CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS

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Author Topic: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)  (Read 58093 times)

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Deep Funk

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #40 on: October 06, 2014, 05:42:13 PM »

I'm known as takato14 throughout most of the internet. Most of my audio gear, past and present, is comprised of vintage flagships and/or TOTL equipment. Mostly headphones, with an amp or two thrown in there. At first it was just a bad combination of very little money and a lot of curiosity, but after a while I started getting equipment that I really enjoyed. Less relevantly, my interests are drawing, video games, needlework, and singing. I'm a furry as well as a computer enthusiast, and I'm trying to get a job as a computer repair technician.

Now, as to why I'm joining here: So far, every headphone I've bought or listened to based on the subjective opinion of others has proven to be a massive disappointment, and was quickly gotten rid of. It is also worth noting that every single one of these headphones measure badly in one way or another; most of which were were purchased when I couldn't read them (so no expectation bias there). Thus, I am very hesitant to believe subjective impressions on said equipment unless there are measurements to support the claims being made. I trust my own ears above all, and wouldn't call myself "faithful" to measurements, but what I will say is that until I'm proven wrong (ie, once I hear something that is not reflected in the measurements), I will continue to use measurements as my go-to for headphones I haven't heard myself. And as we all know, philosophies such as this are "frowned upon" in certain other audiophile communities.

On that note, I've found that I prefer a neutral sound, but a little bit of deviation from this is welcome as long as the FR remains smooth. I am very sensitive to distortion and bass issues (bloom, thickness, extension, etc). Most of the headphones I consider neutral are considered bright by others due to my bass preferences; I could not stand the HD800's bass, for example.

My current favorite/most used headphone is the Pioneer Monitor 10-II, from 1983. Not to be confused with the original Monitor 10, which is from 1972. Former favorites were the Sony DR-Z7, NAD RP18 Mylar, and Sony DR-Z6, in that order. A ranked list of the headphones I've listened to will be available in my profile momentarily.

Of course, it's very possible that I'm just a vintage geek with very specific (read: low) standards, and all of my headphones measure terribly.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Either way, I'm glad to finally be here, and not there.

 ahoy

Welcome  ahoy

I have read about the Pioneer Monitor 10 II. I had the Pioneer Monitor 10 and the 21st century 10R.

If the first Monitor 10 was anything to go by, well Pioneer put an amazing driver in that headphone. Pioneer's Monitor 10 had a driver that if well placed and well dampened, sounded like an open AKG with the low end of a closed headphone in the seventies.

Please take care of the Pioneer, such headphones are rare pleasure from past times...
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takato14

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #41 on: October 06, 2014, 06:19:33 PM »

Welcome  ahoy

I have read about the Pioneer Monitor 10 II. I had the Pioneer Monitor 10 and the 21st century 10R.

If the first Monitor 10 was anything to go by, well Pioneer put an amazing driver in that headphone. Pioneer's Monitor 10 had a driver that if well placed and well dampened, sounded like an open AKG with the low end of a closed headphone in the seventies.

Please take care of the Pioneer, such headphones are rare pleasure from past times...
Thanks :)

I've actually got a 10R lined up for purchase right now; from what I understand it's a remake of the 10-II, which didn't do so well for whatever reason and is rather difficult to find due to being rapidly discontinued. Did you like the 10R as much as the original?

And yeah, the original 10 is quite nice sounding even when stock. The 10-II is a direct improvement of it, and on an entirely different level in my opinion. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but the FR is gloriously smooth and extended, with what I would call no distortion at all; this makes them articulately refined and very detailed. They have a very large soundstage that rivals open cans, and the separation is simply unmatched to my ears.

What I've heard from others is that the 10R sounds almost exactly like the 10-II, but with better bass control -- which is exactly what I'm looking for right now. Hopefully history doesn't repeat itself, but I'm getting it for pretty cheap so it's not that bad if it does. Much unlike the TH600...
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Deep Funk

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #42 on: October 06, 2014, 06:37:32 PM »

The Pioneer Monitor 10R sounded more V-shaped, good midrange though with great detail without painful Sony brightness. I refer to Sony as the V6 was head ache inducing for me. The CD900ST was Sony brightness done right.

The 10R does not have the smoothness in tone the old Monitor 10 has. The 10R is more a detail monster that requires you to carefully set your listening volume level and the audio system can influence its sound. Don a.k.a. Dunonus also had a 10R. The 10R works with all genres but sounds less open than the old Monitor 10.

Mind you, these are just remnants of memory of a headphone I loved for its detail rendering capabilities. Here are links of my old HF impressions before Huddler-Fi took over:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/475138/pioneer-monitor-10-1978-vs-pioneer-monitor-10r-2004-vs-sony-mdr-v6
http://www.head-fi.org/t/553933/impressions-and-comparisons-pioneer-monitor-10-akg-k240-df-pioneer-monitor-10r-philips-n6330-sony-dr-6a-sony-mdr-cd900-st-beyerdynamic-dt48e

I was deep into collecting headphones back then. The discovery of headphones as a newbie  headbang
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Anaxilus

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #43 on: October 06, 2014, 08:06:07 PM »

Most of the headphones I consider neutral are considered bright by others due to my bass preferences; I could not stand the HD800's bass, for example.

