Big thanks to OJ for selling these to me at a great price when he could have gotten more from other locations! I hope to someday meet him in person and buy him a beer.  I've been looking forward to trying the PM-2, perhaps too much, after my experience with the PM-1. I found a lot to like about the PM-1, personally. I loved how laid-back and natural it sounded. Very relaxing and easy to sink into the music effortlessly. Unfortunately, it didn't have quite enough treble or overall detail for me, and the price simply didn't make sense. When I heard the PM-2 would be priced around $700 and later found out about the new pads that seemed to be getting some good feedback, I thought Oppo might have finally nailed it. Did they? Keep reading to find out (or, you know, don't, and wonder forever).

You can read my original PM-1 review and check out my initial set of measurements here: http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1590.msg43635.html#msg43635

Do note that I later revised my compensation curve (my current and "final" version) and posted some updated results here (use these for comparisons): http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,1590.msg44503.html#msg44503

Also, don't trust those harmonic distortion measurements on the PM-1 measurements. At the time, I thought ARTA was exporting distortion numbers incorrectly, but, being the dumbass I am, recently realized it was simply exporting them in a different way than I thought it was. Oops! Part of the learning experience, I guess, but I feel I am on rather solid ground now with my measurements. The distortion measurements for the PM-2 should match what I saw in ARTA!

Looks, Comfort, and Presentation

Anyone familiar with the PM-1 won't be surprised by what they get with the PM-2. Despite substituting out the metal for plastic and leather for pleather, I think you'd find it difficult to tell the difference unless, maybe, you had them side by side and/or were tapping them with your fingers. I like the style and looks. Comfort is OK, but they get heavy on top of the head within an hour or two. They seem like they might be lighter than the PM-1. Not bad overall. I might have posted more thoughts in my PM-1 review, and they'd apply here.

Presentation on the PM-2 isn't quite as great as with the PM-1. No wood boxes this time around, sadly. Instead, they come with a fabric, almost denim-like, carrying case. It's a bit small and fits them snugly, but it works and is pretty nice in the end, I guess. It's definitely more practical than a wooden box, but not nearly as pretty.

Sound

I've spent a lot of time lately with headphones like the HD600 (with some extra front and back damping) and the HE-500, and any comparisons I make with the PM-1 will be entirely based on memory. Immediately on the PM-2, I noticed a balance that seemed more in line with the HE-500 or HD600. In other words, the balance seems more neutral on the PM-2 out of the box than the PM-1. Balance up until ~2KHz or so seems to be pretty good. Bass has good extension and decent detail (not too muddy or bloated), but, much like the PM-1, doesn't have a ton of balls. You might almost mistake this for rolled-off bass, like I did originally with the PM-1, but I think it's just other subjective elements at play outside of pure frequency response that are influencing what I am hearing. Or maybe my ears suck. Couple the subjective bass characteristics with the treble performance and laid-back nature, which I'll talk more about later, the PM-2 is still a bi t light-footed, ethereal, and...yes, a tiny bit limp-dick sounding (I know you were all waiting for it), but only noticeable if you compare it to similarly balanced/neutral-ish headphones that have subjectively bigger, more dangerous testicles. Sometimes I wish the PM-2 was simply more powerful sounding, though not necessarily brighter.

The PM-1 and PM-2 both share a certain lack of clarity, or, perhaps, a slightly grey vs. perfectly black sound. Slightly hazy. Don't get me wrong, as it is slight, and I noticed it seemed to vary from amp to amp. Could this be due to the slightly warm overall response? The depressed areas in the upper mids and treble? The harmonic distortion bump around 300-400Hz? I'm not sure exactly, but I'd imagine all of these play a role and, much like the bass performance, some of it is probably due to elements not captured by my measurements.

Despite what I just said, they are fairly fast and clean sounding in most areas and do an admirable job at resolving details given their relatively laid-back nature. Though, compared to the best headphones in this area, resolving abilities are probably just adequate for the price range. For some, this might be a big deal, but I'm less concerned about it.

I am very happy to report that these are not nearly as constricting or over-damped sounding as the PM-1, though it is still there to an extent. At the very least, you can visualize instruments and such to the front left and front right in the listening space, where as the PM-1 sounded like everything was wrapped directly over your ears.

Now, where the PM-2 was close to perfect for me but lacked detail and life, the PM-2 sometimes goes too far in attempting to correct these issues. After extended listening, it became apparent that the PM-2 has a somewhat raspy, rough, and edgy nature while still sounding a bit dark, laid-back, and yet neutral-ish. This seems contradictory, but I suspect it's entirely due to the narrow 8KHz peak relative to the surrounding areas. While different music and amps affect this somewhat, I found it apparent on about everything. While I don't think most will find it to be an issue, as it's not as if the peak extends above the average response, I find things like this to be horribly annoying and grating on my ears after time (or immediately).

