Monoprice M1060 Measurements and Stream of Consciousness Review

Discussion in 'Headphone Measurements' started by purr1n, Apr 27, 2017.

  1. MrTie

    MrTie Friend

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    Interesting note on the wall,a little birdie told me the opening of the stock pad(Vegan is also close) is roughly 7cm, which is the wavelength width of just about 4900hz, I'm not entirely sure what this means for the wall but I did notice in rolling other pads with very different openings the spike and ring changed in intensity by quite a bit.
     
  2. MrTie

    MrTie Friend

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    Stock:
    1astock.jpg
    Vegan:
    1avegan.jpg
    LCD2 Leather:
    1alcd2.jpg
    Pleather Angled HM5:
    1ahm5p.jpg
    Pleather ZMF:
    1apzmf.jpg
    Cow Leather ZMF:
    1alzmf.jpg
    All with stock foam rear damping.
     
  3. cskippy

    cskippy Creamy warmpoo

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    Great impression @Hands! I'm so surprised that i haven't been bothered by the ringing. I didn't care for the stock pads and quickly switched to the Vegans which seemed to help in that regard. I think you would probably like stock damping, Vegans, and some front damping, but that ortho wall/ringing will always be present. A shame for an otherwise good price/performance headphone.
     
  4. Serious

    Serious Inquisitive Frequency Response Plot

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    It's interesting how the 2-3kHz region looks extremely clean on the coupler, while there is ortho ringing at 5kHz, while on the head there's lots of nasty ringing around 3kHz with no ortho wall at 5kHz. Doesn't look like the distortion is inherent to the driver since it also changes in frequency. It's probably just an effect of the ringing and how it influences the measurements.
     
  5. Hands

    Hands Overzealous Auto Flusher - Measurbator

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    I didn't measure the right channel, mostly out of laziness, but it's the right channel that rings like crazy. The left one is not so bad in comparison. It could be you got a better sounding, better matched M1060.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    @Hands: start a loaner program thread? Begin in midwest, circle to east, south, dust belt, and back west.
     
  7. a44100Hz

    a44100Hz Friend

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    Got my hands on these thanks to the loaner from @Hands. Without the paper towel mod and vegan pads, I found the ringing that Hands described intolerable. However, with the pads, these are more like $370 headphones than $300. So in that price range, are they comparable to the HD650? I would say yes. Not better, but comparable.

    The M1060V (V = vegan pads, paper towel mod) compared to the HD650M (M = rear spider removal, dynamat around magnet, no coin mod), some off-the-cuff thoughts:

    -The 1060 sounds more neutral than the 650; loses some mids magic in exchange for better separation during complex passages; vocals aren't layered above violins, for example, whereas they are on the 650
    -650 is like being on the stage, 1060 is like being five rows back
    -1060 has better separation and air; soundstage is more realistic and provides a sense of spatial immersion (but is less emotionally involving). I do miss this air when I put the 650 back on. In comparison, the 650 sounds more "in my head". But...
    -650 provides goosebumps; 1060 does not. It's hard to beat the eerie intimacy of the 650. Vocals and the transients of kick drums or strings sound more fleshed out.
    -650 has a fuller-feeling and more detailed lower end but M1060 has better low end extension (harder slam on 650, drums sound more realistic; but lower rumble on 1060); M1060 is brighter than 650 but both are smooth enough to listen at higher volumes without fatigue
    -650 has more meat in the vocal range. Vocals, male or female, sound much more lush and alive on the 650. This sometimes comes at the expense of strings.

    In all, the M1060V remind me a bit of inexpensive studio monitors. Everything is there, everything sounds correctly presented... but it's not as gripping and immediate and the lushness of the transients and edges of instruments and vocals is stretched very very thin. I have a bias towards lush, warm, intimate. But as a counter-point to that, my friend quite liked listening on the M1060V because it presented known soundtracks from a different perspective; some details appeared where they were buried and you had to strain to hear on the 650. If I could only have one headphone, it would be the HD650M. But if I had never had the 650, I would probably quite like the M1060V. I would take these over the HE-400i (boring and piercing) or the TH-X00 (I just never liked them, they sounded thin and weird).
     
  8. Ringingears

    Ringingears Honorary BFF

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    Conclusion. Even with the mods, the ringing is still almost painful on some material. The bass at higher levels becomes one note and muddy. I just listened to LFF's excellent test tracks on a Getting to Fifth Base. It showed this headphones weaknesses in the mids and treble. Mids sound colored and plastic, not natural sounding and some treble notes are shrill. Same things I heard on less challenging material, where I wasn't positive if I was hearing a problem or not. Compared to the Paradox, HD600, and HD650, the M1060 is not worth $300. IMHO.

    Only positive. On easy material and low volume, it will give the listener a flavor of the ortho experience. This headphone just isn't ready for prime time. Hopefully Monoprice can make some changes on the next iteration.

    Mods please move this if needed.
     
    Last edited: Aug 10, 2017
  9. scapeinator1

    scapeinator1 Once You Go Black You'll Never Go Back

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    Has anyone else noticed an odd emphasis at around 16khz? On some songs I noticed that there was a very very high pitched ringing that persisted even when I thoroughly eq'd the 5khz range. Using peace eq gui, I reduced 16270hz down by -10 db with a Q of 3. That seemed to help some for the really grating treble of bells, triangles, metallic sounds in general, sharper s vocal sounds, and claps/snaps.

    The specific song I noticed it on was the song "Attak" by Rustie. Starting at around 15 seconds there is a metallic ringing almost bell-like noise that has a strong peak at around 16khz. Looking at a spectrogram I was able to locate it and isolate it specifically, the high pitched noise it quite noticeable in that song as a periodic dot.[​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Dec 30, 2017

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