To S. Andrea Sundaram,
As an admirer of your lucid, penetrating reviews, can I please ask your advice on headphones? I was particularly interested in your review of HiFiMan HE-500 on SoundStage! Xperience, November 2011, in which you particularly praised the Ultrasone Pro 2900.
I review classical CDs for The Australian (newspaper) and want headphones to dissect the performance and recording qualities of CDs. I own Stax SR-X Mk 3s, which I love for their detailed realism. However, I need a second headphone to run straight off CD players, and on occasion my MacBook Pro. I've heard Sennheiser HD 600/650 but felt they're not as good as the venerable Stax except for bass. The HD 800 and Audeze LCD-2 are a bit expensive for me. I don't have a headphone amp, but my CD player, a Shanling SCD-T2000, has what is regarded as a very good valve headphone amplifier (two 6N3P dual triodes). Are the Pro 2900s perhaps the ones to go for? I thank you for any advice.
With kind regards,
Graham
If you are accustomed to Stax, then any dynamic headphones will seem a bit veiled. That said, the Pro 2900 is the best I've come across for picking apart recordings. They even convey positional information about the instruments, hall ambience, and microphone placement -- if you know what to listen for, and you probably do. They have a tendency toward brightness, but that would likely be ameliorated by the valve output stage of your CD player -- I have found it to be so with some tubed headphone amplifiers. They also have a bit more bass than perfect neutrality. It's very punchy and well-controlled with a solid-state headphone amp, but the valves may be a liability here. You also might consider the AKG K702. They are not quite as detailed as the Ultrasones and don't give as many soundstaging cues, but their frequency balance is closer to neutrality. . . . S. Andrea Sundaram
