One of the serious drawbacks of blu-ray is that it’s exceedingly difficult to rip a blu-ray disc into a form usable on, say, an iPod or AppleTV (not that an AppleTV can actually handle 1080p, but that’s a separate problem). Blu-ray folks understand this limitation, and so some blu-ray movies come with a “digital copy,” which generally is a DRM-protected MP4 movie file.

When buying blu-ray discs for movies I don’t have, I’ve tried to to steer toward those with a digital copy included. However, some movies apparently include a digital copy even though this isn’t made explicit. In particular, the copy of the The Matrix that I picked up on blu-ray includes a digital copy, even though it doesn’t say so.

The Matrix was the first DVD that I owned, and was arguably the “killer app” that really launched DVD in the first place. I’ve ripped it many times at different sizes and bitrates; this is the movie I used to use to see how much playing with the dimensions and bitrates of the rip affected the picture quality. So, of course, I have a ripped version on my hard disk for watching on the AppleTV. So I thought I’d take a look at how it compared to the digital copy which came with the blu-ray.

First, some information on the the files: the rip was done using Handbrake 0.9.3, 63% quality, full-size loose anamorphic. The resulting file is 2.77 GB, 838 x 352 pixels. The digital copy is 1.59 GB, 853 x 354 pixels. So the digital copy is a much smaller file, but some of that is due to the fact that the ripped file has the full Dolby AC3 5.1 audio in it, while the digital copy has only a stereo AAC track. Still, the video-only part of the ripped version is about 2 GB, so it is running at a higher bitrate.

But how do the results compare? Actually the difference is quite striking right as soon as you see the Warner Bros. logo: digital copy and ripped. The colors in the digital copy are obviously much more saturated.

However, the ripped version appears to be a little sharper than the digital copy, at least on rendering text. I suspect that this is a result of the higher bitrate in the ripped version.

A great illustration of the difference between the two can be seen in this shot of Trinity: ripped vs. digital copy. The colors are much different and the digital copy shows some banding (particularly around the flashlight on the right), which again might be a bitrate issue. (Note that this is less visible when it’s moving video).

OK, so last one, not in the Matrix, but in the “real world:” ripped vs. digital copy. As per the other, the ripped one shows more detail, but the colors are a bit different; perhaps slightly better in the digital copy.

So, you can judge for yourself if the digital copy is acceptable. My take is that it’s OK for how I’ll actually use it; that is, primarily on my iPhone. I won’t watch it on the AppleTV since in my living room I can watch it in blu-ray, and the BD is absolutely fantastic. Now, when I travel I sometimes hook up my iPhone to a TV, but that’s at best with s-video, so the slight loss in detail and lack of 5.1 audio is acceptable, and the smaller file size is welcome. Overall, I’m happy with the digital copy and now I really wish all blu-ray discs came with one.

The problem with Twitter is that I post stuff there that should also be blogged… So, a bunch of quick hits:

• I’ve been thinking about getting a netbook. Based on specs, since the Dell Mini 10 supports a hi-res (720p) display and a six-cell battery, it looks perfect—except for one extremely major detail: it can’t be hackintosh’d. Total bummer. So, I either need to settle for a Mini 9, which seems too small, go for an MSI Wind, or wait for whatever thing Apple has up its sleeve. We’ll see how long it takes Apple to pull the trigger on whatever that is…

• I’ve almost completely given up on Facebook because of Twitter. Why? Because Twitter is lightweight and the mobile clients are just as good, if not better than, the Web client. (I use twitterfon on my phone and Canary on the desktop, both are free.) FB seems like work every time I log on, but Twitter is so lightweight that it’s just easy.

• I’m finally going blu-ray with the Oppo BDP-83. No, it’s not for sale publicly yet, but I tried to get on the beta program and wasn’t selected, so my consolation prize is getting to order it prior to its public release. This will be my first foray into blu-ray, but I’m a long-time Oppo fan, as the home DVD player is has been an Oppo DV-981HD for quite some time. I’ll post a review on it after I’ve gotten to play with it for a while. It should come in time for next weekend, so don’t expect to hear much of anything from me for a while once it gets here. The TV might now be the weak link in the chain…

My brother recently emailed me this question, and I thought I’d share my answer:

Are there any wireless surround speakers that don’t completely suck? I don’t need something great, but just want to avoid triumphant crapitude.

