Massdrop X KOSS ESP/95X Electrostatic Headphone Review

[The Jniac]

It quite noticeable if you tried the ER4SR in a A/B test.

That is not quite what I meant. What I meant was that people would likely not notice that the extra bass in the ER4-XR is the result of a wide but weak peak in the lower mids.

Expection bias seems very strong with planar/Estat fans. Many are trying to downplay that Open back Stax's are junk for bass, LCD gimp the mids/highs to give impression of big bass. But then lash out when the ER4SR has +10.5db more at 20Hz, Then run too get the KSE1200(£1200) or mod/EQ them which is bit stupid for a £1600. When the Stax L300LTD & L700 has the less bass than any Grado headphone.

That first bit is more a result of cognitive dissonance than expectation bias, while the rest reflects cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias (expectation bias is a type of confimation bias, but tends to be more a thing in experimental design, whereas confirmation bias is used more generally to refer to a cognitive bias that causes people to selectively pay attention to and recall things that support their views). The placebo effect is a pretty likely contributor as well, given how many praised the bass LCD-series yet were unimpressed by headphones like some of the Hifiman stuff or some of the recent high-end dynamics that manage similar bass extension. The placebo effect is completely distinct from the biases mentioned above, because rather than being a cognitive effect, it involves completely unconscious distortions of perceptions. Basically, placebo effects (and nocebo effects, which are basically placebos but instead of detecting something that is not there, one fails to detect something that is. It is usually used in medicine to explain why people will show no response to a treatment for no apparent reason) involve what we hear, smell, taste, etc. being altered before the information reaches our consciousness. Yes, I realise that I am being pedantic here, but I think that it is important to make these distinctions, especially here, where science and objectivity are central pillars.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Energizer might make a difference for Koss

 

[Blujackaal]

That first bit is more a result of cognitive dissonance than expectation bias, while the rest reflects cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias (expectation bias is a type of confimation bias, but tends to be more a thing in experimental design, whereas confirmation bias is used more generally to refer to a cognitive bias that causes people to selectively pay attention to and recall things that support their views). The placebo effect is a pretty likely contributor as well, given how many praised the bass LCD-series yet were unimpressed by headphones like some of the Hifiman stuff or some of the recent high-end dynamics that manage similar bass extension. The placebo effect is completely distinct from the biases mentioned above, because rather than being a cognitive effect, it involves completely unconscious distortions of perceptions. Basically, placebo effects (and nocebo effects, which are basically placebos but instead of detecting something that is not there, one fails to detect something that is. It is usually used in medicine to explain why people will show no response to a treatment for no apparent reason) involve what we hear, smell, taste, etc. being altered before the information reaches our consciousness. Yes, I realise that I am being pedantic here, but I think that it is important to make these distinctions, especially here, where science and objectivity are central pillars.

Fair enough. Yes I've noticed that too they scoff at DD/BA & Hifiman with the same bass extension. One here even keeps assuming that dynamics are better at bass than balanced armatures but will gladly hype planar for speed, Despite many BA headphones having same subjective "Speed". Since it 3rd time on another site I've seen him just spam "Get the ER2XR" and some subjective woo on why BAs can't do bass?.

While another who rudely ignored my reply seems to ALWAYS think Electrostatics are only ones that can do detail. Love also shutting down anything balanced armature & hype the ER2XR with no clue at the contradiction there doing. Since i know 2 on twitter that ditched their LCD's for the ER4XR/SR. lol

 

[amirm]

i dont get what amirm means, that this ones are to quite.... With k tone board / motu m2 i cant even nearly max them out,
im able to get far to loud with them even after preamp gain (-7,4) for harman like eq.
Its painfully loud.

How loud this gets has to do with how loud the music is mixed. I test with a variety of music, some of which are recorded well below max.

 

[amirm]

Energizer might make a difference for Koss

I will be testing this.

 

[Degru]

It quite noticeable if you tried the ER4SR in a A/B test.




Expection bias seems very strong with planar/Estat fans. Many are trying to downplay that Open back Stax's are junk for bass, LCD gimp the mids/highs to give impression of big bass. But then lash out when the ER4SR has +10.5db more at 20Hz, Then run too get the KSE1200(£1200) or mod/EQ them which is bit stupid for a £1600. When the Stax L300LTD & L700 has the less bass than any Grado headphone.

The problem is L300-L700 are in fact junk for bass because they are ported and just terrible all around compared to older models, which do not roll off that way at all. People that praise Stax bass are not talking about the L300, and most people that hate on it have only heard stuff like L300, if at all.

