I’ve had these headphones for about a year and have gotten several questions recently about them. So, I’ll collect a few thoughts about them here:
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Like all T50 mods, they are power hungry. When underpowered, they get boomy and sloppy in the bass. To my ear you need something at least as powerful as the Liquid Spark, which is about 1.3W at 32 ohm, I believe.
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They change a lot with pad rolling. With the stock hybrid pads the are bass cannons with a wide soundstage. They also sound very thick with a very forward midbass presentation. The treble sounds harsh, IMO, taking on a timbre much like a the treble in a highly compressed mp3 file. The included velour pads sweeten them some, but don’t eliminate that treble harshness. The velour pads are less bassy but not bass light at all. The soundstage is also narrower than the hybrid pads. I put Dekoni Protein pads on them for awhile too. Those fixed the treble issues, turned them back into bass cannons, and kept the narrower soundstage of the velours. The Proteins still suffer from a healthy dose of that midbass bloat, though. I landed on Shure 1540 pads. That gives them a fun V signature with good treble detail, average soundstage width, and deep and punchy bass. The midbass bloat is reduced, but not absent.
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They do seem to be somewhat amp dependent - on top of being power hungry. For example, they synergize really well with a Liquid Spark, but not with an Asgard 3, IMO. The Asgard seems to bring out that midbass bloat while the Spark tempers it some.
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A common question is what did Dekoni do the T50 other than slap different pads on them? Not much, it appears. It looks like they may have put a different foam material over the vent in the earcup. Here’s a picture of the inside of a stock T50RP earcup (on the right) from Innerfidelity:
Here’s a very nice pic of the Blue’s earcup by HFGF member, @XmetaldaveX:
My bottom line: The Blue can be a really fun headphone for some bass-heavy music where not a lot of fast bass is necessary. Like the T50, they are also a great learning headphone as their sound changes significantly with simple pad swaps and playing with the damping ring around the driver. It’s really easy to see how different pad types affect the sound. IMO, that makes it easier to predict what different pad swaps will do on other headphones. So, I suppose I don’t recommend them if it’s your first “real” headphone purchase, as their use case for sound quality is a bit narrow. But, if you are exploring headphones and are ready to try something new, their - let’s call it - educational factor is attractive.