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Back to planars, a showdown with HifiMan's HE-500 made for a close match. Still plugged into the Japanese AMI DAC/amp upstairs whose $549 price was a very realistic mate, I thought these two headphones played very much 'on the level'. This even included voltage efficiency. Besides wear comfort, my final preference came down with the T50rp for again its more velvety textures which admittedly were bought with a less illuminated treble. Textures had been drier and more damped than with the LCD-2 but in this juxtaposition were moister than the Chinese. Given the latter's $899 sticker, I thought that regardless of how punters would ultimately come down on individual sonics—they're close to appeal to same flavor seekers—the $500 difference would ink the deal in favor of the Fostex. That was big.
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For more ultimate statements I went downstairs to Bakoon's HPA-21 in current mode fronted by the Metrum Hex D/A converter fronted by SOtM's very best battery-powered super-clock'd USB bridge in AES/EBU output and my usual quad-core iMac with PureMusic 1.89g in 176.4kHz NOS mode. I was already clear that the Fostex wasn't pulling its weight in the same resolution class as a Sennheiser HD-800, beyerdynamic T1 or T5p. That was no surprise. I simply wanted to qualify just how much was left beneath the table; and if anything was gained in trade.
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Front to back: Sennheiser HD800, beyerdynamic T1, beyerdynamic T5p, all rewired by ALO Audio
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If we think of the Sennheiser as the perhaps most deeply engineered headphone currently to market, in sonic terms this manifests as light. If the T50rp looks on the same scenery on an overcast day, the HD800 views it under bright blue skies. Small details like tone modulations and the differences in transient flavor between instruments—how bowed violin, pizzicato upright, the hammers of a cymbalom versus piano, variously tipped drum sticks etc. create different attack spice—aren't teased out or maximally articulated. The Fostex captures the context and all of its shapes well enough but stops short of working their surface textures into high relief.
If you're familiar with just how sound changes the farther away from stage you move—more and more reflective venue data overlay the direct sound; edges soften, separation blurs, hard lines get watercolor transitional—and how even our eye sight no longer distinguishes the fine print or weave patterns on the musicians' clothing... then the Sennheiser HD800 and its top competitors from beyerdynamic present us with front-row seats. The Fostex places us into the cheap rows far back. Except that this holds only for sonic qualities, not perspective. Obviously the T50rp hugs your ears just as the others do. Its sound originates from up close so there's no added physical distance inserted. You get the effects of greater physical distance at the same proximity. It's a more twilight sound to which one acclimates quickly indeed.
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Conclusion. This thing lives up to its name. It's quite a mad value proposition. Its wear comfort should send competitors back to the drawing board. Its equivalent sonic plushness parks it decidedly in the planar camp within eye sight of the Audez'e LCD-2. Don't expect Beryllium tweeter extension, AMT dynamics or the type of incisive super-articulated slightly white sound ceramic drivers—deservedly or not—are supposed to make. This overhauled Fostex isn't about Cayenne pepper or super resolution. It's about rich milk chocolate whose top layer has begun to melt. Think chewy, mellow, creamy and a bit soft around the edges. Think very drawn-out sessions without fatigue, ringing or mosquitoes. Nothing bites, nothing irritates, nothing gets squinty-eyed, thin, lean or small.
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Bottom to top: SOtM dX-USB HD with super-clock & mBPS-d2s, Metrum Hex, Bakoon HPA-21
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| By that token it's not a modern performance sound but a vintage comfort proposition when expectations were for 60Hz-12kHz and time ran slower. Those figures are a mere pointer by the way and nothing literal. Detractors will call the dawg colored and veiled. Those who love it for its chocolaty can't-stop-eating sinfulness won't care. Having just taken a €300 gamble that the French Aëdle VK-1 would sound as good as it looked in its stock photos, I'd have been miles happier with this far less fashionable T50rp. Unless you want to look like an exiled Martian or geek, it's admittedly too large to wear outdoors. Indoors anything goes and unlike its self-advertising open-backed cousins from HifiMan and Audez'e, the Mad Dog works in very close vicinity so folks sleeping or otherwise occupied won't be bothered. In my book such stealth mode is nearly priceless. A very surprising and super pleasant find. I simply find the name super stupid too. It suggests an association of sorts with Beats by Dre and similar crap when it's so much better. Any such association thus would bark up the wrong tree and have your expectations go to the dogs. So never mind the Mad Dog moniker. It's definitely woof rather than so what! |
PS: For those into balanced cans, an upcoming version will sport the proper four-pole leash and even an upgraded single-ended cable option is planned.
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