Headphone Heights

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Excellent and inexpensive headphones: Superlux 681 EVO

Posted by golgi on February 13, 2014 at 06:39:28:

Pros: expansive soundstage, bass, clear, and detailed, amazingly inexpensive
Cons: out of the box clamping force was high before i modified them, they have a lengthy break-in period
price paid: $39.95 without shipping
My old headphones that I used at work were starting to show their age. I started doing some researching online to see what were some recommended low-cost headphones. I kept seeing the name Superlux come up but I had never heard of this brand before. After doing some reading about the Superlux lineup, I decided I would try out the 681 Evo's since they address some of the issues the older versions had.
When I received the headphones, the packaging looked pretty nice for such inexpensive headphones. Then I opened the box and was very impressed with the build quality on these. In my opinion they're not far behind my Sennheiser 580s in build quality!
The head clamping force was uncomfortable for me but this is very easy to address. You just stretch the headphones apart and the rubber bands that give the top headband it's clamping force, come unhooked. After this, they are very comfortable to wear for hours on end. Even while wearing glasses! However, my Sennheiser 580s are still more comfortable.
Initially the sound was flabby and boomy. I broke them in with about 120 hours of non stop music. Then I played pink noise on them for around 32 hours. The sound after this break in changed drastically for the better! In fact, almost every review you will read about these headphones will claim the same thing about how drastically they improve after 150-200 hours. So do not judge them on sound right out of the box!
I use these on a daily basis plugged in directly into a Mac Pro's headphone jack. I also tried these headphones plugged into my Macbook Air, and the sound quality wasn't as good as plugged into my Mac Pro or Little Dot MK3. So, these do seem to benefit from some amplification. I just didn't realize that there was such a big difference in sound output between the Mac Pro and Macbook Air.
I highly recommend these headphones! You will not be disappointed. I think you will be quite surprised how good these are for such a small price. If on a tight budget, I could actually live with these as my only headphone.