And?, did you get them?????? 

The Koss is still sort of an industry standard for portable inexpensive but quality headphones. It's a kind of a phenomenon when you think about it because in my knowledge only one headphones apart from those managed to stay ahead of the rest for decades and those would be AKG K240 monitors. But still, you certanily shouldn't expect the Porta Pro to be anywhere as good as the RS-1. They are comparable to Grado's entry level SR-60 and fare pretty well against those.

well for those who love the portapros sound....koss also makes others headphones with the same drivers and frequency response sound....i own and owned a few of them....for different styles and fits and purposes...

>KCS35

>KCS75

>Sportapro

>Pro35 / KTXpro1

they've had a few models more but i think they were discontinued...like the porta pro JRs

and another clip on model i believe

They also have some cool earpads that fit on the portapros...i bought them and they look nice....they give you two pairs...which is a good deal and fast shipping too....check em out....

 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260773069488#ht_2095wt_1146

just bought these sony xb1000

70mm drivers?  I would like to know if the lower frequencies are balanced with the mids and highs. I own a pair of Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 EB's, and they sound like I'm in a VW Beetle with a pair of 18" subwoofers in the trunk. 

wow retro thats kinda how i like my sound on cans lol but I like the ultimate in low frequancies wich to be fair my grado's give me and my technics even more so,,,I don't realy need any more headphones as i think I have found the best for me, but i collect headphones...hey man...take a look at my other thread regarding headphones...man I think your in for a shock bro...

Equalizer systems are a necessary part of every system and you are using it in your system whether you like it or not. There are two basic principles by which the signal is equalized:

1) by adding negative feedback in increments (measure is a Decibel)

2) by actively controlling the signal path in the active crossover system before the signal is amplified in the amplifier

The first principle is used in 99.9% of all systems which includes all hi-fi equalizers and is generally an unwanted factor. In tube amplifier systems negative feedback is used to counter the distortion and humming of the output transformers as well as the fact that all designs are built with certain compromise with regards to output power and total harmonic distortion. In essence, the only amplifiers that are not plagued by this are output-transformerless (OTL) amplifiers which is now a very exotic way (and therefore expensive) of amplifying a signal.

In reality, whether you want it or not, you have a crossover system in your speaker. Let's say we have a two-way speaker with a woofer and a tweeter. Each of these speakers is designed to reproduce a certain frequency range. So to utilize the characteristics of these speakers, you need a crossover system which will then separate the signal into two frequency bands - one will be delivered t the woofer and one to the tweeter ensuring that the speaker reproduces part of the frequency spectrum that doesn't exceed it's design parameters. To do this, you use either capacitors or resistors in the design and thus increasing the capacitance or resistance of the signal. This is very simplified of course but I think everyone can understand it.

Now the important thing. Equalization is possible by separating the signal in an active crossover system before the actual amplification. Digital crossovers (like in some live sound setups) will distribute the range of the signal to how many frequency bands are necessary and then send the signal to a dedicated amplifier so that in essence, each speaker that is designed to reproduce a certain frequency band is driven by it's dedicated amplifier which can also be optimized to amplify signal of that frequency band (for frequencies below 150Hz a class-D amplifier is simply unbeatable, not so good for anything else). In my experience this works perfectly and the results are beyond any commercial or less-commercial design. However, the price of such a design (it would have to be a custom design) would be rather high.

One other thing, someone mentioned Ultimate Ears earphones here. The 5EB model are dual driver and also employ a passive crossover system which serves as a  equalizr as well (apart from the sound shaping filters in the nozzle I presume) so using an equalizer with these designs just means equalizing a signal that is already equalized to perform well with all music styles (or ear shapes).

So one must ask a question - why don't we use speakers with only one speaker so that we didn't have to use crossovers? Well, unfortunately, speakers that can reproduce a wide frequency range without distortion and most importantly - at all volume levels, don't exist. Application is possible in some horn-style speaker designs but they exhibit some other negative properties that make them acceptable nly for some. It's a different story with headphones due to the proximity of the speakers to the actual ear drum. Since thespeakers are much smaller and diaphragms lighter, they can be manufactured with very little tolerance.

Sorry for the long post but I noticed several threads about EQing and headphones so I hope this answers some questions.

Never thought of the whole system as an eq but it's all electronics and all the caps boost/cut off frequancies so i can see where your comming from....I have always thought or treated the eq especially linking 2 togeather..to give a great sound and to cut actuall expenditure down on the hifi equipment perchased...need too turn the sub bass down on my cans it's caving my head in lol...but i have heard of equally good hifi with no eq's just they seemed to cost a fortune to me...my grado'rs1 probbly cost me more than my system...mind you most of it comes off ebay...and second hand hifi bits quite oftern go for nothing these days...cant wait to try my sb1000 though..but i have to wait as a friend bought them from japan for me...over to you guys im loving these threads about headphones hifi eq's etc thanks guys

Oh yes, I read some things about the Sony XB series and I think you will be pleased with those. Never heard them though. You're welcome of course, we're all here for a reason

Hey Tuna good explanation as per usual. The EQ you described is not the EQ I’m talking about.

The EQ you describe is the correct EQ as far as am concerned. The EQ that has been engineered in to the equipment by the manufacture has taken maybe hundreds or thousands of man-hours of listening then refining to get it as near perfect as they can.

With the EQ’s used in recording studio’s they have spent thousands of pounds to get it right so it does not degrade the sound too much. The engineers that use these EQ’s are trained to get the best out of what they have, so home users putting cheap EQ’s in the signal path is only going to damage to everything the manufacturer’s and studio engineers have done.

With regard to single driver speakers my friend uses Eclipse TD712z, you have to listen to them to believe what they can do amazing speakers. Yes it will not satisfy the out and out bass heads but these speakers do an amazing job within its range.

These speakers are used in studios for monitoring.

Studio environments are a different story. The rooms themselves are acoustically treated so that electronics can be as simple as possible. Most studio monitors use digital crossovers and multiple amplifier configurations to drive each speaker separately.

Horn type speakers can be seductive in their sound but they have two serious problems:

1) bass extension is amplified mechanically rather than electronically. By using long tunnels you can amplify frequencies below 1500Hz but even so, it is impossible to go below 150Hz no matter what you do. The bass is present but only at low volumes. Once the volume is turned up, the speaker is unable to reproduce it faithfully. What is more, the speed and bass focus are big problems here since the sound travels a significant distance so there is a lag of several milliseconds.

2) the sound stage is virtually non-existant if you're not sitting in direct sweet-spot of the speaker. A dedicated tweeter or a super-tweeter would fix that but then the advantage of a non-crossover system is lost. 

The most realistic studio experience was through a set of earphones actually. I found them perfect for just about anything excpet maybe for mixing. They were perfect for mastering and the monitors (ADAM with those ribbon tweeters) were just not as detailed. But like I said, that's another story.

Someone please remind me but didn't this thread have something to do with Grado headphones? LOL!!

Just one thing to say my eq's are not cheap...when new they were were £600 each...but yes i had them cheap..

LOL ....what are grado's anyway

Wow a lot of money to spend on EQ’s 

By home standards not cheap but by professional studio standards they are not expensive.