Shure SRH-940 Headphone Review (Revised 2/19/2012)

[dalethorn 0]

The SRH-940 compares favorably in several ways to the Sennheiser HD-800, with a few exceptions. Given that the HD-800 costs 5 to 6 times as much, the similarities and differences are of great interest to persons whose budgets don't stretch much beyond the SRH-940. The main exceptions are soundstage and resolution of upper harmonic details. Because of the HD-800's huge earcups, large drivers, and some fancy and costly engineering, the HD-800 has possibly the widest (or best) soundstage of any dynamic headphone that I'm aware of. The harmonic details are not as easy to describe, but if you have a chance to make a direct comparison, the differences are much easier to hear when you go from the HD-800 to the SRH-940 rather than the other way around. Note my comments below relating to harmonics.

 

It would be easy to assume that the differences I just described are a really big deal, but that depends on your experience and perceptions, and how much of an audio perfectionist you might be. In my case, having access to many top quality headphones from the HD-800 on down, it's not a big deal. The main similarity between the SRH-940 and the HD-800 is the sound signature, i.e. the overall balance of bass, mids, and treble that give the headphone its basic character. Attempts to measure this characteristic are generally expressed as a frequency response. While the signatures of these two headphones are not identical, myself and others have made comparisons with specific music tracks that did not reveal a substantial difference, so where significant differences are reported, look for specific examples if that is important to you.

 

Summarizing the actual sound of the SRH-940, it is highly detailed and has what is widely regarded as a more-or-less neutral signature over most of its range, with a slight bit of brightness on the high end. Fortunately, whatever extra brightness the SRH-940 may have compared to the average headphone does not contribute to a sibilance problem. I find the 940's soundstage to be above average for a closed-back headphone, and while the bass will not satisfy the so-called bass-heads of the headphone world, I find the bass to be pretty consistent with what I know to be accurate high fidelity reproduction. Again, depending on how accurate you require your bass to be, a decibel or two of variance that's acceptable to some persons might be annoying to others.

 

Other headphones I compared the SRH-940 to are the Shure SRH-1840 and the B&W P5. The P5 sounds slightly hollow compared to the SRH-940, it sounds somewhat muffled on the high end, and sounds a little bit weak in the deep bass. Given that the P5 and SRH-940 sell for about the same price and that the SRH-940 wins in sound quality on all counts (in my opinion), I'd say that the P5's advantage is smaller size and better portability. Compared to the SRH-1840, the 1840 has less brightness in the "presence" area around 4 to 7 khz and a very slight edge in soundstage and upper harmonic detail.

 

The SRH-940 will play at reasonable volume levels with portable devices such as most cellphones, iPods and so on. The straight cord feels strong enough to withstand some abuse, and with the earcups pulled all the way down and rotated against my chest, I can have the headphone around my neck all day long without it getting in my way when I'm not listening to it. It also comes with a coiled cord. Neither cord has an angled plug unfortunately. The other good news with the cord is that it's detachable. The other less-than-good news is that the detachable end is partially proprietary. The detachable plug is a standard sub-mini plug (next size smaller than a 1/8 inch mini-plug), but the plastic fitting behind that plug locks into the jack on the earcup in a way that would require DIY'ers to take the earcup apart if they want to use a different cable without the proprietary connector.

 

The earcups of the SRH-940 completely surround my ears, and it's a close fit. The internal space for ears in each oval earcup measure 2-5/8 by 1-7/8 inches. I find the fit very comfortable, but people with much larger ears may feel very cramped. The carrycase that comes with the SRH-940 is fairly large, and would take up a lot of space in a carry-on bag for airline travel. If this is your situation, I'd recommend carrying the SRH-940 around your neck when boarding, or just wrap it in something thin to place in a suitcase, to give it minimal protection.

 

The entire headphone seems to be plastic except for the velour earpads, and Made In China means they optimized the SRH-940 for lowest production cost. The good news is that it seems to be very well made, and given the sound quality, a real bargain at the usual prices. Isolation from external sounds is good even when not playing music. When playing music, I can't hear the telephone ring from 3 feet away, and the ringer is the old-fashioned kind - very attention-getting.