Unless something has changed dramatically in the last couple years:

(a) There aren’t really “wireless” speakers in the first place, and
(b) They all still mostly suck, in principle, unless you’re willing to blow serious coin, and even then they aren’t going to be as good as decent wired speakers.

It turns out this is a more complicated thing to accomplish than you might think. Remember, to drive a speaker, you need two things:

1. Analog audio signal
2. Amplification for said signal

Getting an analog signal to a speaker not using a wire means you have to either use some kind of analog broadcast like RF, which will be crappy from a noise perspective, or something digital—newer systems use Bluetooth, I believe. While this will preserve the signal, this has two implications: [1] Your receiver either needs to send a digital signal to the speaker, which your current receiver doesn’t do (though some new ones designed specifically to work with wireless speakers will), or you hook your receiver up to a transmitter which has an analog-to-digital chip (ADC) inside, and probably not a good one unless the system is very expensive. [2] Something in the speaker has to covert back to analog. This means each speaker needs its own digital-to-analog conversion (DAC) circuitry, which again will either be expensive or suck (choose only one option).

Then, once you have an analog signal, you need to amplify it before running it through the actual drivers. This means each “speaker” also has to contain an amp, which requires power, meaning… wires. You’ll need to run a power cord to each speaker. Also, there is no such thing as a good power supply that is also small, meaning the amp part, to be any good, can’t be little. The upshot of this is that you’ll need somewhat big surrounds which require plugs. (The actual amp inside the speaker can be reasonably small if it’s a digital amp, but I bet whatever $200 option Sony has instead uses the worst analog amp in the known universe, but at least it’s a small one.)

So, every wireless speaker will need: signal receiver, DAC, amp (requiring power), and then drivers, and the thing that takes what would normally be your speaker out needs an ADC and a transmitter. That’s a lot of components, and doing all of these pieces reasonably well can’t be especially cheap. Or rather, if it is cheap, that means that there is a lot of opportunity for really crappy components, which doesn’t bode well for sound quality.

The other problem here is that all of these steps take a little bit of time, meaning you’re probably going to have phase lag. That is, the sound coming out of your surrounds won’t be in phase with the sound coming out of your wired fronts, center, and sub. You might be able to mitigate this a little by setting appropriate channel delays all around, but that’s a tricky calibration problem. Newer and more expensive receivers will do this for you (they come with microphones that you move around and the system sends test signals to ensure good calibration), but I suspect you don’t have one that does.

Thus, a lot of reputable speaker companies won’t even bother trying to do this; your entry-level audiophile companies like Paradigm, B&W, Mirage, etc. don’t. Of course, I’m sure all the mass-market companies (e.g., Sony, Panasonic) have such things, but I’d be stunned if they don’t all produce triumphant crapitude, as you so colorfully put it (great turn of phrase, by the way).

It’s probably easier to just hide the wires.

I have an Oppo DVD player which I like a lot, but it turns out I hardly ever use it anymore now that I have an AppleTV. I just rip the movies and watch them on that instead. Every once in a while, we’ll rent a hi-def movie from iTunes, which looks terrific. And, of course, I’ve been thinking about going hi-def in the home theater more seriously. First, I was waiting for the HD vs. Blu-ray war to shake out, and that’s done. I figured when that happened the price on Blu-ray players and discs would start to come down. Well, it mostly hasn’t. The players have come down a little, but not much. I got to thinking about it again a while back when Oppo showed off their upcoming Blu-ray player. I figured I’d just wait for that.

But now I’m not so sure. With player prices still not great and disc prices still double that of DVDs, some are now saying that Blu-ray is dead. There are some compelling points there. Really, if the cost of Blu-ray discs isn’t going to come down to being only a few dollars more than DVDs, how can Blu-ray succeed? Yes, Blu-ray looks better than even upscaled DVDs, but not enough better to justify that cost for most people. Based on the argument there, it doesn’t look like disc costs are coming down anytime soon.

