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Sound Quality
With two pairs of quite similar headphones and four pairs of likewise similar sounding ear pads, listening test for these cans was arduous and somewhat frustrating. Hair splitting isn't particularly fun or easy, especially when faced with the mailability of subjective impressions. I wish I had two pairs of each pad so I could switch more quickly between the PM-1 and PM-2 with the same pads on each. None-the-less, I did find some lasting impressions.

When the…

Philips Fidelio X2 (~$299, expected availability November 2014 on Amazon)
About a year and a half ago I reviewed the Philips Fidelio X1, the precursor to the X2. I felt at the time (and still do) that it was one of the very few open headphones that might satisfy bassheads, but I didn't consider it an audiophile headphone like the Sennheiser HD600 as the bass was too warm to be considered neutral. I also had some issues with some aspects of the build: the headband was too small; the cable resistance was too high; and the earpads…

Ha!

Yes, after all that talk about how difficult it is to interpret measurements, that's exactly where I'm going to start my discussion of my listening experience.

The raw frequency response plots above compare the X1 (green and blue) to the X2 (red and orange). Plots are aligned at 800Hz. The first thing to notice is that the X1 is slightly more "U"-shaped in response than the X2. Below 800Hz the X2 plot shows essentially a flat response to 180Hz before beginning to rise about 5dB to peak at the primary driver resonance at about 60Hz. Below 60Hz the bass response falls…

Raw frequency response plots for the X2 show a headphone that is very immune to positional changes effecting sound quality. Even the high frequencies show very little change.

Compensated frequency response plots show a headphone with an overall modest warm tilt. Primary driver resonance is shown by the peak at 60Hz with a 12dB/octave roll-off below, which is natural for an open, dynamic headphone.

Though a little bumpy and having a warm tilt, the response from 60Hz to about 5.5kHz is essentially a straight…

Noise Cancelers for Loud Environments Only
It needs to be said right off the bat, the fidelity of reproduction with noise canceling headphones is generally not very good. But that's not the point. The fidelity when listening in a very loud environment without decent isolation will be poor regardless of the headphone's performance—all that outside noise just gets in the way too much for good listening fidelity. It also needs to be said that in-ear phones will often provide better isolation than noise cancelers can provide, and…

Noise Canceling
Here again, Bose has made incremental improvements on their ability to isolate you from outside noise. I typically test noise canceling subjective ability by sitting in front of my computer speakers playing pink noise, brown noise, and a track of crowd noise in a bar both with and without music playing. While it did seem that the QC25 had slightly better noise canceling in the low frequencies, my overall impression was that the ability to reduce outside sound was nearly the same with both cans. Broad band attenuation measurements show the QC25 achieving about 2dB…

Raw frequency respons plots for the QC25 show very stable bass response with positional changes, but oddly some significant differences in the region between 1kHz and 3kHz. I'm not sure what to make of this exactly, but note the rise in distortion in the same area. I suspect that the noise canceling circuits are reaching the frequencies at which noise canceling becomes difficult and various anomolies begin to appear.

Compensated FR plot shows a mild warm tilt, and very good overall linearity to 3kHz.…

Introduction
Please don't consider this a comprehensive overview of the best wireless Bluetooth headphones out there...it isn't. Manufacturers and PR people keep offering to send BT headphones to me, I keep being interested in the category, but it wasn't until a had some significant experience with BT headphones that I began to feel like I could comment on the relative performance of BT headphones I had heard. Well, with a dozen or so on hand and mounting experience, and the shopping season upon us, I figured it was time to do…

Phiaton Chord MS530 ($299)
I favorably reviewed this headphone in April, and my opinions haven't changed over time: this is a very nice BT headphone. It does come a little out of left field, however. It's as big as a full-size over-ear headphone, but it's an on-ear design. It's got an unusual silicon rubber headband pad that isn't particularly confidence inspiring, but is quite comfortable on the head. And the design is almost overly simple, though I've found it grew on me over time.

Cool features include operation with wire when battery dies, folding features for…

Sound Quality
The Clear is, in a word, clear. It's got a lovely, warm bass; coherent and even mids; and responsive treble that's neither too bright or too muted. It's clearly right down the middle and, more importantly, very well balanced throughout. Some have said it splits the difference between the slightly too bright Utopia and slightly too muted Elear, but I see it a bit differently.

My impression—and this is just a little fantasy in my head—is that Focal knew they were trying to build the world's best headphone, and decided the way to go about it was to build a no-…