Oppo PM-2 - Any Good?

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by TheIceman93, Feb 2, 2017.

  1. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    @Armaegis has multiple degrees, so I think he might be onto something. You both might be, I dunno.

    I think he only brings this up to your recent pull back of your loaners and the 650 tread where you admitted being of a little off and needing some readjustment. I would not take this personally. I know he meant well and good intentions.

    It does have a sharper rolloff, not quite as bad as some higher end Audeze. It has a much more pleasant timbre and no-plasticy at all with PMx2. I quite agree with the 5XX and I was almost set in living with it until I heard PMx2 and had to have it. It is a more downward slope (thanks @E_Shaaf) and more relaxed signature for sure.

    PMx2 is quite amazing. It did take a day of brain burn in or whatever as the first day was just kind of okay. The second day just something magical clicked. My only guess was potential. Some have just the the right approach. Same for @E_Shaff and tearing apart several hundred dolllar TH900's to dial in what he wanted. I never saw many others doing it besides Lawton and he just makes moolah on wood cups and ruining the sound. But in the end only Alex knows. Although I agree it is not an easily modded headphone like some others.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2021
  2. Ksorota

    Ksorota Friend

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    I have been working on modding a couple of PM-1s to enhance their enjoyment and I can understand where RD is coming from.

    For reference, I have a PMx2 which set me off on this adventure. I ended up buying two PM-1s at good prices mainly to get my hands on more of the leather pads just in case I wanted to have a second PMx2 made. I found that it is easy to change the dampening to increase the bass impact and extension, but very difficult to do some and keep the air that the PMx2 has.

    The PMx2 has more highs, but its not what I would consider airy. The Code LEX did this the best I have yet heard.
    ______________________________________________________________________________________

    As Azimuth said, only Alex knows how to truly get the most out of this driver/housing setup and if not for the high cost of entry I would gladly send one in for him to put his touches on. Instead I have gone another direction. One headphone is being tuned for fun/rich/bassy (currently listening to this one) performance, and the other is likely destined to become a closed back version of the PM-1.

    I have been using this thread, along with the old changstar thread to direct the modding.

    https://web.archive.org/web/2017041...ends.org/index.php?threads/oppo-pm2-mod.1108/

    Unfortunately the photos are gone, but just based on the description of Maxxx's mod and what i have found, I think I am on the right path.
    ______________________________________________________________________________________

    One thing that is universally true with all the versions I have is that even though they run well on low power amps/phones/computers, they really explode to life on something more powerful. Currently playing them off of the Ragnarok 1.5 and the experience is very satisfying. Makes the GLMK2 sound muted, which I did not notice before.
    ______________________________________________________________________________________

    The other point I wanted to make is that the second PM1 I picked up sounded noticeably different than the first. The pads on it were in pretty rough shape, deformed and smelly. Swapping them out to the Alt -Lambskin pads helped a bunch, but also produces a brighter overall sound.
    ______________________________________________________________________________________

    @rhythmdevils I can send you a set of the Alt-Lambskin pads if you want to try them out?
     
  3. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    Let's not forget the PM-2 does not have air that it has planar bass. It does not. I mean, it kind of does. It is more kind of an in-between a planar and dynamic. It has impact, but not jaw dropping. It is more smooth and almost wooly.

    This is still going to be difficult without changing the driver properties. Remember, Alex's mods involved an oven. Yes, one way to get more bass is lower the damping. More driver movement, but then there are other trade-offs. The T-X0 did this almost to an extreme with nothing behind the driver, but then covered all but one of the vent holes in the front. To get air, they used the felt perforated pads. It had bass impact for days though.

    I still wonder about magnets though. I know when adding magnets to dynamics like 650's and 58X, etc., you get more peaks as there is more fine control. You would think that more magnetism would lead to more damping, so I just wonder about this with these headphones will all that has been said here.

    I can imagine a PM-1 or PM-2 sounding downright boring on a a GLMK2. No planar ever got along with mine in any sort of exceptional way. Even the PMx2 does okay, but only with an OCC cable to be acceptable. I do get more musical dynamics out of a portable device than say a HD650 over a PMx2, but PMx2 is a click or two less sensitive. To get the most, yeah, they gonna need powah.

    I knew there were some driver differences, but that is odd. I did notice that the difference between the Lambskin pads on your PMx2's were not that much different than the felt pad PMx2's I purchased. The felt was only about a db or so down in the bass. Hardly noticeable. The top end of felt PMx2 sounded slightly more airy to me, so it all worked out. (I also use "airy" here as reference...PMx2 still has a super relaxed FR).
     
  4. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    Only chiming into this thread to answer this specific thing and ignoring everything else.

    I'm not so active these days, but I've been around the block with modding both dynamics and planars. I had a small collection of vintage Fostex and Yamahas at one point. I'm arguably one of the first that developed fuzzor/fazor mods before that was even a thing. I was there for the early days of the Fostex T50rp mods up to around the point with the development of waveguides and the mrspeakers controversies. There is one commercially available Sennheiser mod that I am partially responsible for/collaborated with. I remember Smeggy and his Thunderpants. I've done enough driver and ortho transplants that head-fi even gave me a custom title for the absolutely zero cred that that's worth. I used to have some measurement gear (back when we had to hack the circuit boards and built in-ear phantom powered devices ourselves), but don't anymore.

    Somewhere in between I do have a fair amount of post graduate education and research experience which does include working with vibrations, etc. and industry experience in noise control. I also moonlight as a math and physics teacher.