So now I’m not so sure. I’m not really a big gamer, but a PS3 would give me Blu-ray and even if Blu-ray tanks, at least I can play games on it. Of course, I’m not much of a gamer, so I’m not sure about the appeal. Or do I just wait for the Oppo, which will at least be a fantastic upscaling DVD player as well? Or just wait six months and see what, if anything, is happening in the blu-ray market? (And if I do that, what do I ask for for xmas?)

It’s a quandary. An entirely insignificant one, to be sure, but hey, maybe someone with a PS3 can comment on how it performs as a blu-ray player. Is it comparable to a stand-alone player? I would ask how it performs as an upscaling DVD player, but I’m not sure I care anymore…

I got a pair of these for Xmas and I’ve used them quite a lot, so it’s well past time for a review.

First, why Senn MX75s? Well, I know earbuds aren’t really the best choice in terms of sound quality, but I find that the convenience factor is sometimes too much to overcome. So, for couple years, every time I headed to the gym or out do do work in the yard, I had my Sony E888s in my ears. The E888s are excellent earbuds (you know, for earbuds), but my pair were literally falling apart. Not the foamies—I have a small stockpile of replacement foamies—but the actual housings are starting to come apart. I don’t think they’re designed to handle sweat.

The MX75s are “sport” earbuds and are supposedly designed explicitly to handle this kind of thing. So how are they?

Comfort
The differences between different ear buds are not, in my experience, as big as the differences in comfort between different full-size headphones. That said, there are differences. The MX75s have this interesting thing they call “twist-and-fit;” basically, there’s an extension above where the bud goes in your ear canal. This seems weird at first, but it’s actually great—it really does hold the bud in place, which is particularly important when doing something active. The MX75s come with different size outer rings on the buds as well as two different sizes for the twist-and-fit pads, so these should work well for a range of ear sizes.

Convenience
The cable is extra sturdy and somewhat stiff. It comes with a little rubberish semi-rigid plastic pouch for storage. Frankly, I’d much prefer a winder like the one that came with the older MX400s.

Sound Quality
This is, of course, the main concern, and I’ll admit that I was a actually a bit surprised here. I didn’t expect much from these; basically, I was expecting these to be sweat-proof MX400s. Happily, they’re better than that. They have both more and clearer bass than the MX400s. Now, they’re still earbuds, so there’s a limit to bass, but these have pretty decent bass performance for earbuds on that score. The highs are also cleaner than the MX400s. Mids are also improved; definitely less murky than the MX400s. That is, the MX75s are better across-the-board than the MX400s. That’s as it should be, since these are more expensive.

So, how do they stack up against my long-time earbuds of choice, the E888s? Here, they’re not quite as good—but they’re closer than I expected. The E888s have a small advantage on the highs—a bit more sparkle, as it were—and the bass is better-defined on the E888s. The mids on the two are very comparable. Again, I’d give the edge to the E888s, but again, the margin is smaller than I would have guessed beforehand. The E888s are better—noticeably—but the MX75s are at least playing in, well, certainly not the same ballpark, but at least one that’s vaguely nearby.

If nothing else, the MX75s are certainly good workout earbuds for $35 (that’s the current U.S. price on Amazon).

Yes, I miss the improved sound quality of the E888s, but I have to say, in the gym, I miss it less than I might have thought. I guess that may be in part because I watch more movies now (hooray for video out on the iPod) and spend less time just listening to music. That is, I don’t listen to these buds under the most demanding conditions—which is really the whole point of earbuds in the first place. If I’m listening critically in a quiet environment, I’m going to be listening to speakers or full-sized cans anyway. For sweat-heavy on-the-go places for under $40, the MX75s certainly fit the bill for me.

Somewhat unintendedly, I recently acquired an Apple TV (for this story, see the postscript). As a UI guy and a long-time Apple guy, what do I think?

First, there is no way I would have considered this before the 2.0 update. Having a device designed to work with a home theater which didn’t natively understand 5.1-channel digital audio is a failure out of the gate. But, with the 2.0 version and the magic that is HandBrake, one can digitize DVDs with full 5.1 audio and stream them across the home network quite nicely. (And yay for MetaX also for tagging.)

