On the hunt for past weeks. Finally got one offering a secondhand pair that’s only been used for a few hours, basically new. The dark and muddy impressions are true but I’ve really fell for the design since first I saw it. Fortunately it responds very well to EQ. Now it’s a favourite pair! My only regret is not getting the classic or anniversary colorway but doesn’t matter.
People who say it’s muddy are just used to harsh sounding headphones, which is 99 percent of the mid to hi-fi tier ones. The Porta Pros sound much more natural. I just demoed a bunch of pretty expensive ones up to around 1500 dollars. Porta Pro most natural sounding of the all, and not at all muddy sounding. But yes, they don’t make your ears bleed.
Yep I did more inclined towards neutral to harsh sounding earphones. My pair before this porta pro were Galaxy Buds+, Buds2, Moondrop Aria and a few chi-fi iems. Even back in 2020 I didn’t find the KZ ZSN Pro X to be sharp at all, even though almost everyone complained about it harsh high and metallic timbre, especially the sibilance lol. It’s not that the Porta Pro are bad, it does have a surprising amount of soundstage and imaging, just not what I’m used to