It's interesting you mention that. You are referring to the HD800's mid-high bass bloom no?
Yeah, it just felt too loose and out of place in regards to the rest of the sound, like Sennheiser intentionally loosened it up to make the headphone less bright sounding or something.

I was relatively fine with the upper ranges though, likely because I was used to very bright headphones (SA3000, DR-Z7, DR-Z5) at the time. I'd like to give it a good, long audition again, as it has been a while and my ears have matured a bit.

Sounds like you could be an HE6 guy or maybe current Stax. Perhaps try the 307 out.
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Claritas

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #44 on: October 06, 2014, 09:08:35 PM »

Welcome Tak!  :)p4

I always love hearing about your vintage collection. Maybe I'll get to hear some myself someday.
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Pillintine

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #45 on: October 06, 2014, 11:04:34 PM »

hello Every one,
I am an Electrical Engineer looking for more education in the audio world.

I got here after reading a few articles about audio,I have always liked Audio themes, first car audio and now im more into personal audio, what bring me to this kind of forums is to find more info and understanding about the Audio gadgets, the motivation of my search started in why all this headphones world is getting expensive?, what make the price tag to increase?  how to measure if Really is any value added for features that i may not even notice?, or do i will notice that?.

I have learn a lot about this universe in the past 2 years, and i feel is more to find out.

I do have access to some equipment lab that i may use to measure audio, once I figure what is needed to be measured.


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Marvey

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #46 on: October 06, 2014, 11:31:47 PM »

what makes price tag expensive is people willing to pay high prices and maturity of the headphone industry into marketing and hype generation machines.
there are outfits out there who do provide value or offer appropriate price/performance. hopefully more of them will come about and restore balance to the Force.
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takato14

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #47 on: October 07, 2014, 04:45:40 AM »

Most of the headphones I consider neutral are considered bright by others due to my bass preferences; I could not stand the HD800's bass, for example.

It's interesting you mention that. You are referring to the HD800's mid-high bass bloom no?
Yeah, it just felt too loose and out of place in regards to the rest of the sound, like Sennheiser intentionally loosened it up to make the headphone less bright sounding or something.

I was relatively fine with the upper ranges though, likely because I was used to very bright headphones (SA3000, DR-Z7, DR-Z5) at the time. I'd like to give it a good, long audition again, as it has been a while and my ears have matured a bit.

Sounds like you could be an HE6 guy or maybe current Stax. Perhaps try the 307 out.

The HE-6 is at the top of my "try" list right now, along with the new HE-560. I'm also interested in Sony's new closed-back, the MDR-Z7, but not until people start agreeing on how it sounds, or it gets measured. Right now we have one person saying it's bassier than the TH900 and one person saying that it can't slam like a "fun" headphone at all... talk about mixed messages :x

Welcome Tak!  :)p4

I always love hearing about your vintage collection. Maybe I'll get to hear some myself someday.
Ahoy, matey!

Now that you mention it, I'm kind of off my DR-Z7 right now, and I have two 10-IIs... Perhaps once I get the 10R in my hands I could see about sending them to you for an audition. I could do a shipping relay when I send them to Tyll for measurements (me -> you, you -> Tyll or similar).

 :)p7



Please take care of the Pioneer, such headphones are rare pleasure from past times...
Oh yeah, about that: one of my 10-IIs is NOS, and I have been taking better care of it than I do myself actually :)p13

I wipe the pads and headband afte r every use with a dry microfiber cloth, and after a long session I take one cup off the yoke and point a fan at the drivers to evaporate the moisture from the diaphragm and baffle plate. Whenever they're not in use, I keep them in their original box.

The other pair is pretty badly beat up and had a couple repair jobs done to it; the pads are flat, the cups are scratched, and a yoke is missing one screw. Additionally, the headband sliders both cracked so I had to put zip-ties on them to hold them together.

(Much) more severely, the magnets were detached from the driver capsule, just bouncing around inside the headphone, when I received them from eBay. I had to do a really odd superglue job to get them back into place. I still have a lingering fear that some form of damage was done to the voice coils, and I haven't been able to tell whether the differences between the pairs I'm hearing are psychoacoustic or real. I really need to get both measured to put that to sleep; it's been driving me absolutely insane, as I've been bouncing between trading the NOS pair for a mint Toshiba HR-810, and I want to keep the better sounding pair in case I don't like them. :x

« Last Edit: October 07, 2014, 05:14:25 AM by takato14 »
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Tyll Hertsens

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #48 on: October 07, 2014, 01:30:25 PM »

Happy to do some measurements for you. Just lemme know.
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Claritas

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Re: New Members - Introduce Yourself (2.0)
« Reply #49 on: October 07, 2014, 03:43:55 PM »

I always love hearing about your vintage collection. Maybe I'll get to hear some myself someday.
Now that you mention it, I'm kind of off my DR-Z7 right now, and I have two 10-IIs... Perhaps once I get the 10R in my hands I could see about sending them to you for an audition. I could do a shipping relay when I send them to Tyll for measurements (me -> you, you -> Tyll or similar).

It's a date--thanks! Tyll gets 'em first though.
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