So, my initial impressions. I suspect that some of the things I don’t like are actually fixable, but these are my initial impressions after having the thing for a week:

• The whole idea of having your whole audio and video library available all the time at the home theater—the main purpose of the thing—is Way Cool. I’m sure there are other gizmos which provide this basic functionality (more or less), so I’m mostly going to comment on things which are either especially good or which particularly need work.

• Basic setup is incredibly easy, even for an Apple product. Plug in the relevant cables (and supporting full HDMI means a single cable from the Apple TV to the receiver), input a five-digit code into iTunes on the main home machine, and that’s it; it just works. Now, I have CAT5 ethernet wiring in my house so there was no wireless to set up, but still, that’s not bad.

• More advanced configuration, however, could be better. I really want to change the order in which things are sync’d with the ATV. It’ll let you put photos on first, which is good, but I’d like to give music priority over movies and TV shows. I’d also like for there to be some way to exclude things in my iTunes library from showing up on the ATV; because now I have two versions of most movies in my library (a low-bitrate stereo version for my iPod and a high-bitrate 5.1 version for the ATV), I’d like to not see doubles of everything on the ATV. Similarly, on the ATV, I’d like to be able to have more organizational control, such as sorting my own movies into categories rather than having one enormous list.

• One thing I didn’t think I’d like nearly as much as I do is using the ATV for photos. We recently took the kids to DisneyWorld and I immediately sync’d the photos to the ATV and we all sat around looking at the new pics. This really is a great way to look at photos.

• The simplicity of the Apple remote is great and all that, but I find that I’d like more controls. I control my home theater with a Logitech Harmony 550 (and it knows the ATV remote codes, which is nice) and I’d like to be able to make use of more buttons. In particular, I’d like to be able to navigate the huge lists with numeric keys rather than having to scroll forever. Also, entering text using this remote is an exercise in annoyance. (As my brother pointed out, this is hardly surprising; after all, this is the company of the single-button mouse.)

There’s one kind of goofy unintended consequence of Apple using the same remote for everything, too. I often have my laptop out in the living room, and I’m constantly having to quit FrontRow which has been launched by me navigating the Apple TV. Kind of annoying, actually.

• We haven’t rented a movie (yet), so I can’t comment on that, though the UI for doing so is certainly clean and easy. They’re a little pricey, but the fact that some titles are in HD is good, and I don’t think we’ll rent that many. In fact, because of this we just dumped our movie channels, and I bet we spend less on rentals than we did on those. It’s nice that the high-res format war is over, but Blu-Ray players are still way more expensive than they should be so I’m not willing to go there just yet. Frankly, I might not be for quite some time if HD rentals are so easy and if the library expands.

• If you think YouTube videos look bad on your computer, you really don’t want to see how awful they look on a big screen HDTV. Jaggy hell.

Overall, I’d give the Apple TV something in the B/B+ range. It’s good but there’s definitely room for improvement.

Postscript
So, why an Apple TV now? First, the timing is good, as the 2.0 ATV is now out, the 0.9.2 release of HandBrake understands 5.1 audio in a way that works with ATV, and the new version of Airfoil also now supports Apple TV. The main reason, however, is that my A/V receiver (an old NAD T751) kind of gave up the ghost and I wanted something which offered at least some protection against future changes in digital formats, so I went with the Denon 3808CI. (The protection against future format changes is that the 3808 has an ethernet jack and can download new firmware to itself quite easily.) In order for the warranty to be valid, of course, one has to buy from an “authorized dealer.” This is stupid, as of course the “authorized dealers” basically don’t offer discounts. However, one of them was running a promo and offering a free 40G Apple TV in lieu of a discount, so I went with that. A nice excuse, really.