 

People often ask about the headband and comfort issues, and my experience says that the weight of the 940 is light enough that most of it is supported by the earcups and only a small percentage by the headband. In fact, if a user pulls the earcups down just slightly more than needed to fit their ears, that will lighten the headband pressure to the point that the feeling of wearing the headphone will virtually disappear.

 

In addition to the pop music tracks listed below, which I used mainly for detecting weaknesses or other problems with the sound, I played a wide variety of genres (Jazz, Diana Krall, Bill Evans Trio; Bach organ, Biggs; Beethoven 9th, Solti CSO; Chopin, Moravec; Reggae, Marley, Tosh; Country, Haggard, Yoakam; Verdi, Domingo; Sinatra and Bennett; Punk, Germs, Fear, Sid Vicious, Social Distortion; Medieval, Madrigali, Medieval Babes; Trance, Mylene Farmer, etc.)

 

The following are some of the music tracks I tested with, and the main features I listened for with those tracks:

 

Blues Project - Caress Me Baby (piercing guitar sound, handled well).

Cocteau Twins - Carolyn's Fingers (guitar string detail and quality, excellent).

Commodores - Night Shift (bass detail, excellent).

Germs - Forming (raw garage sound, good).

Lick The Tins - Can't Help Falling In Love (tin whistle, very clear and clean).

Lou Reed - Walk On The Wild Side (bass impact, good; detail excellent).

REM - Radio Free Europe (drum impact, very good).

Rolling Stones - She's So Cold (bass impact and guitar sound, very good).

U2 - With Or Without You (bass boom/high-pitched instruments/sibilants, handled well).

Van Morrison - Into The Mystic (bass, moderate).

Who - Bargain (voice trailing off: "best I ever had", very good vocal harmonics).

 

Edited February 20, 2012 by dalethorn

[n707jt 0]

great review. does the headband cause any discomfort over long term usage?

[dalethorn 0]

great review. does the headband cause any discomfort over long term usage?

It really depends on your head and how you fit it. I have very little hair on top, yet it's comfortable for me because I make sure the earcups are adjusted so the headband doesn't press tightly. Just get the right combination of support from the earcups, and support from the headband (but mostly from the earcups) and it will be OK. A lot of people adjust their headphone so the headband presses too tight, and that's not necessary with the 940 because it's very light, and the earcups can support most of that weight.

[superman0390 0]

no offense bro but you got to be kidding me, i just sold my Shure 940s and got the HD 600 instead. they are totally different, shure 940 is very very very very bright. The mids and lows are superb, but the top end is heavily emphasised. for treble heads and those who have a high tolerance for fatiguing sounds, get these. if not, use an EQ with this headphone, it sound really really terrific if you could lower the 10 000 hz region by 4db at least. its a good headphone, but overly bright. if the highs were lowered around 3-5 db, i vote it as the best headphone ever for its price. the mids and lows are really superb. ))

[dalethorn 0]

(Note: Original post modified to include this information.)

Edited February 20, 2012 by dalethorn

[dalethorn 0]

I'm not kidding, and neither are the thousands of other people who are paying 5 times as much to get the exact same sound with the Sennheiser 800. Which BTW is not bright, except for a few people.

Since nobody else mentioned it, I'll go ahead and ask: Do you think in the normal sample-to-sample variations of mass-produced items that you may have gotten a brighter sample than mine? You mentioned very, very, very, very bright, and then suggested that such an extreme brightness is only about 4 db. If my 940 were borderline bright but not excessively bright, then 4 db of extra brightness could push it past the toleration zone for some people. But if my review dealt only in absolutes such as "very bright" or "not bright", then it would not be very useful to people since those adjectives are relative and purely subjective. That's why I compared it very carefully to a known reference standard, the Sennheiser HD-800.

[ito 0]

I am just suggesting that the TS might want to try to review both the headphones again with the usage of the amp and see what is the differences between the two..

 

I dun mean anything rude here but to me,i would not compare the 800 with the 940 as the itouch cannot drive the 800 well enough to know the sound sig overall..

 

For me i find that the 940 is a step higher compared to its brothers the 840 even,very nice headphone for the price that it is going for..but it does not really excel much with the usage of an amp although better sounding for sure with amp..while the 800 need very good amp pairing to sound good and at its best..that is why the TS might want to try with desktop amp with both headphone and give us another review again..

[dalethorn 0]

(Note: Original review text revised, incorporating this post's data.)

