEM's, I used the ck10 much more, but I liked the sound quality of the ex700 sometimes, if you click on my username you can find my ck10 review where I compare them with certain songs and sometimes find music quite a bit more enjoyable with the ex700, factoring in price and the qualities I liked in both, I leaned more towards the EX700, and I ended up selling the ck10 to explore other IEM's and kept the EX700, and I do not regret this.  The most vivid difference you ask? the EX700 could convey emotional expression via music where the ck10 could not, it is like natural and enveloping versus synthetic and accurate.
 
In regards to the oft-mentioned sibilance, I must be technical and digress, I don't think the EX700 is sibilant, at least not like the CK10 or the SA-5000 which is what I call sibilant, especially the SA-5000 where "s" sounds are actually resonating into your nasal cavity, but I could handle that, it was kinda cool.
 
The vice of the EX700 is it's just harsh in a dissonance of the mids kind of way, which becomes literally deafening with extended use, it's literally impossible to listen to the EX700 with sony hybrids, flat eq, and high volume, impossible, after half an hour my ears are ringing, after an entire 7 hour plane-trip, it'll take my ears a day or two to completely normalize again, like I was at a harsh concert!  I have however learnt to circumvent this flaw, so I now use decored Shure Olives tips, along with eq'ing, my source of choice is the Teclast T51, and now I just get the best qualities out of the EX700 without much harshness left, the best qualities are IMHO excellent transparency, tonality, decay, resonance and sweetness/clarity, the latter of which I attribute to the 6kHz FR boost, but I do find the imaging in these really quite weak especially on the Y axis, and I certainly miss the flat-FR of the ck10. If I could sum up the EX700 in a few words I would call it the "harmony of dissonance" IEM, or "the deceitful angel", whatever Sony has magically done to the housing or driver of the EX600/800ST/1000 it seems to have recorrected itself into the "harmony of resonance" IEM instead.
 
It seems like the EX600 is the new recommendation now, but if you can pick up an EX700 for less than the EX600, or would like something with a different flavour than the EX600 and can handle some minor eq'ing or tip experimentation, or perhaps would like more of a collectors item product, I insist it is worth it at that price, for the sound signature.
 
The EX700 doesn't have a good reputation on head-fi, but I find this is slightly erroneous, I think newcomers and veterans alike should be able to appreciate it's high level of sound quality, one such example is when my ex girlfriend was trying some of my different IEM's, and to her "they all sounded like earphones", until she heard the EX700, that one stood out to her and after listening to some pop and dub-step from her laptop she said "I feel like listening to all my music all over again!", and I have seen reviews on the internet in the same vein.
 
There has been some discussion on the FR graphs of the EX700/600/800/1000 created by sonove.angry.jp, mostly along the lines of "what was Sony thinking?" with the 6kHz boost, but it is now clear to me that this boost is intentional, as we can also find it in high-end custom IEM's like the Rooth LS8 which even goes over and beyond whatever Sony was thinking with that SS.
 
Source synergy is important too, I do most of my listening with the Teclast T51 which has a good synergy with the EX700, another strength it has, source transparency, I can now hear the difference between my laptop and T51 clear as day, which was much harder with the ck10 as it is more forgiving and just takes whatever signal it gets and says "let's ck10 this", whereas the EX700 is let's the signal shine through, albeit it is stained glass.
 
On the T51, the eq allows for adjustment in the 60Hz, 300Hz, 1kHz, 3kHz and 6kHz range, looks pretty useless right? No, not with the EX700, as 1kHz and 6kHz are important sectors of where you have to eq it imho.
I usually adjust the eq like this:
1kHz -4
6kHz +2
 
So as you can see, 4dB less at 1kHz, that is quite a decrement, but that is what it takes, and then 6kHz +2? not necessary, but it sounds good! boosting the natural peak exactly where it is, improving sweetness and detail just a tiny bit more along with the reduction of harshness at 1kHz, the HO and LO both sound good on the Teclast T51 with the EX700, but the LO is the vivid, clear, clean and sweet one and thus my favorite here, however I use the HO quite a lot so I can adjust the volume and it sounds fine with pop and stuff.
 