I do a fair amount of air travel; in 2007 I flew about 50,000 miles without leaving the U.S. As a human factors guy, I know that the airplane rumble contributes to feeling fatigued as a result of air travel. I don’t like having things in my ear canal (I apparently have some skin condition in my ears and they always irritates the skin in my ears) so IEMs (that’s “in-ear monitors” for the non-headphone crowd) are not a good option for me. So, active noise cancellation (ANC) was a possibility. I wasn’t sure about all this but years ago I got some cheap Aiwa noise-cancellers as a gift and I’ve never looked back, active noise cancellation is for me.

So, I’ve owned, and been reasonably happy with, the Sennheiser PXC250s for some time. I got them on sale at MacMall for $90 back in 2003, which was pretty much a steal at that time. That was the only PXC model at the time. The PXC 250 is simply the Senn PX200 with Sennheiser’s active noise cancellation.

A little while back, Audio Technica released a new entry into the ANC party, the ATH-ANC7. Sennheiser also release some new players like the PXC 450 (which I understand to be the drivers from HD555 in closed form with Senn’s ANC circuit). The PXC 450 is a bit on the spendy side and has gotten some negative reviews, so I wasn’t all that interested in them, despite the fact that I really like the Senn HD 555/595 sound signature. I asked for the ATH-ANC7s for Christmas and my wife obliged.

So, now I’ve had them for a couple months and they’ve been on a few plane trips (including two transatlantic flights); how do they stack up against my tried-and-true PXC250s?

I should preface this by saying that Sennheiser and Audio-Technica are currently my favorite headphone manufacturers. My main cans at home are Senn HD595s (the better 120-ohm model), but when I need a closed can, I go for my ATH A700s. So this is a shootout between two companies I’m predisposed to liking.

I’ll face them off on a number of attributes. However, first, details on my usual air travel rig:
• 5.5gen 80G iPod video
• SendStation lineout dock to bypass Apple’s attenuator
• Xin Supermicro amp
• Custom mini-to-mini cable (made by Norm of “Vibe” amp fame)

Portability
This one goes hands-down to the PXC250, no contest at all here. They fold up into a pretty small little package and Senn provides a nice zippered cloth case which also has a zippered pocket on the outside, which is perfect for the dock adapter and SuperMicro. The ANC7s fold kind of flat and also have a nice zippered hard case, but the thing is probably almost three times the size of the Senn case and doesn’t have as nice a pocket.

Noise Attenuation
This is more or less a tie. Due to their small size, the PXC250s don’t block out very much sound without ANC engaged. This means they don’t muffle mid-range and higher sounds very well. The ANC7s are much more substantial and do a better job with that. However, the Senn ANC circuitry is flat-out better than the ATH circuitry. With no audio being fed into the headphones at all, switching on the PXC250s just completely wipe out airplane rumble. The ANC7s do pretty well, but not as well as the Senns. Now, with any kind of music playing, the rumble is pretty well masked by the music so it’s not a big deal, but I know the Senns have the better ANC circuit. The ATHs, however, do a much better job with the screaming baby three rows back because of their superior passive noise cancellation.

Annoyance Factor
I’m not sure what other term to use for this. Basically, I want to give a point to the ATHs because the physical setup of the Senns is kind of irritating. The ATH is physically bigger, and the over-ear unit also houses all the electronics and the battery. Thus, you can put on the ATHs and have no cables coming from them at all, so if you just want the noise attenuation and don’t want to listen to anything else, you can do that without having to mess with anything else. The ATHs also take a standard mini-to-mini cable so you cable freaks can recable if you want, or anyone can replace the cable if it breaks. The Senn setup is not so slick. The cable that runs out of the ear cups goes a ways, then there’s a unit about the size of a candy bar which houses the batteries and ANC circuitry (including the mic), and then there’s a few more feet of cable ending in a mini plug. So when you’re wearing them you have to find a place to clip the candy bar thing. I have thus gone to wearing shirts with breast pockets when I fly just so I have some place to clip the stupid thing.

Comfort
This is again a no-brainer. The Senns are feather-light and very comfortable; I can wear these babies for hours without any discomfort. The ATHs are reasonably comfortable headphones, but they just cannot match the Senns. After about two hours I need to take breaks with the ANC7s. The place where this really matters is sleeping; I find it very hard to fall asleep with the ATHs on, but this is not a problem with the Senns.

