Beats vs ATH-M50s - Page 2

This has nothing to do with the comparison buy it gave me a good laugh.  HTC is adding Beats by Dre to its cell phones, similar to what has been done with HP.  Here is a quote from the chairman of Beats by Dr. Dre:

"For Beats by Dr. Dre, this represents a critical step in our continued mission to clean up the destruction of audio caused by the digital revolution and reengineer how sound is delivered, so the consumer feels the music the way that the artist intended."

Noise isolation is great on the M50s; I don't see how it isn't for you.. unless you're in like extensively loud environments or your volume is turned way down. At moderate levels (I believe at about 60 DB ~ 70 DB) I can't really hear people around me (unless I'm straining to pay attention to them through it and they're a bit above conversation level). Could be that I don't hear them because I'm too focused on the music though.

Another thing is that I honestly could NOT hear / feel the M50s bass until I bass boosted it.. with a cheap E5 amp :). Blows the beats out of the water like nothing.

And since I had the M50s and I switched to HD25-1 II's, if you need more isolation (at the cost of comfort, but then again I prefer the HD25s comfort vs the M50s as the M50s always made me sweaty) and portability, I'd say HD25's are a step up. I love em more, although you can't really feel the bass but it certainly is there. Sounds like you're more like hearing it rather than feeling it. Better mids IMO too. I paired it with an E11 portable amp, and although I can't hear much of a difference (if there's any at all. Portable amps don't seem to work for me), setting up the bass boost up one notch made it sound much more like an M50 amp'd with the E5.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Player1josh46 

After some time with the M50s I do notice that they do actually isolate really well, it's just that people are sometimes yelling in my apartment or the T.V is on so I can sometimes faintly hear that. Also I try to put the volume to only 70-75% max as I seriously don't want to harm my ears. If I was a basshead, I would love the beats. But honestly I like everything balanced with mids and vocals a bit more pronounced then the rest which I know the M50s are known to be bad in and I can see that. But really it's a minor problem and like I said sometimes I love them, other times I think they are lacking a little.

What player are you playing it out of exactly anyways? Out of my EnV Touch, I believe I used it at about 8~9 bars at home, and when outside, around 10~12 out of 16 so I can hear it better. Not too sure, but those are how loud I play my HD25 now. If you are craving some extra bass, I really would recommend the E5. Only $20 :). Only inconvenience is having an extra medal thing in your pocket (but you can clip it elsewhere, like on the outside of your pocket or something. I'd say it's as large as about 4 pennies in a square formation, and about as thick as the radius of a quarter from clip to.. the.. frontal side?), and having it run out of batteries cause after I started bass boosting it, I just didn't go back. It sounded balanced to me after boosting it, but then again I am a SLIGHT basshead so don't take that for granted. I like bass that I can feel, but I don't want it overpowering as I get a headache. Like for example, I love amping up the M50s bass by about ~3.5 to 4 DB (approximately the bass boost on the E5, the first setting on the E7, and the first notch on the E11), but amping it up 6+ DB is too much for me (which I believe the E11's 2nd notch is about 6~9DB? and the E7's 2nd and 3rd setting are like.. 6DB then 9DB, respectively). And just for relatedness or whatever, my cousins 15" (or was it 17") sub in his car gives me a headache, at the lowest setting, with me in the front seat.

The E5 really brings out the rumbly feeling from like.. about 40hz I believe. My ears can't detect anything lower. The highs I'm not too sure about either cause my hearings damaged enough that 14khz is just extremely faint to me. And I'm only a month away from 16 :/. From what I've noticed, it didn't affect the other ranges either. Just made everything sound fuller. The E7 on the other hand on the 2nd setting just.. ruined everything.

If you are into hiphop and R&B, and if you know the song Single by Neyo, then the easiest way for me to say how much it actually amps up the lower end is that you can actually feel the rumble right at the start of the song. For me, without it, it was really faint.

The M50 is universally one of those mid-level cans that many of us go to when we need to test another can.  I listened to a wall of headphones at headroom and settled on the M50 years ago.  They receive of the the highest ratings for a can in that price range.

Just look at these two graphs.  The beats drop off the super low end because the driver cannot handle the it.  This is a sign of a poorly designed headphone.  The 50 Hz sign wave is full of unwanted curvature too.