In Foobar2000, I can't adjust 6kHz, I can only adjust 5kHz and 7kHz, that adjustment doesn't sound very good, 5khz sounds OK, but not 7khz, which starts learning towards piercing, so I leave them alone.
 
In Foobar2000, I can't adjust 1kHz either, only 440 Hz, 622 Hz, 880Hz and 1.2kHz, you have to play around with those to get a good sound.  The eq adjustment and sound-quality out of the Teclast T51 is on a whole different level here though.
 
So what of genre? I said I thought the ck10 excelled in trance music, smooth detail and excellent imaging, so I listened to more of that and similiar electronic music, but it performed at a pretty high level across the spectrum.
 
With the EX700 I find I'm listening to more alternative rock, like live björk recordings, and quite a lot dark electro, harsh EBM, where the bass impact, clarity, tonality and transferral of emotion suit that music very well.  Of course I'm listening to a few old Nirvana albums now too, where the rawness, decay, transparency, texture, shimmer and spirit gives any music like that a good character, likewise these are well suited for piano's and female vocals, combine that with bass-impact and you have a winning IEM for pop and r&b here as well.
 
The weakness again is violins, it sounds pretty good, but I'm very picky there and haven't quite found the IEM for my classical music tastes yet.  Yet another weakness is imaging and layering, I miss the flat-FR and addictive pacing and speed of the ck10, they can't quite keep up there, but these are very different IEM's.  Some recordings will also lose some crunch or character with the eq adjustment, and have the harshness without it, so I find sometimes there isn't a perfect solution and there will always be some hassle with these deceitful IEM's, which is a shame.
 
I'd have to expand this into a proper review with music links to go into detail in this section though, I might do that when I'm home again (travelling right now, writing on my laptop with wireless internet) and have proper amplification and sources to be more just, as I only have my laptop soundcard and Teclast T51 here right now, this review is not final and I may finalize it at a later point and reserve the right to some slight adjustments.
 

Scores:
 
-Presentation:
 
highs 9/10
mids 9/10
bass 9/10
 
-Quality:
 
highs 9/10
mids 6.5/10
bass 8/10
 
-Genre's:
 
vocals 8/10
classical 7.6/10
-piano 8.1/10
-violin 6.9/10
trance/electronica 7/10
alternative 9/10
rock 9/10
dark-electro/EBM 9.1/10
 
 
 --kiteki
 

These are most likely the best IEM's you will ever find for trance, let me explain, firstly it is as if they are fine-tuned and sonically crafted for Trance and similiar genres, all the vices you heard in these IEM's in other genres suddenly become virtues and they simply come alive and you are swept away.
Secondly, there is something about the sound signature in these IEM's that is trance inducing, I believe it lies in the very flat and true to life frequency response and satin smooth mids, it's like listening to water, like a band playing on a misty lake, this quality is very fine and quite relaxing, unlike other IEM's I can listen to these for hours and I even fell asleep in them listening at low volumes.
 
Likewise I find them quite suitable for classical thanks to the very high detail retreival and true to life frequency response especially somewhere up around 6kHz-10kHz.
 
Next genre, I listened to the album Homogenic by Björk, I found this album remarkable on these IEM's.
_______
 
Next genre, rock, vocals..... hm?  what's this?  Not so good here, every texture I'm used to is smoothed over, sand turns into silk, frost turns into water, marble into milk.... you get the idea, they lack livliness and aren't acoustically involving.
Listening to my Rock music as I'm writing this I had "Broder Daniel - Work" playing, and then halfway through the track I switched my ck10's with my stripped MDR-E888's, I can instantly hear everything I was missing, the vocals, percussion and electric guitars all sound more raw, acoustic and real now, much better for this kind of music.  So, I will give the ck10's a 7/10 for rock, and 10/10 for Trance.  I can live with this vice, they have a very high sound quality, so they will sound OK with any genre, for sure, and you can't expect 10/10 sound in portable audio.
_____
 
The accessories is nothing to write home about, and the cable looks pretty normal to me, I've seen better cables.
 
Design is top notch, it feels so intuitive and simple to hook them over your ear, I achieved a perfect fit immediately.  They are so small, and the dark-teal coloured metal covers almost make them look like jewelery in your ears.
 