Sound Quality
So, which one sounds better? The PXC250 is based on the PX200, which is just simply not one of Senns better-sounding cans; both the highs and the lows are a bit rolled off with the PX200 (yes, I own a pair of those, too). I think the PXC250s sound better than the PX200s, though. I know it’s the same driver but the PXC250s are a little more lively. The highs have more sparkle and the bass is not so weak, though the mids are still emphasized. The ANC7s have the Audio-Technica sound signature to them, which means the mids are somewhat recessed overall. Overall I think the ANC7s sound a bit better; they’re a little more detailed and involving than the PXC250s and definitely have more thump for you bass-heads out there, though I would give a slight edge to the Senns for classical and acoustic music.

It should be noted, though this should be a surprise to nobody, that both of these sound dramatically better than any Bose NC product and they cost less. I’ve listened to both the QC2 and QC3 in stores and they both sound like crap, especially for those prices.

Driveability
That’s probably not a word, but you headphone geeks know what I mean. The Senns are 300-ohm cans. With ANC on, they’re not quite as quiet as that, but even still, they aren’t all that easy to drive. With ANC on and no amp, putting the iPod volume on max still isn’t all that loud. This is why I got the Supermicro in the first place. The ATHs, on the other hand, while also not super easy to drive with ANC off (260 ohm), are much better behaved unamped with the ANC on than the Senns. They do improve when amped, as most headphones do, but not as much as the Senns. In particular, the ANC7s are adequate for watching movies without an amp, where the PXC250s need one even for that.

The Bottom Line
So, which headphone do I like better? I’m kind of on the fence, as there are obvious tradeoffs. I think in the future for transatlantic flights I’m taking the PXC250s because of the comfort and size advantages. (Coming out of the UK you only get one carry-on total, and that includes laptop bags, so space is at a bit of a premium, and I’m rather hoping to make trips to the UK more regularly in the future.) But for domestic flights I’ll probably go with the ATHs.

Postscript: What is ANC?
This is for those of you who don’t know anything about active noise cancellation. ANC is a pretty cool idea. Basically, there’s a microphone on the outside of the headphone which listens to the noise around you. A circuit takes that input, inverts the phase, and feeds that into the audio signal passed into the headphones. The result is that the outside noise is “cancelled out” of what you hear. Phase inversion is a little tricky and only really works at low frequencies. So, for instance, ANC doesn’t really block out voice all that well, particularly high-pitched voice. The good news, though, is that it’s the low frequencies which have an easier time passing through solids. (You know, when someone’s got the music too loud in their car with all the windows closed, all you can hear is the bass; the low-frequency stuff.) ANC is generally very good with any kind of constant, low-frequency rumble, like jet engines.

Or, as Daring Fireball put it, “Where by ‘launch’ the mean ‘pre-announce with no estimated ship date or pricing.’”

However, the best comment on this that I saw was on Engadget from user General Public: “[J]ust curirous. Does Zune come preloaded with virii, or do we have to wait a while for them to be written??”

Gotta love it…

I have occasional need for closed headphones. Normally when I need closed cans at home I’ve been listening to HD280s and at work, Sony V6s. The HD280s are good for what they are but they but they do have their drawbacks, including rolled-off treble and an overall kind of boxy sound.

The Audio-Technica Ax00 series gets a fair amount of coverage at head-fi, and so I decided to give them a whirl. I went with the A700s since most have either the A500s or the A900s and I just have to be contrarian. That, and my self-set limit for cans I know I won’t use all that much was $150. With the audiocubes sale, the A700s were just under that, including shipping.

Anyway, they came while I was out of town last week, and last night I hooked them up when I got home from work and let them break in for about six hours before I put them on.

So, first, physical characteristics. As everyone says about these things, they’re HUGE. They’re not heavy at all, but they are big. The 3D Wing deal for the headband feels odd at first, like it’s going to fall off, but it stays on pretty well. They’re surprisingly comfortable given their size, though they do cover a lot of the side of my head and they do get a bit warm on the old noggin after a while.

