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HiFiMAN Edition X ($1799)
HiFiMAN touts this headphone as great for direct play from portable devices—and I'll agree, it does play very well directly from a tablet or phone. Pretty nice not to have the burden and expense of having to carry around a portable amp, but at $1800 it doesn't really seem like a more affordable solution. And then, it's an open headphone while most portable cans are sealed to get rid of environmental noise. So...this is a flagship headphone for use with portable devices indoors? I'm not sure what to…

Sound Quality
Alrighty then, let's plug this $1800 headphone into my Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and...holy smoke, these sound good...really good. Relaxed; not in your face; very easy listening. Quite often a headphone with those characteristics also ends up sounding boring...not so with the Edition X, they just sound gentle.

It's not often I get a headphone that just invites me to listen and not worry about the wrong bits...at all. This headphone plays right at my penchant for a slightly relaxed, laid-back sound. And, seriously, I've not heard a headphone before that played so…

Raw frequency response plots show the Edition X is quite insensitive to positional change on the head. Response is essentially flat from 40Hz to 1.5kHz. Response falls off 5dB below 40Hz to 20Hz showing a modest lack of sub-bass extension. Response from 300Hz to 1.5kHz shouold show a gentle rise; I did hear this headphone as needing a slight lift in this area to bring vocals more forward.

Raw profile from 2kHz to 4kHz is just about right, but the fall-off after 4kHz is just a bit too fast. This is…

I was on the phone a week ago with Jon Iverson (Stereophile's DAC reviewer and The Home Tech group's web monkey) lamenting...

"I'm in a funk, Jon. Been reviewing all these high end cans and I want to switch it up...but I'm not sure what to do."

"Well, when I'm in that sort of mood I sometimes go to Amazon and see what products are popular. Um, let's take a look..."

Separated by a thousand miles or so, we both surf over to Amazon, find the headphone category, click on over-ear, and view the list.

"…

One of the things that, it seems to me, separates headphone enthusiasts from traditional audiophiles is an interest in good inexpensive stuff, or devices with unusual utility. Think Koss Porta Pros or the Riva Turbo X. The Porta Pro has been delivering excellent sound quality for its very low $49 price for decades and for decades headphone enthusiasts have been praising their worth. And when the Riva Turbo X Bluetooth speaker showed up at CanJam a year or so ago, headphone hobbyists embraced it immediately as a great sounding…

Sound Quality
Well...they're no Porta Pro, that's for sure. Heck, the Apple Earpod is quite a bit better, but it really is one of the best earbuds around. Neither will work as well in bed however. You'd probably end up with your hair all tangle up in the Porta Pro headband; and the Earpods would certainly fall out of your ears easily as you turned over in bed.

The real question is: Are they adequate to the task and not annoyingly poor sounding? In that regard, yes, they'll be fine for most folks who just want to fall asleep to music or watch movies in bed.

When worn…

This set of measurements was done with the Bedphones inserted deep into the concha bowl.

Raw frequency response plots show the Bedphones do change in level with repositioning, but tonal response (the overall shape of the curve) seem fairly consistant. Bass response basically falls of at about 6dB/octave below 200Hz. Gently rising response from 300Hz to 1.5kHz is just about right, which probably accounts for the adequately good listening experience. They're getting the bulk of the midrange reproduced…

Originating with the Foster OEM design (model 443741, page H-4 of this .pdf) and seeing the light of day first as the Denon AD-H1001, then the Creative Aurvana Live! (CAL!), this model has now been refreshed as the E-Mu Walnut. This is a lovely example of a company—in this case Creative Technologies in the form of its subsidiary company E-Mu Systems—recognizing they have a solid-performer on their hands, and incrementally improving it. I wish I saw this more often.

Creative may have learned this lesson the hard way in this…

Sound Quality
The E-Mu Walnut is a warm, relaxed, and somewhat veiled sounding headphone. Bass level is slightly but appropriately accentuated and only slightly bleeds into the mids. Bass quality and tightness is fairly good, but is prone to distortion at high levels.

Midrange response is nicely even and coherent, but lacks a bit of level in the upper mids decreasing a sense of presence in vocals. Treble is a bit uneven. Loss of response 5-8kHz with subsequent treble coming back to good levels makes cymbals…

As I'll be mentioning them as a family to some degree, you may want to bring up the measurements for the Creative Aurvana Live! and Denon AH-D1001.

It's evident from the measurements of these three headphones, that the original D1001 had some problems in the bass. The bass level was a bit low, but the bass distortion was pretty bad. Leading edge of the 300Hz square wave also looks a bit ragged with two significant peaks at the leading edge.

The CAL! seems to have significantly addressed both…