Comfort and isolation is very good, I fell asleep in them.
 
Build-quality seems superior, I feel like I could go jogging with these in the rain, take them to the beach, the snow, or a concert, I feel like they'll hold up.
 
 
________
 
Verdict:
 
For the price, I'd only recommend these to someone that listens to trance everyday, or someone that wants to make a long-term investment in a pair of high sound-quality IEM's that will not fail them.
 
If you want raw, edgy, lifelike, acoustic sound or open-window transparency, don't look here, my $75 stripped MDR-E888's I used in this review outperform them here.
 
If you want overall high sound-quality, mids so watery it feels like you could drink them, and highs so airy and detailed they're like... air... you should look here.
_________
 
curiosa:
 
- I listen to music at high volumes, these seem to have tamed my high volume listening habits, so I think these IEM's are healthy for me, the flat FR and high detail at low volumes makes the listening experience fine.
 
- Deep insertion results in better sound.
_____________________
 
Most Exceptional Tracks
 
Tiesto - Adagio For Strings
Paul Oakenfold - Gamemaster (original mix)
ap-aqua.line.spirit
Dj Murasame - Scripted Connection -original extended-
Hilary Hahn - Paganini Caprice No. 24*
Björk - bachelorette*
 
 
Least Exceptional Tracks
 
my entire rock collection.
 
---------------------------------------------------
 
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh3D_ujMjtM&fmt=18
 

 
 
 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-cQ3N-Ok7U&fmt=18
 

 
 

 
[skip to the end of the review for the punchline]
 
I purchased one of these (the 8GB version) from ebay second hand since I'd heard so many positive things about Cowon's audio quality and my Sony NWZ-B135F/B needed an upgrade.
 
The previous user had had it in his possession for 5 months, at first glance it looked very nice (though a little bit larger in real life) very faint scratches on the back and the screen was perfect.
I then realised the tilt-detector completely failed within an hour of use, the play/pause button was very loose, and the lock switch was quite sensitive or not working, hm, oh well, I actually don't care about that stuff, they're not important anyway, I'm just after the audio!
 
I loaded a heap of songs in various formats and genres along with a few videos onto the s9, the video support is very nice! very nice portable video player from my brief impression of that feature, I also loaded some comic books onto this player as a test, then using the picture viewer, yes, I think I could read comics on this thing, you have to zoom in here and there on small text and then scroll around the page, but those features work quite nicely so yes, you can pull it off.
 
The UI is okay, a tiny bit of delay at times with the touchscreen, and not the most intuitive interface, but once you're used to it it seems fine.
 
[the above information is mostly nonsense, so you can skip to this part of the review if you want]
 
Now... onto the audio!
 
For the past 7 hours I've been listening to the s9 doing side by side comparisons with my laptop audio jack, cd-player->amp and sony dap, with three different headphones and two earphones.
 
My laptop and cd-player/amp are just for reference, it's a standard-issue laptop and cd player and vintage amp with nice sound.
 
My Sony NWZ-B135F/B is a discontinued model -> http://www.sony-asia.com/product/nwz-b135f/sku/nwz-b135f_bce
It is however quite likely to be very very similiar to the rest of the B-Series Sony Walkmans series, it's the size of a large cigarette lighter with a very basic screen, I'm purely using it for audio.
 
Ok, now for the sake of authentic reviewing, I am going to list every song, setting, and model number for the following comparisons.
 
Track 1: "true... (Trance Sunrise Mix)" mp3-320 | Artist: Riyu Kosaka | 2001 single "true..."
Track 2: "SILENT KNIGHT" mp3-320 | Artist: Versailles | 2008 single "prince and princess"
 
1st - Vintage Amp via laptop with normal EQ and 12% volume hooked to Sony MDR-SA5000.
2nd - Dell laptop using foobar with normal EQ and 65% volume hooked to Sony MDR-SA5000.
3rd - Cowon S9 with normal EQ and 100% volume(40) hooked to Sony MDR-SA5000.
4th - Sony Nwz-B135F/B with normal EQ and 100% volume hooked to Sony MDR-SA5000.
 
These headphones require a nice amp, so 1st place outclasses the others with a richer, spacious, and more lively sound.
 
