anythingbutipod.com

The sibilance is annoying.

I tried:

A bit of foam from a replacement PX100 pad, also acoustic fabric. No.
Muffles treble but still just as sibilant. Various (4) portable amps, various combinations of mini-cables. Some change it, none eliminate it.

tips: RE0 dual-flange, no change. tri-flange - dark and still sibilant. Comply Tx-400s, less but scatters (absorbs?) treble, ruins that precise soundstage.

The cord length = fail. I wear them inverted too. I got a Sleek SA6 52" cable, which is a less substantial cable and not silver-plated, but it's 1' longer and it does cut down on the sibilance without attenuating treble.

Who knows, better design or increased impedance or magic pixie dust, it fits and it's less sibilant. Also RA connectors give lots more positioning options. (see pic). The sibilance is not completely gone, but much improved and my player(s) can reach a pocket.

Sleek SA6 cord in action.

And "Others" have said that killing BBE helps (and it does) and normally I'd be angry by a piece of gear that dictates how I use it, but as Luck would have it, they sound their absolute best to me with the EQ flat and all the other EQ-ish things like Mach3Bass and Viva disabled.

I wonder if the audiophonies behave like that? They like to brag how they listen with tone controls defeated, and this is a great example why you can say that--; These Panasonic are heavily tuned, either by mechanical design or circuitry or both. I guess it doesn't count if it's frequency modification with no controls? That's just the "flavour" of the gear, you see.

CowonFTW: Man am I ever so glad I am not crazy and alone. As I mentioned on the main HJE900 thread, I too have discovered that these Panas sound best to me on all my DAPs using zero/flat EQ. Period.

Good or bad thing, I am not prepared to say. But this does not in any way diminish my love for these things.

I am sorry that may still be suffering some sibilance issues. I prefer this brighter sound sig anyway and combined with some minor high-freq hearing loss, I don't have this issue. Hopefully going flat signal is helping a bit.

A few things I def would change:
- 1 foot longer cable [though i have a quality extender at my disposal]
- a compact hard case for storage/transport
- much better selection of replacement tips

+1 on the flat EQ, although I don't use it quite flat, but I have less enhancements enabled on both the P3 or the D2+ compared to my other phones.
I think the dynamics make up for it.
... and yes , the cable is a bit short (I'm 6' )