Most underrated headphone?

Not quite true: while the drivers are the same, the interior dimensions of the teak earcups are slightly larger/different vs the TX-00 variants (all woods used in that series).

I believe that, as much as the somewhat different tone-wood characteristics of teak vs other woods, accounts for the rather pleasing tone of the E-Mu teaks, which have an organic, smooth, musical quality the TX-00’s lack.

~3 hrs ago I had a TX-00 mahogany which had easily the best/deepest bass I’d heard to that point (including true sub-bass). But everything else about that headphone annoyed me, especially the too-sharp upper midrange/lower treble and graininess/roughness of the treble range.

A couple years ago I purchased an E-Mu Teak and really liked that sound: bass was slightly less concussive & lacked a bit of sub-bass vs TX-00, but IMO the tradeoff was well worth it based on the top-to-bottom smooth/suave sound of the Teak. I ended up selling the Teak only due to comfort issues: those stock pads became painful & annoying, and all my attempts to padroll for better comfort worked in terms of better comfort–but failed in terms of unacceptably altered sound.

7 Likes