The color is funky. The picture on Audiocubes just doesn’t do them justice–at first, I thought the pic was totally off and my pair was just black. They’re not, they’re this really deep midnight blue, which is all sparkly if you look closely in good light. Subtle and very nice.

Build quality seems very solid. They’re terminated with a 1/8″ plug, which I don’t like, and the 1/4″ adapter is kind of cheesy–I like the screw-on style of the HD280s and V6s much better.

So, the big one: how do they sound? Well, remember that these are initial impressions–I haven’t had them long enough to do what I’d call a full review but I have run them through my Audio Test Mix and I have at least something of a feel for them. (Note that my main cans are HD595s and so most of these impressions are relative to those.)

The good:
Soundstage is very impressive, especially given that it’s a closed can. This is a common response to the Ax00 line and I expected it to be decent, but I wasn’t expecting this. I can see why gamers love these.

Detail is good, instrument separation is pretty clear. The sound is very energetic. Performance on string quartet was better than I expected, good job controlling shrillness of violins.

The bad:
Again, everyone says “recessed mids.” Absolutely true. I’ve not seen a frequency response curve for these but I bet it’s almost exactly the inverse shape to the HD280 curve (see Headroom for that). It’s not as bad as I sort of expected, but it is noticeable, especially for male vocals. Female vocals sound slightly better than male vocals, I think because the higher end of the female vocals don’t sound as recessed.

Highs sound kind of unnatural in a way that’s hard to describe. Cymbals don’t sound exactly like cymbals. It’s just… off. It’ll probably take me more time with them to get a clear handle on this.

Bass is pretty good, certainly more prominent than with the HD280s, but extension is not as good. It’s not quite as tight as I would like. It’s not horribly flabby or anything, but I’m so used to the HD595s tight and clear bass that they sound a little muddled to me.

Overall:
I know that was more bad than good, but overall for $150 closed cans, they are actually pretty good. They’re definitely more fun than the HD280s. I’m certainly not inclined to give up my HD595s but they might replace the 280s as my normal closed cans.

So, over the course of the last (almost) year, I’ve made a lot of comments about the HD595s that have become my primary cans, but I haven’t gotten around to writing one big detailed review. So now I’m finally getting around to it, spurred on in part by the recent chance I had to listen to a lot of different cans through a lot of different amps at the Headroom tour stop in Houston.

I want to say up front that I really like these cans, but this will not be a purely one-sided review. There are very legit reasons for people to not like these cans and I want to be as clear as I can about them.

So, off we go. Oh, one very important thing to note: I was an “early adopter” of the HD595, which means I got them before the now-famous Senn factory fire, which means my set is the 120-ohm variety. I don’t know exactly how they compare to the 50-ohm version as I’ve never A/B’d them.

Equipment and Music
My current rig consists of:
* A Sony CDP-601ES player. This is now a “vintage” player, circa 1993 with one of the early Sony 1-bit DACs in it.
* A 1st-generation Headsave Classic with OPA627s.
* I’ve also driven them from an iPod both directly and through a Xin Supermicro (v6)

I’ve had these for a long time now so the music is, well, my whole collection, which ranges from new age solo piano and guitar to AC/DC and Tool to chamber and symphony classical to techno and electronica. I listen to only a small smattering of jazz and rap and exactly zero country and opera. A good slice of my critical listening for review/comparison purposes is based on my Audio Test Mix.

Non-sound Considerations
Ergonomics
I find these cans to be the most comfortable I’ve worn for any extended period. They have velour pads (which I prefer to leather or pleather) and a nicely padded headband. To get them to sound their best you have to position them so the headband is slightly more forward on your head than most other cans, but this doesn’t affect comfort for me. Based on short tries with other cans I’d say the high-end Beyers are in a similar category. Some people do report some head clamping but fortunately my head isn’t big enough for me to have experienced this. They’re light for full-sized cans which really helps.

The cable is one-sided on the left, which I prefer over y-cables. However, the cable is a little light for my tastes and tends to snag more than I’d like. The slightly rubbery plastic covering doesn’t help with this–I’d prefer a heavier cable with one of those cloth-like covers.

