I did a search and couldn't believe there wasn't a thread made yet for these cans. Anyway, I just got one used from Listenjared and plugged it in my udac as soon as the package arrived. At first I wasn't sure what to think of them since coming from brighter cans like the Koss portapro and especially the denon d1001, they sounded quite dark and bassy. I then thought "uh oh, another bad buy!"... I then put my portapros back on and browsed around the web for a while not thinking about the px100-II for a while.
After a few hours had past, I went outside my porch and decided to bring my Ipod 5g with me outside along with the px. I turned it on and slowly eased in the groove of these bassy cans. The more I grooved to the music I noticed that I kept on turning it louder and louder then the bass got to be too much that I then used the Bass reducer EQ on my ipod to tame the bass down. BAAAM!!! WOW these are nice, smooth cans with analog like characteristics in that they make music lose that digital edge similar to what the hd650s do. They were smooth earlier too but because of the overly ripe bass, they were harder to appreciate. I then listened to lots of tracks jumping from Jazz to classical to metal and I noticed that some metal had become slightly thin... I then turned the eq back off and WOW again!!! This has some serious thump without bothering the mids anymore. What Happened? I dunno, maybe I acclimated to its sound? I then texted Listenjared and asked him if he had burned these in then he said that he uses them about 2 hours a day... Hmm I was puzzled as to why they would make a huge change in just a few hours of use. I then texted him again about the volume he plays these at and he replied that he has very sensitive ears and listens at very low volumes. BINGO! I think I popped something in there to loosen the drivers up LOL. Listening at about 90 to 95% on my ipod is the way to make these cans come alive!!! After getting used to the PX100-II, the portapros become grainy and hollow LOL. The portapros seem to be more detailed though because of the slightly better balance between the Bass, Mids, and Highs. What these have though even if the bass is more prominent than the highs is a liquidity in transition from the low mids up to the highs that give it a refinement that the portapros can only dream of.
Bottom line is... I Love these cans despite the heavy bass. They are so enjoyable to listen to that I got goosebumps all morning listening to them out of my Ipod
EDIT: I used to love the first versions of the px100 too but they had an edginess in the upper mids almost like grados that bugged me. The series II has no such annoying peak and is much more refined even though slightly less exciting at first listen. The version II also sounds like the bass goes deeper. I think this might be due to the slightly less prominent midbass though which makes the deeper bass less masked because the graph does show that they extend about the same depth.
Oh no, headroom deleted the px100 series I from their website so the graph comparison doesn't work anymore. I'll just post their measurement of the px100-II then
FINAL UPDATE: 11/07/10Ok, now that Ive had a lot of time on these babies I can now say that these PX100-IIs make the old px100 sound like a toy. I have been listening to almost every genre of music from my library and these cans sound great on all of them. From Pensees Nocturnes(Black Metal) to Miles Davis(Jazz), these are awesome! No grain that the original px100 had, no glaryness in the upper mids, more extended highs and deeper bass with less bloat in the midbass (when the headband is stretched). These definitely remind me very much of Insytes silver driver cover hd650s. ....................... NOT out of the box though.
The PX100-IIs were bassy and a little congested even when I received them second hand (although they looked brand new) which is why I mentioned the bass reducer thing, and turning up the volume very loud to get the best sound, etc... Well all that is no longer needed. I now listen with no EQ at all. The biggest improvement one can make to these cans sound is to stretch the top left and right parts of the headband outwards to make the fit looser. When they are tight, the bass is boomy and the vocals and mids are congested. The highs are also lost. Its basically just like when pushing anything hard into your ears, the sound gets muffled. try listening to some earbuds and hold them hard in your ears... Thats the sort of difference I am talking about here. Burn in also helped but to a much smaller degree than the headband stretching.
Basically hold down from where i put the blue circle to support with one hand then push down with your thumb on the red circle while moving the headband to stretch towards the shape of the dotted line with your other hand. Be careful and do it slowly, you might break the headband. The shape will not really look all that different but the fit will definitely get looser. I did mine 3 or 4 times to get the right tightness.
