While at CES, I sat down at the HiFi Man booth and auditioned all the headphones, amps and portable players they had to offer. I spent a good 60 minutes demoing their products and here are my impressions.
Overall - Eh... nothing special.
The Magnetic Planar Diaphragm Edition X V2 ($1,299) was the highest end model I could audition for the over the ear models, and I was really disappointed. The sound was relatively clear, open, and typical of open back headphones. They didn't suck, don't get me wrong, they just had a certain harshness to their midrange I have long associated with the transducer technology they employed. The overall balance leaned toward bright and harsh versus smooth and clean. The bass had a very slight boost, to my ears at least, in the 100Hz to 40Hz range, which is disappointing to me (but common in many modern designs). While these are not bad headphones, by any stretch of the imagination, to me they are not worth the price. I would be happy to spend as much as $300 for them, but over $1,000 is simply illogical to me.
The RE1000 IEM earphones were also nice, but again, they didn't provide the performance the price would suggest. I don't get it.
The music players were very well designed and easy to operate. I recommend them highly if you want a standalone player.
Overall - Eh... nothing special.
The Magnetic Planar Diaphragm Edition X V2 ($1,299) was the highest end model I could audition for the over the ear models, and I was really disappointed. The sound was relatively clear, open, and typical of open back headphones. They didn't suck, don't get me wrong, they just had a certain harshness to their midrange I have long associated with the transducer technology they employed. The overall balance leaned toward bright and harsh versus smooth and clean. The bass had a very slight boost, to my ears at least, in the 100Hz to 40Hz range, which is disappointing to me (but common in many modern designs). While these are not bad headphones, by any stretch of the imagination, to me they are not worth the price. I would be happy to spend as much as $300 for them, but over $1,000 is simply illogical to me.
The RE1000 IEM earphones were also nice, but again, they didn't provide the performance the price would suggest. I don't get it.
The music players were very well designed and easy to operate. I recommend them highly if you want a standalone player.
