Monoprice m1070 and m1570

It seems there is no thread for these two new released planar headphone from Monoprice,
M1070: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=39414
M1570: https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=39416

I'm more interested in M1070 as it's much lighter than 1570 and I'm still looking for more reviews against them. Here are the threads from head-fi
1070: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/monolith-m1070-over-ear-open-back-planar-headphones.915052/
1570: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/monolith-m1570-over-ear-open-back-balanced-planar-headphones.915053/

 

I'd say it's a shame nobody has commented on these yet, but I'm not surprised. The M1060 was a disaster. Then they "fixed it" with a v2 that wasn't actually fixed and finally came out with a closed version that sounded better than the M1060 if you modded it to be opened.

The only consistent thing I've heard about the M1070 is that is a bit north of neutral and it doesn't have the ringing. That's about it. I'd go through that guy's post on the M1070 thread, but it's....a hard read. Too much fluff, not enough "getting to the point."

I'm tempted to order the 1070 if I don't like the Sundara.

There's a video review of the M1570, but I don't know the content creator enough to watch it and trust it.

On the flip side, the M570 exists. And it's basically a clone of the Sendy Aiva. Apparently it's not that far off from the Takstar headphone that uses the Sendy's driver.

Edit: I did find a reddit review on the M1070: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/e73wgd/monoprice_m1070_initial_impressions/

After getting use to it, it ruined the 58x and DT880 for him. That's impressive, considering everybody on that damn subreddit tries their best to justify why their cheaper headphones are so much of a better value.

 

M570 is seriously flawed though, it suffers from a quite bad ringing at around 800hz. Multple reviewers have noticed it and it shows up in measurements with EARS and G.R.A.S.. Some people seem to like it in spite of that, but none of the other models using those drivers have that issue, so not sure how Monoprice messed it up. Supposedly they are aware of it but who knows if they will fix it or not.

I was also interested in the 1070 but I dont want to get one until I see some solid measurements as I do not trust Monoprice planars at all. The reddit review linked mentioned a bump at 800-1000hz that has me worried as that could be a ringing of some sort given their track record. It sounds like that probablly did resolve the 5k one but I wouldnt be surprised if another one pops up.

I would recommend caution personally, Monoprice's track record is not great with planars.

 

anybody give the 1570 a whirl yet?

 

I have used the M1060 before and I was quite disappointed with the quality as well.

 

So, I bought the M1570 and got it this morning. I was going to review it, but there's no point. The unit I got had sibilance like you wouldn't believe. The frustrating part is that the rest of the sound was oddly fantastic. But the sibilance....jesus christ.

I put it back in the box and I'm shipping it back once I'm off work.

Usually, I'd just get an exchange - there was something obviously wrong with the headphone. Nobody else had this issue. But the headphone's build is just baffling.

First off, there was barely any clamp. I had to physically bend the metal to get it to clamp correctly. The problem is...the metal bends like it's a pipe cleaner. Despite being thicker and looking for durable, it bends like a goddamned pipe cleaner.

I'm not bothering with a replacement. I may try out the M1070 (supposedly it's the better headphone) since I can get it for $260, but I wouldn't bother with the M1570. It's too heavy, it bends in a startling fashion and it doesn't clamp well.

 

I don't normally post twice like this, but this is amusing and incredibly stupid.

So I got home from work, and had a weird thought: I should take off the pads and look at the driver. Then I noticed four screws that were all at various levels of "depth."

So I screwed them all in a bit more at the same level, and it fixed the majority of the issues. There's only a bit of glare now, but that might actually be the Schiit Hel (which has the same level or a bit worse glare than the Magni 2 does on the amp section.)

Since I haven't gotten the RMA slip yet, I'm going to be a bit patient and see if this is a "Monoprice didn't check all the boxes with factory burn in and making sure the screws were screwed in" problem or this was a lemon. I got a new amp (THX887...I ordered it at the same time as the 1570 because the open-box was only $250) coming Tuesday anyway, so that would be a nice experiment.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think about that particular combo. I have the 887 and was looking at the 1570 until I read your post yesterday, lol. Hopefully the issue is solved with the screws and isn't in the driver itself.

 

Did you ever do a follow up on this?