EDIT: NOV 15, 2010Just an observation that I want to stress is that above all else including burn in and the headband loosening, the source is the most important thing for the px100-II. it doesn't neccesarily need to be a very expensive and transparent sounding source but something that has a perfect match to the tonality of the cans. If you are a person that wants to keep the extra big bass for example, I would suggest only to loosen the headband after you try the cans with the source/DAP you are going to be using them with because if your source is very thin sounding, it might be hard to try to make the headband tight again. If the sound feels too bloated for you and lacks a snappy punch then doing the headband loosening thing i suggested will make the sound snappier and crisper than the default headband tightness. Something else to consider is the size of ones head also which matters for the perfect tightness of the cans grip.
June 10, 2011 UpdateShort Impressions of different pads I've used with the PX100-II since I got themFishda's Plantronics PadsFishdas pads are very loud. The headphones become much more sensitive with these pads vs any of the other pads I've used. Bass and lower midrange on these pads are huge but the upper mids to the highs are overpowered making the sound weird and undefined.
Cryotech's Plantronics PadsCryotech pads are the cleanest sounding of all the pads in the highs since it has some good sparkle without too much sibilance. They lack a little meat to the bones in the mids department though and might sound thin with a lot of music. I might use these with jazz and classical over the stock pads but metal sounds too thin with these.
Stock PadsBold sounding, bassy yet a little muddy and dull in the highs. The sound is a little veiled and creamy sounding like a typical sennheiser. Genre bandwidth is pretty good since nothing sounds offensive with these pads on.
CDRKing Pads
More snappy/less muddy sounding than the stock pads but has a slightly less refined overall sound. The mids make the cans sound like its going through a very tooobey tube amp with its boost somewhere right smack in the middle of the midrange region. It works for thin sounding recordings that need an added boost in the richness of vocals and musical instruments but can be annoying in the long term.
Koss Portapro PadsDryer sounding than all of the above pads and might sound slightly more congested in the mids but overall top to bottom balance is good. These pads can make the senns work well when matched with the right source and amp. At one time, these were my favorite pads but they got killed by the next pad on the list which is the sennheiser px100 replacement pads available on the internet.
Sennheiser PX100 Replacement padsAhh here we have a brighter sound vs all the other pads above except for the cryotech pads. Think of the cryotech pads with more mids and similar bass. My favorite overall pad for the px100-II. The most expensive but worth it! Think of this as the koss portapro pads with life added to the sound.
donunus CDRKoss padsThese are koss pads with a big hole in the middle under cdrking pads. I did this to elevate the cdrking pads to make more room from the drivers to the ears for a more accurate bass response. The sound is awesome! Very smooth and quite accurate and natural sounding except for a slight veil in the upper mids to lower treble (probably due to the added distance from the drivers to the ears). Top end treble is smooth yet more extended than all the pads above except for the cryotech and the px100 replacement pads. The bass is awesome! the best bass Ive heard these cans can do. No more upper midbass bloat and a deeper more fullsize circumaural headphone type bass now exists!!!
donunus CDRsenn padsSame as the one above except that these use the stock pads with a hole in the middle instead of the koss pads underneath the cdrking pads. The sound also changes when the senn pads hole is smaller or bigger. The sound was a little hard with the hole being smaller but when I made the hole bigger, some serious bass came out of them. The bass is similar to the CDRKoss pads but even bigger in the 30 to 50 hz regions. these sound like a car audio setup hehehe something like Monster Beats but with highs! Oh yah lets talk about those highs... OOOhhh these highs are stunning for cans in this price class! The veiled sound of the CDRKoss pads is not to be found here. The highs are now more like that of my favorite pads (the px100 replacement pads) but the bass on these is boomin! These are like senn replacement pads on steroids! If I were a basshead and could listen to this car sub type bass all the time then I can easily declare these the best sounding pads of them all! No hard sounding upper midbass here though like the stock pads so the sound is still not congested with these.