The laptop has slightly better sound quality than the S9 and is only at 65% volume compared to 100% on the cowon (so if you like your music particularly loud and have 'high-end' headphones, the S9 won't do the trick).  As soon as I select a decent EQ setting on my laptop though, the difference becomes more apparent, trying to match this with a good EQ setting on the cowon is interesting, sometimes they sound pretty good, but more often than not they sound like complete jokes (crystal clear, reverb stadium, X-bass etc.), in this case the best I could find was the BBE ViVA, Classic, or the Reverb Room (which became a quick favorite), Vocal is also a very effective EQ setting for just listening to vocals, all in all, the S9 has a powerful, colorful EQ.  I'd like to note though, that even at "normal" EQ the S9 still has coloration in the sound, more on this later.
 
The Sony Nwz-B135F/B is not quite powerful enough for an enjoyable listening experience on the SA5000's.
This is interesting, because the mW output of the sony is 5mW+5mW, and the mW output of the S9 is 29mW+29mW, I suspected this difference should be huge, right?  Well, it's not, it's fairly noticable on these 'phones... but then on the smaller or lower ohm phones like basic earbuds, the volume difference is hardly noticable anymore, sure, it's there, but it feels more like 5mW vs 7mW, and not 29.
 
Next... I compared Fostex T5's and then Koss Portapro's (the S9 matched with the Koss's quite well, at least with electronic music, if you can live with muddy bass, these were a pretty good match for the S9.)
 
Then... I compared the earphones that come with the S9 and a pair of Sony MDR-E708 earphones.
 
The stock issue earphones look cheap and plasticky, but they are actually quite responsive and have a tamed projection across the spectrum so they sound half-decent with the otherwise over-the-top S9 EQ settings, but I am skipping their comparison since it's the same as the conclusion below.
 
So, now comes the Sony MDR-E708 earphones, the final part of my review, these earphones are fairly cheap and standard-issue, I'd say just above the included earphones for the S9, but they certainly can shine for cheap earphones.
Anyway, with all the headphones I tested, the S9 came out on top of the SonyNwz in delivery of sound, mostly related to power(mW) I'm guessing, it also came out on top in surround/spatial sound.
 
Now then, in terms of sound quality, even though at lower volumes, the Sony player came out on top, the sony sounds more real, more lustrious, more alive, punchy and present, more effective in delivering music, the way music sounds.
 
So, how can this be so? The S9 is supposed to have some of the best sound quality out there? How can a cheap sony player be better?
 
[here comes the punchline]
 
... I have a hard time enjoying music on the S9, there is a veil, like, some kind of filter on the music, as if I were at a concert and there was a thin glass wall between me and the music, that's what music sounds like on the S9, it sounds like someone stabbed the songs prior to me listening to them, so that when I hear them all the stereo and surround and details are pretty much there, and sometimes it sounds nice and good, but it's simply lifeless.
In lack of a better word, there is also an early 90's sound to the music, it sounds like the eq has been permenantly adjusted so the midrange is lower than the bass and treble, lending itself towards a sound signature of clarity, but lacking in body and presence.
If you value any of the following terms in your music, then the S9 is not for you:
rawness, noise, distortion, gravity, kick, presence, airiness, pureness, conductivity, sexiness.
 
They're the words that come to mind that are lacking in this mp3 player, and that's why I'm selling it tomorrow, two days after my purchase with extensive reviewing, If you want clean music with a powerful EQ and a videoplayer with good battery life and you're not concerned about the pricetag, then sure, get it!
If you want almost the same features at a lower price and better build quality (I think), get the Samsung YP-P3, if you don't want video, the Cowon iAudio U5 might also be an option.
 
If you care about pricetags and want the best portable audio quality you can get, don't get this, start burning cd's! get a portable cd player and portable headphone amp like the fiio e5 at half the cost, with the money you saved, get a shoulder-bag for transportation and a good pair of earphones or headphones that suit your tastes.
 
 
[I know this review was lengthy, but in what I'd read I'd only heard good things about the cowon's, so when I was disappointed, I felt I had to let others know so they wouldn't waste their time like I've done.]
 
 
Hope this was helpful, good luck.
 
- kiteki
 
 
p.s. this is my first post on head-fi. d.s.