comfort and build.
I think there’s a reason they made the 45 after that and not a 701 or whatever.
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I use the Sony WH1000 on planes. I like that it comes with a wire for use w/ plane TV’s, the bluetooth is solid, never a problem with my Apple sources. They fold and the case is reasonably sized for travel. I don’t like HP’s much in general but these in all honesty get the most use out of all i own because i’m on the road so much and the features work just fine. Sound is acceptable for travel use and noise cancellation is excellent. I’ve been on Orland FL. flights more than i care to admit on planes FULL of crying children and these headphones have been a godsend….I have some Bose and the Sony are my preference overall, i have had BT issues with the Bose and with one set an annoying drop of noise cancellation upon take off and landing…
no idea why they do this.
I was able to purchase a set of felt earpads for the Sony (massdrop) which i plan to switch to from the pleather soon, the pleather annoys me past 3 hrs, it gets hot.
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Mine will shut off cancellation for a second or two if you physically tap them, and I’d assume it’s a safety feature, so they don’t generate a massive volume spike inside the headphone to counter what’s really just a quiet noise near the microphone, I could see similar issues with pressure changes.
Yes that’s my experience with ANC, it can make a god awful experience tolerable, most of my flights are 4 or 5 hours, luckily I haven’t travelled as much in the last few years, but it’s starting to look like a more frequent occurrence again starting this year.
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I have limited estat experience but when I tried the Bravura I thought it was incredible. It just doesn’t have great macrodynamics. But apparently that’s normal for estats…
Ended up picking up the 1000MX5’s, was torn between those and the Sennheiser’s, in the end the priorities I put in the original post made the decision for me, comfort and noise cancelling over sound quality.
They aren’t terrible sound quality wise, certainly better than my QC15’s, though the default Bass tuning is obnoxious, at least they allow you to apply EQ to resolve the worst of it, “clear bass” might be the most misnamed feature I’ve seen in a while should really be “bloated uncontrolled bass”.
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I haven’t tried the over-ear XM5’s, but I have an older model of the Sony earbuds (XM3s) and it’s the same there too, the bass/treble balance is pretty awful by default, and the EQ app can get it in the ballpark of reasonable, but still not great.
(I don’t own any noise-cancelling cans though, so sorry I can’t give any recommendations there. I don’t fly very much.)
Imo, this isn’t normal for estats. They won’t ever be utopia, but they can have some great speed and punch. The problem is, amps with good control are expensive. I would put bravura a bit shy of normal bass levels (it’s in line with a normal mid point at lower levels but breaks up when vplume is pushed so I put it lower)
They can, but I wouldn’t consider this macrodynamics, and I would say that a fair amount of estats do struggle with a bit of compression and a much much stronger showing for micro than macro. Doesn’t mean that all stats will be terrible in macro or that more dynamically open and balanced stats exist compared to others, but I will say I’ve never personally heard a macrodynamic focused stat if that says anything lol
True, and a lot of them end up sacrificing other aspects to get the widest swing possible
What would people here consider the best headphones for electronic music? Meaning prioritizing many things like speed impact slam FR extension over timbre and stage to some extent, also forwardness or smoothness don’t matter as much… you get the point I guess.
Budget isn’t the concern, discontinued models count, combination of headphones plus specific chain also but only if there’s a good justification to why that’s the only real answer.
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For me, the answer will change drastically depending on 3 things:
- Just exactly how much swamp you want
- How important a salute sub-bass extension is
- How much you value mids for this music.
If the answer to 3 is “I don’t” I think 1266 is a pretty damn easy choice tbh. If you care about mids medium amounts though, I think it’s frankly just out. From there it comes down to the first two. Sus has that sub-bass and mids, but looses out a bit in speed and tactility to stuff like x9k, oh utopia and d8kp (not le). For a really weird option, the lambda style stax actually get some fairly good slam when driver properly and give this very weird and while stage leading something like lambda signature off of a Carbon CC to be seriously shockingly good for hyper synthetic music with a lot of texture and articulation like synth wave
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For me personally till this point fostex th900 on vio 550. I would even say just for edm og over my sapphire blue. I am yet to hear D8K or abyss one day.
Also all focal headphones I tried were solid with edm.
Susvara totally was lacking slam I want for edm.
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Meze Empy, D8K (original) for planar, for dynamic driver look at bio-cellulose options like ZMF Eikon would be a good start.
After not having something with in your face fat bass for a long time, I’m actually enjoying EDM on the LCD-X a lot. They have subwoofer level slam to the point of building enough pressure that you can feel it in your ear canal.
I know not “best” caliber but just wanted to throw it out there. Also, it’s probably just me, I’m way more forgiving of quality when I’m just in rave mode, whether in the car of just mindlessly listening to something like Chemical Brothers when I’m multitasking on my monthly metrics are work some other type of mindless job.