    But all of that could be worth bupkiss, so I don't bother writing it down until someone asks.
     
  5. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I cleaned this thread up from all the hearing test bullshit. But I moved a post I should reiterate saying that I respect @Armaegis regardless of whether we disagree on what’s happening with the PM-2. I mentioned this before but it’s worth saying again. @Armaegis has been around a long time and I could care less if we agree or disagree it doesn’t change anything this stuff isn’t personal to me. His opinion is a valid one. He could be right and I could be wrong. It was just a theory. In science that’s called a hypothesis ;)
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Digging up old stuff... you porkers. :)

    [​IMG]

    -28db second order distortion peak just around 325Hz. H2 translates to infection at 650Hz. This is 4% distortion.
    -38db third order distortion just at 300Hz. H3 translates to infection at 900Hz. 1.25%
    -45db fourth order distortion just above 300Hz. Translates to 1200Hz. 0.5%

    H2 alone isn't that bad. I think the combination of highish 3rd and especially highish 4th ruins it.

    Some people are more sensitive to distortion than others. There is also variance:
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    Also mine was less spikey at the 8kHz than others.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  7. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    From Innerfidelity PM2 2014 stock pads. The impedance and phase wigglies are very peculiar, as I had mentioned a couple pages ago.
    upload_2021-9-8_17-46-3.png

    edit: ok that's it, I'm staying out for good now
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2021
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    It's a piece of crap planar. I know who manufactured the driver. It's strengths is that it is largely pleasant sounding and works from an iPhone. Retrieval of microdetail is zero. Liveliness and immediacy is zero. Dynamics and heft only possible if run from speaker amp. This was bottom barrel stuff from Oppo, presented as mid/hi-fi, initially priced as hi-fi, and then reduced to mid-fi pricing a la PM-2. I mean, it is better than bottom-barrel crap from HFM. But then again it cost quite a bit more.
     
    Last edited: Sep 8, 2021
  9. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

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    I will say this...don't look at the PM-2 like a planar, or a dynamic. Just look at it for headphones.

    I agree with you @purr1n that it's strengths is that is largely pleasant sounding. It can be source dependent, but more on that in the next paragraph. The pleasant sound is SO not-distracting. They have a timbre that is so easy to deal with, you don't care that they are not plankton monsters. I could wear them all day and still have a smile on my face, because of their relaxed signature, it also means that they are forgiving to your bad Nirvana recordings.

    On source, they are still weak in the phone department. Even my 650's are more sensitive by a couple of clicks. They will still have more volume than most planars from a phone and not sound half-bad. A HELM Bolt is about all that is needed if you need some power portable, although don't expect ear shattering levels or miracles.

    All that said...you said it..."priced as high-fi", and really not worth the price of admission, even PMx2, unless you really crave that kind of tonality and don't care as much about the plankton and details. And yes, avoiding that plastic=y timbre from lower end HFM, including the HE5XX.

    And obviously less worth messing with modding unless you want to bake to shrink the driver, change out magnets and basically have a complete rebuild.

    I will say that the tonality was one of the reasons that Drop chose the PM-3 to base the Panda off of. It just too bad that whole thing turning into flaming poo with bad Bluetooth, and tons of broken sets because the headband was weak at the turn carrying all that weight. But that is another story altogether.

    All and all, i guess I have other headphones if I want detail. High cost of admission, but worth it to me.
     
  10. loadexfa

    loadexfa MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    RD and I did a mini meet and I did some brief listening to his pair of PM2's. He has modded them and said they have "more clarity, less dirty distortion tone, and faster sound than stock".

    Chain: Tidal -> Pi2AES -> Yggdrasil A2 -> SOHA
    • They don't fit my head and ears well, feel a bit awkward. I stopped noticing after a little bit but putting them on felt weird/wrong. Don't know if these would cause pain after a while, didn't wear them for very long.
    • Nice inoffensive sound. My first thought was, "Huh, maybe I disagree with RD about these"
    • With more listening their deficiencies became more obvious. I found them flat and lacking life after a bit. They are good at hiding their issues if I didn't pay attention.
    • A test treble track RD suggested showed the treble was weird and could get painful. Normally when treble hurts it's like a needle stabbing your ear. The PM-2's treble was smeared but hurt like someone was smashing a pie into your ear. Weird analogy but that's how it sounded to me. For reference, I tried the test treble track on a couple of modded LCD-X's and found them too sharp (needle stab), the LCD-2 (stock) was fine, and the OG Clears were also fine.
    • I listened to the LCD-2 after the PM-2 and the difference in capability was very stark. I understand the LCD-2 is more expensive but I'm confident the PM-2 wouldn't hold up to the 6XX in a comparison. Which leads to my next point ...
    • RD said they cost $500. :eek: I would have found these a bit overpriced at $200, I could see why they are good for background listening, so inoffensive and don't need a powerful source (based on reading other thoughts here, perhaps I would disagree if I tried them from a phone). But for $500 .... I would recommend the 6XX and an amp or the Koss stats (once Drop sells them again), depending on preferences. But we all have different taste, some hate the 6XX including RD. :D
    I do understand why these are enjoyable and I could enjoy them too but feel there are better options out there, especially for the price.
    Bonus, unrelated note, RD did not hate the OG Clears. I'll convert you to a lover of French jewelry @rhythmdevils !!:punk:
     
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