Too much edition 9 love in Headfi....have u listened to them?

[riceboy]

sure! i'll bring both of those, some canary yellow diamonds size of yield signs, and some superglue. we will make the cans very very pretty! everyone will be very happy to see them.

lol, sounds like a plan. We definitely need the L3000 to get the party started. ring ring jpak...

[islewind]

I had the opportunity to listen to them, and I was not that impressed by the sound. I've been told you need to live with them for a while to appreciate them, but personally, I don't want to have to adapt to my equipment, escpecially when there are so many items that are impressive from the start.

[purk]

I had the opportunity to listen to them, and I was not that impressed by the sound. I've been told you need to live with them for a while to appreciate them, but personally, I don't want to have to adapt to my equipment, escpecially when there are so many items that are impressive from the start.

Can you elaborate why you were not impressed by the Ed.9?

[Icarium]

Edition 9s are bad, but I really question their ability to scale well... Since the kind of people that buy them seem to be mostly those that already have sick ass amps or broke the bank to buy them and skimp along on ghetto fabulous amps and are unlikely to upgrade any time soon its really hard to say how well they scale. My impression from others and my ewn experiences is that Ultrasones in general do not scale as well as the AKG and Sennheiser headphones.

[islewind]

Can you elaborate why you were not impressed by the Ed.9?

I'd say that the presentation seemed off - much of the midrange sounded recessed, and some instrument sounds (Cello, clarinet, sax) were not as faithfully represented as I'd expected. The overall resolution was good, and I do have to say they sounded very good in every respect, it's just that I expected them to sound better than the HD650 and K701 in every way, but based on my single brief (but focused) listening session, they did not appeal to me. I have heard it said that the listener needs to get used to these phones to appreciate them, and perhaps that's true, but I'm not about to buy a pair just to see if it works out that way.

[deepak]

I can offer my impressions on the Edition 9. They had a ton of bass even at low volumes, holy moly it was a lot. The U shaped FR wasn't so bad, but it was evident. Surprisingly nice depth to the soundstage. However the main thing that turned me off them is they have a midrange coloration I haven't heard in any other headphone that makes vocals and guitar sound off. And the soundstage was tiny, much smaller than Ian's modded HF-1, HD580 balanced or HE60.

[Iron_Dreamer]

Yeah, tone/timbre is definitely the back-breaker of the Ed9 for me. They just sounded wrong with orchestral music period. Now that I was able to compare them with the L3000, the Ed9's bass is simply enormous! The L3000 sounds quite balanced by comparison. That huge, powerful bass is fun for simulating a club experience, but I'd say it's even a bit too much for me with rock, let alone any acoustic music. An idea that came to mind is that they sound like a higher-end version of the DT770. They both have a huge, powerful bass, but the Ed9 does much better in terms of detail, smoothness, tightness, etc. To me it's a niche headphone.

[n_maher]

I spent some time with drp's edition 9's this weekend at the Boston Meet. They were sourced by a Resolution Audio Opus 21 and powered by a Rudistor RPX-100. I spent about 20 to 25 minutes of pretty focused listening with them mainly with female vocal material (Patty Griffin and TNP). I have to say, for a $1500 headphone I was left wanting. As others have noted they have prodigious, well defined bass but more than the midrange flaw that everyone else seems to find I found the highs to be way off. It was the first time in a long time that I noticed something glaringly wrong with a high-end set of cans. To my ears they were very sibilant to the point of it really being hard to enjoy what I was listening to without concentration on this flaw, and I'm not usually all that sensitive to that type of sound so this seemed doubly weird. And being able to compare these side by side to the HE60s didn't do the ED9's any favors either. I may be in big trouble after listening to the Baby O's...

[Guest sacd lover]

I spent some time with drp's edition 9's this weekend at the Boston Meet. They were sourced by a Resolution Audio Opus 21 and powered by a Rudistor RPX-100. I spent about 20 to 25 minutes of pretty focused listening with them mainly with female vocal material (Patty Griffin and TNP). I have to say, for a $1500 headphone I was left wanting. As others have noted they have prodigious, well defined bass but more than the midrange flaw that everyone else seems to find I found the highs to be way off. It was the first time in a long time that I noticed something glaringly wrong with a high-end set of cans. To my ears they were very sibilant to the point of it really being hard to enjoy what I was listening to without concentration on this flaw, and I'm not usually all that sensitive to that type of sound so this seemed doubly weird. And being able to compare these side by side to the HE60s didn't do the ED9's any favors either. I may be in big trouble after listening to the Baby O's...

Sounds like you are describing an Ultrasone PL 2500 .... without the prodigious bass.

[tkam]

So I get the impression, that other than the completely unbalanced sound that the Ed. 9's biggest problem lies in tonality and timbre.

[Salt Peanuts]

I, too, spent some time listening to Edition 9's at the Boston meet. I was going to add my impressions of them, but mine basically mirrors that of Nate and Deepak's (especially Nate's).

Baby O's, on the other hand, I rather liked, with their faults and all.