Build Quality and Appearance
These are a little bit funky looking, kind of extra-modern. The grayish green color choice is not something I would have picked, but I guess it’s not that bad. I like the Senn logo underneath the grilles. Build quality seems good; they feel solid and I don’t worry about damaging them in routine handling.

Sound
Obviously, the most important part of the review!

The big draw of these phones that brought me to them in the first place is that the reviews generally say that these phones split the difference between the (to me) overly harsh and bright Grado house sound and the dark and laid-back Sennheiser house sound. These are extremely well-balanced headphones. That’s a good-news, bad-news story. The good news is that they spit out a very faithful reproduction of what’s fed in. If you like it really bright, the recording has to be bright. If you like it bass-heavy, then the recording will have to be bass-heavy. For me, this is what hi-fi is supposed to be all about; fidelity to the input. However, if you want your headphones to color the sound in a particular way, these are not the way to go. For me, this is a positive, because it means these headphones sound good across a wide range of music. While I listen more to rock/electronica than anything else, I do listen to acoustic/classical enough of the time that I wanted a headphone which doesn’t sound bad going there (a real weakness of the Grado house sound in my book).

Bass is tight and clear but not overdeveloped. Bass extension is good. I will admit that there are times when I would like a little more bass from them; I tend to tweak the volume knob up just a little bit when I hit a recording where I really want to focus on the bass.

Mids are very well-balanced. The Senn “house sound” cans (the 580/600/650) sounds to me like there’s a little bit of a push in the lower mids which the 595s do not have. I think these perform particularly well on female vocals and piano because of the balanced mids. Detail is terrific, ambient sounds are clear and placeable. The drawback here is that the mids can be a bit grainy. This is particularly exacerbated by bad recordings and compression artifacts. I’ve never heard them through a tube amp but my suspicion is that these might not synergize well with the distortion generated by tubes; tubes may make these sound even more grainy. Any tube fans want to comment on that?

Highs are clear and detailed, energetic but not overpowering. In classical, I do like quartets, which means the violin can sometimes be miked rather close. Cans with treble harshness can make such recording sound screechy but the HD595s handle violins very well. They resolve detail very well in the upper register and cymbals actually sound like cymbals.

Soundstaging is excellent. To me it’s a little deeper than the Senn 580/6×0 soundstage, but definitely not as wide. I’m constantly impressed with how good the soundstage is. These sound a little sharper than the traditional Senn flagships, but they’re definitely not as full-sounding.

Finally, they’re not too hard to drive but amping them does indeed make a difference. They sound good unamped out of my iPod, but they definitely sound better amped. In particular, bass energy is much better with an amp.

Redux
The thing about the 595s is that they do almost everything well but they aren’t the best at anything (except maybe comfort if you don’t get clamping, which some do, but comfort is so individual I’d be hard-pressed to suggest everyone would find them the comfort champ). Kind of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. I think that’s why some people really don’t like these; for every application, there’s probably something better in this price range.

So, if you listen to entirely rock or hip-hop (maybe techno), these might not be the best choice. If you can get past the comfort issues (which I can’t) with Grados, well, Grados are hard to beat for involvement and energy. The 595s bank in somewhere around the SR225-SR325 price range depending on what kinds of deals you can find, so for the same money you’re in a pretty nice spot in the Grado line.

If, on the other hand, you listen to entirely acoustic or classical (especially symphony), your money is probably better spent on something from the Senn 580/600/650 family. The classic Senn sound is more lush and full and I would recommend those over the 595s for classical. The 595s come in kind of in between the HD580s and the HD600s on price (again, dependent on what deals you can find).

So, if instead of $250 for one pair, you have $500 to spend on two cans, you can drop $350 on your primary desire and $150 on your secondary cans, and you’ll definitely be better off than if you try to do everything with the 595s.

However, if you listen to a wide variety of music and only have the budget for one good set of headphones, I really think this is a very strong option, particularly if you’re really into detail and can stomach a bit of grain in the mids to get it. They are indeed more lively than the classic Senn house sound, but they’re not as forward as Grados (or other cans like the Sony CD3Ks) so they hold up dramatically better for music that isn’t happy with ultra-forward presentation.

OK, so what did I miss?