The L300 Limited was recently measured by oratory1990
Yeah, I know, those are my headphones that he measured.
The drop-off is too severe to EQ alas.
Doesn't look good, yes. Too severe for EQ? No. It's a deep correction that's needed, but it does work.
It's around 20 dB worth of correction at a slope of 12 dB / octave, with the intersection between the slope and the horizontal (the point where it starts rising) at 74 Hz (original pads) or in the upper 40s (L700 pads). You may need to tweak the inflection point. I am running this correction now with my L300LTD. It's awesome - Stax detail with LCD bass. That was my goal and I'm satisfied I've accomplished it.
Of course, that means pushing everything else down by 20 dB. Not a problem for the 353X amp, the cans are still plenty loud. oratory1990 has measured distortion at high levels of signal, with the 20 dB bass correction applied, and he said it's very low even in these extreme conditions. Subjectively, I don't hear any distortion - and I'm quite familiar with the sound of overdriven transducers ("thanks to" the many speakers I've blown during the years when I've done circuit design and audio).
That being said - do I wish they were flatter in the bass? Oh hell yes, absolutely. Definitely a case of "make do with what you have". But they are fixable.
The rest of the corrections by oratory1990 - the stuff in the mids and treble: they squash the hump at 1.2 ... 1.3k which was not a good feature - sounds like a 1930s telephone line effect, I clearly hear it when I toggle the filter. The rest of the filters make the cans a bit brighter and more detailed. Seem a bit zingy maybe? I'm still testing and tweaking but it's a good start.
Needs an energizer, cannot be connected to normal headphone amps.
Estats, duh. The RAAL thing also needs a non-standard amp (by headphones standards).
You want results, you gotta do what it takes. I've never heard the same detail and transparency from any non-estat drivers. That's what I want, so I'm putting up with the mess.
Creaky plastic hinges
Comfort not that great
Feels terribly flimsy and cheap (the more expensive ones as well)
I guess this shows the extent of subjective perception in this field. To me they seem great. Comfort is awesome, I forget I'm wearing them. One person's "flimsy" is the other person's "featherweight". Cable is actually far less annoying than, say, the HD800S cable which is stiff and clumsy like a garden hose (I ended up making my own 800 cable, from a Meze 99 cable and some connectors).
Well - more like 1970s scifi design ethos along with an attempt to make them as lightweight as possible, which makes sense given their timbral character.
But yes, they're not impressive-looking in a luxurious context. If optics are important, there are plenty of good-looking headphones out there - the recent Meze planar, some of the Focal cans, some of the ZMF, etc.
For a tech geek like me they are a sort of ironic fashion statement.