after 10 hours listening to this thing, here's my review:-
below is a more comprehensive review, so i'll hide the wall of text and expand it if you wanna read what i have to say. else, skip to the tl;dr version at the bottom.
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starting off with frequency response:
THE LOWS1 word: bass, bass, bass. the mid-bass is exceptional. not exactly snappy/punchy like planars, but excellent for a dynamically driven hp. fast and powerful, although the sub-bass response is rather weak, losing some sub-bass details in certain tracks. sounds amazing with bass heavy songs like Muse's Supermassive Blackhole, Kanye's Love Lockdown (albeit a bit too much in this track than i'd liked) and Massive Attack's Unfinished Sympathy. sounds amazing with bassy jazz tunes too (but not vocal jazz, i'll explain this later in the mids part), with bass guitar, double bass and drums sounding very forward and energetic, especially drums. for this very reason, they sound exceptionally good with rock bands. try listening to Lars Ulrich or Neil Peart's drum solos with these headphones, they sound crazy good.
THE MIDS:tbh, quite disappointed with how the mids sound. i get it, it's a basshead hp, but the mids FR is so bad and uneven, especially between high-mids to low-treble. totally unsuitable for female vocalist with higher freq range. sounds above average (say 6.5 over 10?) with lower-pitched vocalists like Diana Krall, Adele, Nina Simone etc., but terrible with high pitched vocalists like Florence Welch, Mariah Carey, Joni Mitchell, or male singers who do falsettos a lot (late Freddy Mercury). seriously, the mids have really uneven response. for the very same reason, this headphone is not suitable for classical/orchestral music (with the exception of bass heavy works like Hans Zimmer's stuff), it makes pianos sound off and distant (especially after the soprano C, music students will know what i'm talking about), string instruments (guitars and violins included) hollow. while it might seem like i'm bashing the mids a lot, it's because my primary genres are jazz, female vocals and classicals/orchestrals. don't get me wrong though, they are way above average for male vocals (sub-mids to mids). just because it's not my cup of tea doesn't mean it won't be yours.
THE HIGHS:treble response is above average. obvious treble rolloff, but very smoothly done. not sibilant or harsh at all. again, very smooth treble. can listen to this for all day and not get fatigued. details are there, but not transparent like beyers or senn flagships. like most U shaped sound signature headphones, the treble is forward. for a closed headphones like this, the treble is very commendable.
OTHERS:soundstage is wide and deep. very well done, considering that it is a closed back hp.
isolation is not so good, even though it is a closed back hp. reason being the presence of bass port on these babies. look at the gap between the wooden cup and the black plastic ring, that's the bass port. it's acts like those bass ports you see on speakers, which explains why this baby reproduces bass so well. sound leaks in quite a bit, but does not leak out much. haven't heard complains from my colleagues yet so far.
spatial imaging is average, can't really place where instruments are as well as my hd700, or ad1000x. even the k7xx does a better job when it comes to imaging.
forward sounding, like u're at front row. another reason why it's good for pop/rock, but not classical.
comfort wise, it is above average. at almost 400g (including weight of some cables when u wear it), it's not exactly feather light. but the soft leatherette cups are comfy and wide & deep enough for my relatively wide angled ears (almost an inch from my head). recommended to use in air-conditioned room though, as it gets warm after a while
tl;dr version:
closed back hp with U shaped freq response
wows: exceptional bass (specifically mid bass to low mids). excellent for drums, double bass, bass guitars, tubas, bass trombones.
sub-bass well presented, but not at planar level. still, respectable performance for dynamic drivers.
very smooth treble, no sibilance or harshness, non-fatiguing.
very good soundstage, both depth and width.
excellent bang for buck
mehs: mids response not linear. transition from lower-mids to upper-mids is really bad, even up to the low-trebles
bad for pianos, vocalist with soprano range, string, woodwind and certain brass instruments.
spatial imaging below average.
fast but not fast enough for complex tunes like full orchestrals. feels congested at times
isolation poor for closed back, but understandable (see full review for reason)
with all that said, i will still be keep this headphones among my collection. although it's not really suitable for my type of music consumption, it holds a special place being my first wood cup headphone, and the fact that it looks absolutely gorgeous helps too. hope you guys like urs!
This post has been edited by konpaku: Dec 31 2015, 11:53 AM 
Nov 25 2015, 12:55 PM, updated 10y ago
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Good luck to u too!
Well, just in case anyone missed out the first time
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