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Funny you mention this, I just felt like listening to some last night (I don’t listen to electronic music often) and had the yh5k on… i think this would be the best out of the totl I’ve heard (utopia, d8kp, mysphere 3.1/3.2). Imo it has the cleanest, tightest, and fastest bass of the bunch. It’s not as organic or realistic as d8kp and MS but I think it fits right in with electronic (but I guess it really depends on what you like to listen for). Also, its narrow stage width, delicate treble, and microdynamic capability make for a pretty engaging experience. But, again, don’t listen to much electronic so… fwiw
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Fostex TH900 or Abyss 1266 TC.
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I’m going to add a nod for the Fostex 9xx specifically for me the 909, even over the 1266, and I had them in house side by side on the same chain when making that determination. The LCD-24 for me is also a front runner - especially with deadmau5 flavor trax
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I do like electronica on my LCD2C but it isn’t always fast enough. I also find that electronica is as fussy as classical when it comes to amp/headphone pairing. I really like the RNHP/Elegia pairing as it has speed and tightness and enough top end to stop the detail getting lost in the bass mix. I really did not like electronica on the Denon AH-D5200. Too much bass bloom, especially for House music. I do really like the DT880 for this kind of music, I think it really suits it when paired with a good full bodied amp. I also think that Audio Technica’s more V shaped headphones work best for electronica in general.
I have been thinking about cultural influence on listening expectation and music choices lately as an explanation for why different tunings seem to come from brands in different parts of the world.
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@M0N to continue our little discussion in the ZMF thread yesterday in a more appropriate place: you said you had/used an Apex Pinnacle 2 in the past, correct? Did you find any magic headphone pairings? I don’t even know where to start looking at this point. I was thinking possibly Focal Utopia (not sure which variant), but then I’ve read so much about driver issues and Focal sucking about repairs/replacements that I’m not sure I want to go that route, especially with a used pair.
Detail retrieval, layering/separation, and impact/slam are the things that matter most to me. I’m quite disappointed with the P2 in regards to its slam. The EAR HP4 (with Sophia 6SL7s) has fantastic slam/impact with both the VC and Atticus, but the Atticus especially sounds weird on that amp. The stage is very tall and narrow. On the P2, the Atticus is nearly as wide as the VC sounds on the HP4. Honestly, aside from the highs being rolled, the Atticus are near perfect through the P2. I’ve never really liked them before this amp because they just never sounded right to me.
Regardless, the VC have no slam/impact at all, among other issues with this amp. Bass is present and audible, it’s just got nothing behind it. I haven’t rolled tubes yet since breaking the P2 back out and am sticking with the Psvane CV181-T Mk II for now to let it burn in. There’s a touch of slam in the Atticus, but the SRH1840 through the RNHP hits harder.
I’m expecting slam/impact to be disappointing with all headphones, which is why I was thinking Focal since their slam/impact is incredible from what I remember of the Clear and from what I’ve read about most of their models.
I’m intrigued by the D8000 (and/or Pro) but just don’t know if the P2 is up to the task of driving them properly. Same with Abyss or even some of the higher-end HFM models.
I’ll stop rambling here. 
Mainly used it with the MDR-R10, but also AKG K1000, Fostex TH900, Hifiman HE500, Grado PS2000e, Sennheiser HD800 or 600, or the original T1 (t1.2 wasn’t as good of a pairing). That being said, I actually wasn’t all too floored with it with more modern cans to be honest, and really when I sold the R10, I sold the pinnacle. I also find that it’s pretty rich leaning regardless of tubes, and I preferred a more neutral and forward source to really tighten especially the bass up, so find myself running it with things from bricasti and berkeley, and some older things in the past from demos of the og pinnacle
It was alright, but personally too rich (and looser) leaning for my preference with those cans, that being said some might like that pairing
That’s really it’s main weakness, it’s somewhat flabby in the bass, and while you can compensate for that in tube rolling and source and cables, it’s still not going to remove that either, but pairing with a headphone where it works in it’s favor is really the best course of action
It wasn’t a good pairing with the susvara, never tried any other hfm besides that and the HE500 which I did really like. The D8000 pro I never got to try on it, but that’s one where I’d actually think it might work pretty dang well depending on what you’re after, but can’t say for sure since I’ve not tried it (just going off of how it tends to drive). The 1266 was a mixed pairing for me, because on one hand it made the mids really nice which that headphone tends to lack at, but I think it really took a hit in the low end slam and authority which admittedly is really what I want from the 1266 when I decided to use it lol, felt a bit wonky for what I wanted out of that headphone.
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Thank you! That was very helpful. When I last used the Pinnacle 2, it had been with the various MHDT DACs, so I was really hoping my OS PCM63 ADCOM GDA-600 would tighten that bass up, but if it did, it’s not noticeable.
Great to know about the HE500. Kicking myself again for selling those years back. Got them for like $700 in some online sale at a NY-based hi-fi shop and they paired INCREDIBLY well with the Drop THX AAA 789. It was amazing synergy. Then my GS-X mini arrived and those paired poorly with it and I sold them, but I never stopped thinking about that combo. Those headphones were fantastic. I know reading this, it’s all right in a row, but it’s been a few minutes between sentences and I’ve pretty much talked myself into finding a pair.