Has anyone else experienced the 109 Pro’s significantly amplifying the “speaking through a cardboard box” effect that bad mics have? Being in Discord with friends is just awful – even various youtube vids / twitch streamers sound gross compared to the vocal clarity from my DT 770 Pro’s or Senn 560s.
These are brand new; I’m mostly trying to determine if I got duds or if this experience is to be expected of the 109 Pro’s. I’ve seen so much praise for the 109 Pro’s as daily drivers that this really surprised me, and ultimately makes them unusable for me outside of music. I’m using a FiiO K5, but have experienced the exact same effect straight from mobo, and on another machine.
EXAMPLES (and these are with mics much better than my discord friends have)
https://youtu.be/FeWmMsfsvYA?t=7
Starting from 0:07 or so through 0:22 in this vid, he sounds like he’s talking through a tunnel/box. If I switch to my DT 770 Pro’s, the quality drop is hardly noticeable, and with my HD 560S’s, the tunnel/box effect is only slightly there.
https://youtu.be/k_sQEXOBe68?t=96
This one is less of a tunnel effect, but might also be a clue to what’s going on. On the 109 Pro’s, it sounds like everything they say has a loud extra layer of warmth that sounds like they’ve mixed their vocals for ASMR. On the DT 770 Pro’s and Senn 560S, it just sounds slightly deeper, like a typical Shure SM7B recording for example, but their voices are clear and the ASMR-esque effect is gone.
Any advice is appreciated! It seems most likely that I should return them (especially at $800), and what’s unclear is if I should be getting another pair or if it’d just be the same experience. Or if I should be turning to EQ (though it seems like people have been quite happy with these out-of-box).
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=39414
M1070 planar headphones, $223.99 with EXTRA30 coupon applied.
If you don’t like the way they sound return them.
Get an HD600 for half the price and live happily ever after.
The frequency response of the 109 Pro shows that the mids are recessed. Nothing that a bit of EQ can’t fix
Just learned to apply EQ and applied oratory’s settings – it helped this issue a bit but not much. Tried tinkering further but any gains I got on this issue came at the cost of music quality.
Might just be that the headphones I’m used to have been hiding issues, though given the 560S reputation for analytical strength, seems more likely the 109 Pro’s are shining a spotlight on this particular type of issue.
Try doing EQ yourself. I find Oratorys EQ’s to sound bad. Generally all autoEQ’s sound bad to me.
Good to know, I’ll have to play with it – thanks!
Update: I returned the original pair and got another, which reduced the issue to a much more tolerable point. But, better yet, I plugged them into a hybrid tube amp I’d gotten for the HD 600’s just as a “might as well see” and the tinny-ness / “speaking through a box” issue practically vanished, while retaining the rest of the profile of the headphones afaict. Loving them now!
It’s crazy how audible the difference is when switching between the amps (Schiit Magni and Schiit Vali 2).