trunolimit
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2009
- Posts
- 218
- Likes
- 15
I did use the Beats Studio for a couple years and thought they were fine, I'd read people saying what crap they are and did think that there are no doubt headphones that beat these pretty badly but I already spent $350 on these, they were better than the old Sennheiser 525's I had which were a good 10 years old and pretty worn out. The problem I had with the Beats wasn't so much the bass it was the overall harshness of the things.
So I got a chance to trade them in for a used pair of Bose QC15, I really didn't care about noise reduction but these were at least a little better than the Beats. Pretty thin sounding to say the least but I was able to get them sounding pretty good on my computer with the right EQ, adding quite a bit of bass and mid.
I had a pair of Klipsch 4's which were decent and used them for the mp3 player, ended up upgrading these to the x7, which I ended up liking so much they replaced the QC15 as my main phones. Then a cat chewed the wires making them toast and I wanted to get something new and better.
So this is where I had to take a leap of faith, and I did audition the Momentums as the local Future Shop but they sounded terrible to be honest. The source was awful and the volume was way too low and they had them hard wired into some crap. I asked if I could try them out with my mp3 player to see what they really sounded like and he said no, the Sennheiser rep set this up and you can't listen any other way.
So these really did sound like $20 headphones with that audition and I was definitely put out. The kid said that the store hadn't sold even one set of Momentums and he recommended some cheaper phones. So it came down to this audition versus the opinion of people writing on this thread and I ended up going with the Head Fi'ers and bought them, he said I could take them back but I was fairly confident that I would not need to.
Out of the box these were already the best headphones I've ever heard, and they've just gotten better as I've broken them in. I do want to point out though that if you just plug them into your ipod or other mobile device you are not even coming close to appreciating what these can do. They do sound good plugged into that but they really will sing on your home computer with a good sound card and the jriver player on asio with some good parametric eq settings. I just use a simple one, low shelf 1000 +4, high shelf 1000 +1, plus upsample to 96 hz 32 bit.
So my next project is to perhaps pick up a good dac/amp to hook up to my computer, I don't want to spend more than a couple hundred bucks here as my budget is limited so I'm considering the HRT Micro Streamer which people consider to be a killer for the money. So once I save up for that I will probably pick it up and hope that this will take things to a new level for me.
The Momentums are clearly the first true quality headphones I've ever had in spite of them being similarly priced to what I've been listening to the last few years. I was thinking about the HE400s for a while, now I'm not so sure that they will be that much better or even better at all. Anyone listen to both and have an opinion?
I have tried the he400. Owned them for a week. They are better in every aspect you could think of when compared to sound. Deeper smooth bass. Nice rumble effect on songs that call for it. These headphones have the greatest bass you will ever experience at that price. I say experience because it is not something you just hear it's felt and will move you. Since they are open they have a spacious sound stage. Great instrument separation. Why I got rid of them is because they are huge and not portable at all. Don't even try it. My fiio was decent in powering them but you'd have to drop some cash on a solid amp to get the most out of them. They are some serious cans for a home set up.
You really can't compare the momentums to them. Totally different classes of headphones.