Also not sure why you're bringing up the Audeze because they are both subjectively and objectively better at bass than an Ety, even if you use EQ to get rid of the recession up top. Lower distortion, better extension, better dynamics. I encourage you to actually go and listen to things and not make statements about gear having only looked at a few graphs.

 

[oliveoilthansnakeoil]

I used to use Philips X1. I think X1, X2 have good bass for Harman target although many people who prefer "Flat" bass say "Fidelio series are bassy"
I know some closed headphones fit well to Harman target. But, except Fidelio X1, 2, I can't find open back headphones for it.
I really expected fidelio x3 fit well to harman but they went back to DF target age according to DMS's measurement.

In using 45CA, it seems that focal utopia and clear have about -5db mid-high frequencies than harman target. I'm using focal clear, and feel they need more deep bass.
https://www.0db.co.kr/REVIEW_0DB/546870 They used 45CA.

 

[ErFero]

The worst part about this headphones isn't the sound quality, is the construction. They really looks like cheap super-market top plastic, it's embarassing. But for me actually the reason that brought me to sell them after having paid them just 260€ brand new ( last minute EU offer when they were closing distribution in EU ) were all the CRACKS you hear while wearing them. This is the sound that foam of pads makes brushing beard or hairs, and it's too distracting. Maybe with leather pads the situation improves, but for me the quantity of plastic was too much to be acceptable.

 

[bobbooo]

The worst part about this headphones isn't the sound quality, is the construction. They really looks like cheap super-market top plastic, it's embarassing. But for me actually the reason that brought me to sell them after having paid them just 260€ brand new ( last minute EU offer when they were closing distribution in EU ) were all the CRACKS you hear while wearing them. This is the sound that foam of pads makes brushing beard or hairs, and it's too distracting. Maybe with leather pads the situation improves, but for me the quantity of plastic was too much to be acceptable.

At that price some nice new third-party pads can be bought and it would still be a decent deal overall.

 

[manishex]

The placebo effect is a powerful thing. There is also the fact that Audeze tend to tune their headphones to really show off their bass extension, often by making the rest of the spectrum a bit withdrawn (or just horribly mangled in the case of their closed headphones). It is notable that people praised the bass of the LCD-4 far more than they did other headphones with very similar bass extension.

This goes back to my point of the short comings of the harman curve, even if highend hifiman and audeze have same extension, people with no preconceptions usually perceive the audeze bass to be satisfactory whereas the hifiman bass to be underwhelming.

Quantity =/= quality, I can eq up the audeze hf or eq down the hifiman hf and it doesn't sound the same.

Given this and the supposedly mid/treble withdrawal why does the oratory1990 graph suggest as 6db bass boost on the lcd4 ? Any bass boost I do to it sound wrong at the same time listeners tell me that it's not bass forward headphone at all, it just has tonnes of definition and force. Granted I have heard setups where it does sound bass heavy.

 

[anmpr1]

This is false. From Dr Sean Olive's (of Harman) 2018 paper on the over-ear target and preference formula (my emphasis): The slight difference between trained and untrained listeners is in fact opposite to your claim that the latter prefer the Harman target more than the former, but is anyway likely just due to untrained listeners finding it more difficult to discriminate between the top headphones and the Harman target. From the paper:

In any large comparison of preferences, on anything, one would expect a certain degree of convergence among participants. In Olive's study some of the variance was aged based--youngsters preferred more bass, and oldsters tended toward higher FR. This can be understood intuitively (whether correctly, or not) as due to simple lifestyle preference--kids like boomy sound, and the often present HF hearing loss among adults. The latter could be validated with audiometric testing. The former, if true, is just simple preference.

The 'poor' (Olive's word) correlation between headphone price and listening preference was quite interesting. Their study found that $300.00 was the point of diminishing returns.

Headphone listening is really an artificial experience. Sometimes it just comes down to comfort. I only use 'phones at my PC, and add EQ, depending upon what it is I'm listening to. My three (Sennheiser, B&W, and A/T) all sound different. I have no real preference, but I don't use them much, to tell you the truth. I simply don't care about it. Others, who do, are in a bad situation, as consumers.

Really, what can a consumer do? It is difficult if not impossible to compare multiple brands in a retail setting, and even if you can find a dealer that will accommodate you, extended listening in a store is probably not going to happen. If the ASR tests are helpful, and if you think your preference will match those liking the Harman 'curve', then that is something.

 

[bobbooo]

In any large comparison of preferences, on anything, one would expect a certain degree of convergence among participants. In Olive's study some of the variance was aged based--youngsters preferred more bass, and oldsters tended toward higher FR. This can be understood intuitively (whether correctly, or not) as due to simple lifestyle preference--kids like boomy sound, and the often present HF hearing loss among adults. The latter could be validated with audiometric testing. The former, if true, is just simple preference.

