This headphone is the equivalent of durian to me--a weird novelty that I sometimes like, but stomaching the initial impression of its scent is challenging. After nine months of ownership and ten months since my first listen, my opinion of the YH-5000SE has improved...slightly. I still think it's a headphone that is impossible to recommend to most people without a home demo as it just sounds too weird with the vast majority of music, but I respect that Yamaha has attempted to try new things with the YH-5000SE instead of making a generic-sounding planar magnetic headphone. As I'm using the YH-5000SE now, listening to Hiromitsu Agatsuma, I have to lament that this is not the HP-1 successor I was hoping for. I, frankly, am excited to list this headphone for sale after touring it with some friends. I do appreciate the fact that the YH-5000SE has forced me to try to understand what the engineers at Yamaha were trying to do, rather than lazily claim they don't know what they are doing because I don't like the sound of it or because it doesn't measure close to a target. It's made me a better listener, in its own weird way.
Den-Fi
Reviewed on 12 Jan, 2024
This headphone is the equivalent of durian to me--a weird novelty that I sometimes like, but stomaching the initial impression of its scent is challenging. After nine months of ownership and ten months since my first listen, my opinion of the YH-5000SE has improved...slightly. I still think it's a headphone that is impossible to recommend to most people without a home demo as it just sounds too weird with the vast majority of music, but I respect that Yamaha has attempted to try new things with the YH-5000SE instead of making a generic-sounding planar magnetic headphone. As I'm using the YH-5000SE now, listening to Hiromitsu Agatsuma, I have to lament that this is not the HP-1 successor I was hoping for. I, frankly, am excited to list this headphone for sale after touring it with some friends. I do appreciate the fact that the YH-5000SE has forced me to try to understand what the engineers at Yamaha were trying to do, rather than lazily claim they don't know what they are doing because I don't like the sound of it or because it doesn't measure close to a target. It's made me a better listener, in its own weird way.
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