Massdrop x HIFIMAN Edition XX Headphones Discussions | Drop

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Massdrop x HIFIMAN Edition XX Headphones

Audiophile

FULL DISCUSSION

shrimants

Oct 26, 2019

Dont really know what I can put, I auditioned these and PLENTY of others before I chose them. To be perfectly clear, I did not "settle" for these. As soon as I heard them, i was absolutely floored. It was the EXACT sound signature I was looking for. Lets get the negatives out of the way real quick. The box packaging is basically a shoe box. There is no quality or premium feeling to it. You get a cardboard box, no sleeve, with a cheap paper print glued on it. Inside you get an extremely thin foam piece that i believe is only tehre to prevent noise, because it will do nothing to protect the headphoens during shipping. You get a vacuum formed super thin plastic piece that VERY securely holds the headphone and cable in place. There is 0 movement, so the foam piece i think is unnecessary to begin with. This is not the kind of box that the HD650 comes in: solid high quality cardboard with some sort of fabricky finish, foam cut to shape inside, other thick foam, and a nice sleeve to hold it in place. The headband is hilariously bad. It feels as though it will come apart in your hands and crumble. It doesnt even feel like pleather. The "stitching", if you can call it that, basically seems to be soem sort of heat-activated glue. This headband will 100% come apart with usage and I dont expect it to last more than a few months before the surface texture finish of it starts peeling away. The part that holds the actual headphone cup in place is identical to what the old hifiman headbands used, it will never break. From my understanding, it is posisble to replace this headband if you so choose, but it is not entirely a straightforward process to do so and it will require opening the headphone cups, removing screw inserts, and sanding a hole. If you so choose to go that route. You can easily glue/tape the sennheiser nugget strap to this pad and/or cover it over with soemthing, you can also have a proper padded leather strap custom made, but that is entirely up to you. SEVERE cost cutting happened here. The cable is...i dont even know what they were thinking. I honestly truly wish they had included a cheapo amazon special 5 dollar cable because it would have been of higher quality than this dumpster fire of a cable. The part that goes into your amp is EXTERMELY solid, its a good part. It is a dual finish, which IMO is ugly af, but it is industrial/scientific grade solid metal. That is where the good part ends. The sleeve is 4 sizes too big for the thin little cables inside. It kinks really badly and comes pre-kinked from being shoved into a little depression in the box. It feels like a cheap landline phone cable and i have 0 doubts that they used exactly that to build it. The 3.5mm plugs that go into the headphone are made of that extremely brittle thin craptastic plastic. You can quite literally pick up a higher quality 3.5mm connector from a gas station aux cable. That being said, these were all cost cutting measures, and I have to assume that the entire cost of the heapdhone (minus obvously the profit part) went 100% into the earphone and driver because HOLY CRAP it is solid and sounds good. Its like an hd650 without the severe bass roll off. The bass is very VERY fast and solid. If yuo're listening to a droning noise (doin it right, solar sailor by daft punk) the bass has exactly the right quantity to make an initial impression and then get out of the way for the rest of the instrments. Mids are not too forward, I was getting a LOT of mid-forwardness and honestly mid harshness from fostex t50RP and its series of mods. Treble is not harsh or overdone. There are songs where I know the treble would hurt my ears but those songs did not have that quality. However, all of this is subjective and I highly recommend you try things out yourself instead of taking my word for it. I tried 15 step by radiohead to test soundstage and it was adequate. Not as good as it oculd be, definitely not HD800-level soundstage, but it was enough that I wouldnt feel the need to stop listening to these in favor of my home theater (5.1) if I was watching a movie. especially not if my downmixer was of good quality. The treble (cymbals, S noises) normally hurts my ears as I'm way too sensitive to treble, and I prefer a treble rolled off headphone. with this headphone the treble is right where it needs to be, and is helped by the bass to not be overly harsh. I usually play some pendulum, Nero (welcome reality album), and some Jay-Z (holy grail, tom ford) to test bass punchyness and response. It is not overdone, it is "just right" FOR ME. it might be overdone for others, I know a lot of people dont like the bass response that I do. These are not like Ety ER3 or HF5, these have a LOT of bass. They dont have as much as my massdrop plus, which i find occasionally overdone and leaking energy into the upper bass/lower mids for a warmer sound at times. Im not sure what more I can say. I sold my HD650 in hopes to upgrade. I was considering fostex tr-x00 but they sound extremely "closed", and the sound sort of beams into your head with 0 separation between instruments and no soundstage to speak of. Focal stellia/utopia/whatever sounded more or less how I wanted, A bit too much treble on those, but they are 100% not worth the price. I'd pay maybe a grand for those but they want something like 5 grand? hell no, they arent worth that in the slightest. HD650 had the exact presentation and sound sig I wanted EXCEPT the horrifically bad bass. I thought I had to go to a closed can to get the bass I wanted, but turns out I was wrong. I've tried audeze headphones too but i tried them so long ago (pre fazor) that my opinion on those is no longer valid. For the LCD-2, the previous "bass champ" (pre fazor), I found the bass quantity to eb perfect as was the overall sound signature. The pads were horrifically uncomfortable (which i know they've since fixed since the lCD3) and the bass had no impact or anything to it. The bass notes just "happened", and it wasnt fun to listen to. I wouldnt hesittate to mix/master using those but my god they were boring.

Oct 26, 2019

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