Edited February 20, 2012 by dalethorn

[kchew 0]

Bottom line: There is no need to compare the 940 to other low-priced headphones when it sounds nearly identical to the HD-800, which is a well-established industry standard.

 

The problem is you are handicapping the "industry standard" in an attempt to compare apples to oranges. While I appreciate your detailed review which has piqued my interest in the SRH-940, it is not very useful to compare a portable, easily-driven, detailed monitoring headphone to a luxurious, amp-dependant, desktop-based flagship. They are targetting completely different audiences. It would be akin to comparing a BMW 7 series to a Ferrari Enzo, then detuning the Ferrari's engine in an attempt to level the playing field. Something better would be comparing the Shure with other portable, easily-driven monitors like the Audio-Technica M50, Beyer DT770, AKG K141 and Sony MDR-7506.

[dalethorn 0]

(Note: Original post modified to include this information.)

Edited February 20, 2012 by dalethorn

[dalethorn 0]

At this moment I'm listening to Jimmy Smith's Basin Street Blues with the HD-800 and the iPod Touch latest edition. It's a 320k CBR MP3 I ripped from a FLAC track I bought from HDTracks dot com. This track has some very severe dynamics with mass blasts of brass instruments, and while it's possible that I'm getting some clipping on those dynamics (I can't tell any from listening without direct comparison with a headphone amp - that's how little difference there actually is), the overall sound is just about as perfect as I've heard with any amp, the only difference being some amps provide more "air" due to better high frequency reproduction than the iPod/HD-800 combination provides.

 

If you have any doubts as to the difference between the FLAC track and the 320k CBR MP3 rip, try it yourself. It's also too close to tell without a very critical comparison in a very quiet place.

 

The point here is that it's wrong to tell people that the HD-800 cannot be driven satisfactorily from an iPod Touch when it most assuredly can be. The difference in overall sound between an iPod Touch and an average headphone amp is miniscule compared to the differences between most headphones, which is why I tell people they can probably get better sound spending 'x' dollars on a good headphone than spending 1/2 'x' on a headphone and 1/2 'x' on an amp. And that's assuming they have at least as much efficiency in power as the HD-800/iPod Touch setup.

 

And there is another potential downside to buying a headphone amp besides diluting headphone quality by splitting money between the two: While a headphone amp may "tighten" bass and extend the high frequencies with a good amp, some headphones like the HD-800 and Shure 940 are already borderline bright and just on the verge of sibilant problems, and some amps will then exaggerate those problems. I don't know what opportunities users have to pre-test their high-tech headphone amps in a very quiet place before purchase, but I'll bet most users don't have that opportunity.

 

[dalethorn 0]

One small clarification on using the latest iPod Touch with an inefficient headphone like the HD-800:

 

Although what I said previously is true, the volume on some music tracks may still be too low for satisfactory playback. There are options in iTunes and in the iPod to increase volume, supposedly without compression, but Apple notes on its help site that there is a peak limiter built in that may come into play when volume is boosted. They don't clarify whether that peak limiter applies only to iTunes playback, or also to the iPod when it uses the Sound Check option.

 

Merely upping the volume indicator in the settings embedded in the music track itself shouldn't cause any deterioration in sound, but I'm not certain at this point what effect Apple's peak limiter would have when playing from the iPod with Sound Check on. Perhaps Sound Check could be left off on the iPod and the volume indicators set for all tracks permanently in iTunes, so they would play at equal volume on the iPod because the tracks themselves have the volume indicator reset. I don't know. The people at head-fi's forum supposedly made an "authoritative" post on this, but it was not correct in some respects, and missing info in other respects.

 

Even if the volume problem can be solved, my previous arguments were not made as a recommendation for people to buy HD-800's for iPod use. They were made to justify my testing efforts with the HD-800 and the Shure 940. If someone wanted to buy the best possible headphone to use with an iPod, I would recommend the Shure 940.

[Stereo_Electronics 0]

>.< picture for reference purposes. and thank you dalethorn for all your great reviews!



Cheers,
brian @ stereo plaza singapura

[dalethorn 0]

Thank you Brian. The photos look so real I could almost reach out and touch them.

[Hendra Lamlo 0]

Thanks for the great review. would be in my xmas wish list.