Well, these surprised me enough that I just had to write a review, I got these on the black friday sale for 99$, but regardless of the price, these are insanely good.
I've read many reviews about the mj2 before I posted this here, and some of them said they were okay and some compared to m50x, and some compared to real electrostats (koss, stax, etc.). I personally have heard a couple of stax including the L300 and the SR009, and many high end headphones (stax, focal, hifiman, sennheiser, audeze) through very high end dac/amps, and at one point I purchased my focal clear, the best headphone I've owned.
I came to Massdrop on Black Friday and saw this deal, decided to give it a try, right out of the box I was worried that these are going to be another pair of headphones that I'll never pick up again after I purchase them and listen to them a couple times because of the not so luxurious packaging and accessories, and I had my hope up for a good sound at least, plugged into my LG V40.
It took me a little of listening to get a good view of the sound, and I thought "Damn these are really damn good for this price, even for the MSRP this is really good but this build and comfort is really killing me..."
After realizing how fantastic the bass on this pair is I decided to compare it to my clear, which at first sounded weird compare to the mj2, because the soundstage and comfort are such a drastic change, but I realized that the sound are not as natural as the mj2, while the signature is insanely good with very satisfying detail, it sounded artificial compared to the mj2.
Yes the mj2 might not be AS detailed as my clear, which by the way I can not confirm because these are really really detailed even compare to my clear, but at the low end it wins by far because of the perfect balance along the bass frequencies.
After comparing to my clear for a couple of songs, I was in a state that I don't know if I should be happy that I bought something that sound as good as my clear for 99$ or should I be sad that I spent 1500$ for a can that sound, well, not even as good half the time.
For acoustics, the vocals are extremely natural and filling while might have a tint of tinny in the high frequencies, but there is so little imperfection that it's basically unnoticeable.
String instruments including guitar and bass notes have incredible amount of imaging and detail while keeping the smoothness for more natural sound, where as my clear had gotten rid of the smoothness and kept all the detail which made it sound more artificial compare to the mj2s, considerably speaking I wouldn't say that my clear are more detailed it's just less natural.
Later I went to a movie soundtrack with really astonishing bass tones and some orchestra notes, the bass extention is very accurate and seperated even compare to my clear which already have some of the best bass I've heard in headphones, which the only one with better bass that I can remember are the LCDs and maybe the k812 pro(exculding the 4000$ cans, utopia, stax sr009, and susvara/he 1000v2).
These have extremely clear and accurate bass, not exactly impactful but with eq its achievable.
Sound stage wise yes these don't have much soundstage at all, and sound really closed back, but the depth and reverb music instruments creates, these can recreate them perfectly.
They're really not so comfortable while I am able to stand it for decent time of listening, and the noise canceling isn't exactly perfect but does not have major leakage problems at very listenable volumes, these are the best headphone I've heard below 600$(or 1500$ not including the 1200$ MSRP ath-w5000 on amazon for 600$ new)
I can't believe people compare these to m50x, as someone that owned the m50x for quite some time I can confirm that m50x is NO WHERE close to these.
Yea now I'm gonna question my life about this 99$ headphones sounding same level or even better than my 1500$ clear.
P.S. This is right out of the box, I did not give it time to break in yet, If it really gets better like every other review that I don't believe in very much says, then I have no idea how good can these escalate to.