It's far more than just 'a certain degree of convergence' - trained listeners preferred the Harman target in all tests, and the target came either first or statistically tied in first place judged by untrained listeners, the latter likely just due to their poorer audio quality discrimination ability. There isn't strong evidence that bass/treble preference correlates directly with age and that 'kids like boomy sound' - these differences can be explained by HF hearing loss with age as you mention, possibly in addition to other nuisance variables in the method-of-adjustment experimental procedure such as a 'more is better' bias, which could correlate inversely with age and skew true bass/treble preferences, as I mention in this post.

 

[Robbo99999]

Headphone listening is really an artificial experience. Sometimes it just comes down to comfort. I only use 'phones at my PC, and add EQ, depending upon what it is I'm listening to. My three (Sennheiser, B&W, and A/T) all sound different. I have no real preference, but I don't use them much, to tell you the truth. I simply don't care about it. Others, who do, are in a bad situation, as consumers. .

Headphones can definitely be an artificial experience, but if your HRTF is pretty close to the Harman Curve and you EQ your headphone to that curve, and if you've chosen a headphone with great imaging & soundstage then headphones can really be a very similar experience to listening to speakers. I know that from experience after EQ'ing a number of headphones (K702, HP50, HD600) and finally resting on the K702....it's a very similar experience to listening to my Room & Harman Curve EQ'd JBL 308 speakers, but the K702 is the only headphone that can do this for me in terms of imaging & soundstage. I suppose you don't get the tactile feeling of the bass in your body, but to be honest I don't really listen to my JBL's at really loud volumes so I don't really miss that side of it, and the Headphone Harman Curve has a little bit of excess bass to make up for lack of tactile bass feel, so in general terms the bass I find to match quite well even. So, in conclusion, headphones can be an artificial experience, but they don't have to be, but it can be quite a journey to find a headphone & EQ that matches a natural speaker experience because we all have different head & ear anatomy (HRTF related & HpTF) which means a certain headphone will sound different to different people - that's the problem/complication of headphone listening!

 

[anmpr1]

It's far more than just 'a certain degree of convergence' -

I didn't mean to imply that about the Harman headphone test protocol. I was speaking generally, for any large scale test of likes. The Harman predictive preference model was quite high--about 86%. A certain variance was described depending upon type of headphone (surround, open back, in the ear) and then age to an extent.

I haven't researched it other than reading the blog and some of Sean's papers. I wonder if there would be preference clusters among brands exhibiting a similar H-curve and design, or if it would come down to random guessing? From a practical matter, the idea of multi-thousand dollar headphones was never something I could relate to, even on an abstract or absolute level.

 

[bobbooo]

The Harman predictive preference model was quite high--about 86%. A certain variance was described depending upon type of headphone (surround, open back, in the ear) and then age to an extent.

There are two Harman headphone preference rating formulas - one for around- and on-ear headphones (grouped together) which has a correlation of 0.86 with actual listener preference, and one for in-ear headphones, with a slightly higher correlation of 0.91.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

"The headband separates from the earphones using a clever and simple button on each side. The rest is not so impressive as the plastic is what $10 toys would be made out of. "

If someone has access to a 3D printer, there should be no reason why a more durable headband could not be fabricated.

 

[Blujackaal]

This goes back to my point of the short comings of the harman curve, even if highend hifiman and audeze have same extension, people with no preconceptions usually perceive the audeze bass to be satisfactory whereas the hifiman bass to be underwhelming.

Quantity =/= quality, I can eq up the audeze hf or eq down the hifiman hf and it doesn't sound the same.

Given this and the supposedly mid/treble withdrawal why does the oratory1990 graph suggest as 6db bass boost on the lcd4 ? Any bass boost I do to it sound wrong at the same time listeners tell me that it's not bass forward headphone at all, it just has tonnes of definition and force. Granted I have heard setups where it does sound bass heavy.

That because if the treble less than the bass it sound like there more when there isn't. It why the ER4PT sounded bassier than the ER4S despite only +1db boost under 800Hz.

 

[pjh]

He has 8 filters. I wouldn't call that easy.

It may not have been easy, but I have a pair of ESP-950s which I bought 20 years ago. This EQ correction (using Peace EQ on Win 10) makes them sound much, much better!

 

[amirm]

It may not have been easy, but I have a pair of ESP-950s which I bought 20 years ago. This EQ correction (using Peace EQ on Win 10) makes them sound much, much better!

I got a ton of improvement with my EQ as well. My comment was about the original filtering being easy as to imply that it only one frequency that needed touch up.

 

[AudioJester]

Just a heads up that Drop has this system up again - now $390.
Interestingly they have a gras measurement up, the results are quite different from what Amir found.