[deepak]

His HE60 was something else, and having it side by side with the Ed9 didn't help.

[en480c4]

After he listened to the Edition 9s, Nate was like "You won't like them." That was all I needed to know! His description of what he heard sounded like everything I try to avoid... Maybe one day I'll give 'em a listen, but yesterday at the Boston meet was not that day!

[boomana]

I've been really curious about them. I had the 2500s for a couple months around the beginning of the year, but sold them due to problems I continued to have with the high-mids and treble. I also felt that they didn't represent instruments that I know well, such as flute, saxophone, and violin, accurately. I don't care how much burn-in the drivers take, those instruments just don't sound that way in life, like a metallic sheen was on them and a feeling as if the notes were about to go sharp when, of course, they weren't. Just tonight on head-fi, I was told again it must be my system and my sucky CDs, but I'm not that deaf since I tried them out with a few combos of sources, amps, CDs, etc. <Hey, do you guys over here still blame the CDs for a headphone's consistent sound signature?> Granted, I am overly sensitive to highs, but that still doesn't account for everything. I did like them well enough to hope the Edition 9s had that corrected. I'm still looking for a good pair of closed headphones I'd be willing to take out of the house (work, etc) if I choose. I was hoping these might be it. From the posts here, it looks like the problems I was having with the Prolines may be the same. I'm still hoping to hear some soon.

[grawk]

Not sounding right is exactly my problem with the edition 9s. They sound pretty good, except the tonality and timbre is wrong. That's a problem I couldn't get past, so these were immediately out of consideration for me.

[purk]

Yeah....I had all those problems with the edition 9 when I had Mike's pair for 3 weeks (you can read most of my complaints about them on headfi).....too much bass, uneven FR, strange timbre & presentation (I'm blaming S-logic), not that refined next to a proven legendary headphones, and cold and recessed midrange. I'm glad that people have starting to recognized some of thier short comings. I rather prefer the HD-650 w/ a nice upgrade cable over them.

[Guest sacd lover]

Yeah....I had all those problems with the edition 9 when I had Mike's pair for 3 weeks (you can read most of my complaints about them on headfi).....too much bass, uneven FR, strange timbre & presentation (I'm blaming S-logic), not that refined next to a proven legendary headphones, and cold and recessed midrange. I'm glad that people have starting to recognized some of thier short comings. I rather prefer the HD-650 w/ a nice upgrade cable over them.

Looks like the E9 sell of on head-fi has begun. I feel sorry for the ones by the hype and get stuck with these right now. Now the the FOTM hype is ending they will be the ones that incur the $$$ losses.

[Spectator]

There are actually still many people who are interested in buying those abominable pieces of shit. Just because there are a few on sale doesn't mean the FOTM is over.

[vcoheda]

i listened to the Ed.9 and GS1000 this weekend at the Nov. 10 head-fi meet in new york. i was not impressed with either. the Ed.9 had this odd sense of isolation when you put it on, almost like an IEM. it was hard to get over. it made the sound stage seem very small or maybe it was that small. the bass was as has been often reported - very good, but possibly overpowering the other frequencies. they were somewhat poor for classical but much better for rock or pop. i thought they sounded different and would like to hear them more, but i was not impressed and could not imagine spending $1000+ to own a pair. i listened to them with another head-fier and he heard some strong sibilance. i didn't. but others have lodged the same complaint, so maybe. i also heard the proline 750 which although having less bass (much less) had a more natural presentation. as for the GS1000, we both had the same assessment - very good sound stage but a horribly recessed mid range. the headphone sounded better on a WA2 over a solid state, but i still didn't care for it much.

[MaloS]

Some of the impressions I am reading of Edition 9 here are rather extreme...

They are not bad cans guys, the sense of them being very uneven is only result of lack of acclimation to s-logic. Its just that they have stupid lack of scaling. Its a godd can out of a portable source, and it is the same great can out of 10000 bucks of electronics...its just that if you compare to hd650 for example, out of portable source hd650 is 'ight. Out of 10000 bucks of electronics HD650 is quite quite nuts.

[Nanoha]

They are not bad cans guys, the sense of them being very uneven is only result of lack of acclimation to s-logic. Its just that they have stupid lack of scaling. Its a godd can out of a portable source, and it is the same great can out of 10000 bucks of electronics...its just that if you compare to hd650 for example, out of portable source hd650 is 'ight. Out of 10000 bucks of electronics HD650 is quite quite nuts.

But what can you say about the tone? I want something that actually reproduces the music at least remotely close to what it's supposed to sound like.

[MaloS]

What is music supposed to sound like?

[Nanoha]

What is music supposed to sound like?

*stop* Waaaht? \

[aerius]

What is music supposed to sound like?

If you don't know the answer to this question, I suggest putting down your headphones and I don't know, going out and listening to some live music so that you know what music sounds like.

[MaloS]

If you don't know the answer to this question, I suggest putting down your headphones and I don't know, going out and listening to some live music so that you know what music sounds like.

For any headphone you will choose, I will find a live show that does not sound anything like that headphone.