In a sense, I think Oppo rushed the PM-2 and these new pads. I believe they could have and should have done better with a longer R&D period, and it would have been worth the wait. While the PM-2 improves on many areas over the PM-1, it lacks the same sort of finesse and cohesive sound. Too rough and raspy. The PM-1 bored me over time. The PM-2 annoys me over time, which is a much greater sin to my ears. Aside from this particularly troublesome treble area, I found the the PM-2 to retain many of the nice, smooth characteristics of the PM-1.

So, how do I feel about it overall? Equally mixed feelings trending towards positive over the PM-1. The PM-1 and PM-2 have both been "close, but not quite" headphones for me, and for opposite reasons at times. But, of course, I'm sure many of you have found me to have particular tastes and sensitive hearing in most regards. In which case, you're also probably aware I rarely stop at the stock headphone. I'm currently listening to the PM-2 with a basic front damping mod. This makes the overall tilt a bit darker up till around the 4KHz point and basically obliterates the 8KHz peak while retaining most of the other measurement characteristics above 4KHz. I've found it difficult in my early experiments to fix the treble problems without making them sound a touch too veiled overall, but if you are at all like me with tastes and hearing, you'll probably find this to be a vast improvement overall and a worthy compromise. I suspect most others will simply find it too veiled up top with my current tweak, but it remains to be seen if I can go further with internal mods. I will report more on this later. If you have any modding ideas to share with me, please let me know!

Measurements

As mentioned above, I believe I have fixed my idiocy (well, a small part of it), and the harmonic distortion results should match what I see in ARTA here. Measurements are attached as follows:

1. General frequency response
2. Left channel FR with harmonic distortion
3. Right, FR + HD
4. Left CSD
5. Right CSD
6. 4 "raw" measurements used to get left channel FR average, 2 taken from each ear
7. Right "Raw" measurements

The frequency response results do seem to indicate the PM-2 has less of a dark tilt than the PM-1, at least up until 2-3KHz or so. Fairly smooth. The large dip around 5KHz may be accurate, or it may be measurements taken from my right ear skewing the results. Hard to say, as they do have slight differences in shape and size, and I have an easier time penetrating my ear holes on the left ear with my dild...my in-ear mic doo-dad.    You can see in the raw measurements that the latter two of each channel show this dip, and those are from my right ear. Channel matching is good.

Regardless of that, the PM-2 has a clearly less even treble response than the PM-1. The 8KHz peak is narrower than the PM-1's 10KHz peak, less depressed relative to the rest of the response, and simply has a subjectively nastier characteristic and sound to it than a 10KHz peak (edgy/raspy/annoying vs. mostly a sense of extra detail).

Harmonic distortion looks good, though we again see the spike around 300-400Hz (roughly 3% THD). I don't think this is too problematic subjectively. D2 overall seems to average around 0.4-0.5% THD, if I calculated that correctly, though this could be a limitation of my setup (i.e. PM-2 might actually be or probably is better than this). I also made some recent audio device setting changes to how I take measurements in ARTA, and it might show D2 as a bit higher than before (still quite close, and same look overall). Anyway, aside from that spike, nothing to worry about in terms of harmonic distortion on the PM-2. It's up there with other good orthos and such.

CSDs are pretty clean. Not the best. I think the PM-1 was better, if not just slightly. Not worth worrying about either way.

Raw measurements show that the PM-2 is quite insensitive to placement and fit, which I think is a good thing. Again, my two ears sometimes produce different results like this, and it is evident here. That's why I average them in the end. I've posted details in other threads about how I do measurements, if you aren't familiar with my methods.

Conclusion, For Now

Since I seem to be pretty particular with my tastes and sensitivities, I bet most people wouldn't have much of an issue with the PM-2's treble like I do. And if that is the case, I think most will find the PM-2 to improve on the PM-1 in most ways: better balance, less suffocating, more air and detail, and so on. I still think it's a bit overpriced at $700 for the sound you get, but really pretty good overall. I'm just hesitant to say I like it a whole lot, much like the PM-1. Hmm.

If you are like me and have whiny, sensitive, baby ears, I suggest you keep tabs on my future PM-2 posts. Within the next day or two, I should have some early results on a front-damping configuration I've settled with for now. Later, I want to experiment with internal damping and mods to see if I can take the PM-2 even further. Edit: Also going to look into possible pad mods.