Which headphones of Drop's currently available?
I have some rewards points to burn but there's no obviously good options on Drop right now for headphones Contenders Ultrasone - maybe? I don't own any Ultrasones, so curious. Looks like garbage travel headphone which could be useful also. Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro. - Maybe? I have the DT 880 Good price point, really uncomfortable headphones but could be interesting to try the upgraded version. E-MU - strong contender but $400 is a bad price point for what it is. Which of the above would you choose and why? Nothing else on Drop is relevant to my interests, because Already own 6xx 820 800 s Ether cx Garbage / Consumer grade Meze 99 - garbage bass canons, hard pass No gaming headphones obviously Sennheiser wireless - no to wireless/bluetooth Hifiman - I have 2 of drop hifimans and they make really bad cheap shit on Drop, hard pass on HE-R7DX Aeon - I own the closed, Drop refuses to address #padgate so no reason to buy open Beyerdynamic 177x - wireless, nope Too similar 8x / 560s...
Mar 28, 2024
I'm a little skeptical about speakers and other components needing to be "broken in", but in the case of these headphones, it seems to be a real thing. Out of the box... they sounded bad. Sort of "muffled", with not much top end detail.
The closest headphones I have to them in terms of price are the AKG K7XX. I did a quick comparison between the two and the K7XX had so much more detail that my first thought was "I wonder how much of my money I can get back selling them".
I let them play for a couple of hours and gave them another listen. Now they sounded much better. Still much warmer than the K7XX, but a very smooth lush sound with more detail. I did some more comparisons, to the K7XX again and also to my EMU Teaks and (perhaps unfairly) to my Audeze LCD-2 and LCD-XC.
The T-XO sound signature is much closer to the Audeze cans (which I guess shouldn't be a surprise) than to the EMU or K7XX. The top end has started to open up and the mids are very lush and the bass is surprising tight and powerful. On a couple of EDM tracks it felt like the headphones were pulsating with the bass, something I haven't experienced with any of my other headphones.
While the K7XX and EMU Teaks are more "airy" and "sparkly", they also start to distort when pushed hard and tend to have some sibilance. The T-X0 stayed clean and tight at very high volumes. While not in the same league as the Audeze cans, the T-X0 compared very favorably. I would say that in terms of sound quality they were 90% of what I hear with Audeze headphones. They don't have quite the level of detail and soundstage is noticeably larger with the Audeze headphones, but these headphones really punch above their weight.
I didn't compare them to my Sennheiser HD800's, but I think the differences would be very similar to those between the LCD-2 and LCD-XC and HD800s.
I've let them play overnight and the highs are much more pronounced than they were last night, very detailed but no harshness or glare. I'm looking forward to see how they'll sound after they get 40-50 hours on them.
Fit is comfortable, they are much lighter than most of my other headphones and have a nice snug fit. The build quality appears to be very good and I think they look much better than in the photos in the description here on Massdrop. The lighting used in the photographs draws attention to the brown inner headband and makes them look more "plasticky". They're not as pretty as the EMU Teaks for example, but the sound of these is much better.
Listening so far has been with my Oppo HA-1. As mentioned by others, these are really inefficient and hard to drive. With the HA-1 on its high gain setting and the volume at its highest setting, I still wanted a little more volume. Having said that, they played extremely clean at high volume with no distortion and unlike other comments, I would say this would be very easy to listen to for extended periods of time. I haven't done that yet, so perhaps my impressions will change when I do for some reason that isn't readily apparent now.
I'm not a professional reviewer and don't really consider myself an "audiophile" or having "golden ears", but in comparison to the other headphones I have, these sound excellent, and not just "for the price". They compare well to headphones costing many times their price and are much better than the EMU Teaks, which were more than three times their price. These may not be the most attractive headphones, but where it counts, they deliver. If you like a warmer sounding headphone and have a good headphone amp, these cans should be very pleasing.
I've been reading articles that come down on all sides of this issue, so I may change up my usual procedure. I think I'll listen to them for a few hours, run white noise through them when I'm not using them, and decide to stop when I feel they sound good enough. That may or may not include much break in time. We'll see (or listen, in this case).
And know I know, burn in is a thing, and after about 30 hours of use these sound oh so sweet.