Quote:
Originally Posted by
dooodstevenn 
i say 100 and under, but realistically i am only willing to spend that 100 if they blow me away, but i dont think anything in the 100 and under range will really do that 
Well here's some info on some of those brought up in the thread:
XB500 vs XB700:
The XB700 has more pronounced highs, just very slightly exaggerated but for many people about suitable amount of presence in the highs. The lower mids aren't as forward sounding as on XB500 which leads them to having somewhat "thinner" sound. The XB500 is more "fullier", smoother but for many maybe too smooth/warm sounding why some EQing should be applied. The mids are generally slightly more forward sounding on XB500 but XB700 while having slightly further back pushed mids have a bit clearer sound (without any EQing taken into account obviously). The problem with XB500 is that the bass is pushed in a 15dB boost all the way from like 15Hz to 300Hz (300Hz can't be called bass anymore, that's already whereabouts the lower mids starts at) and this hurts the clarity of mids, lowering 250Hz on a EQ should help quite a lot already (either that or boosting the whole 500Hz+ range). XB700 has a 15dB boost in bass from like 10Hz - 100Hz and it slowly rolls-off from there, so it doesn't pack nearly as much mid/upper bass as XB500 which gives the bass in XB500 a whole lot more impact/punch. The soundstage on both are very close, the XB700 had slightly bigger stage but XB500 had clearer imaging/positioning (I spent quite a lot time comparing them while gaming).
HTF600 vs XB500:
The HTF600's bass is not extending down as well as XB500, the XB500 has quite a lot more subbass but in mid/upper bass they are actually nearly/about the same, both have a lot of impact/punch (now we're talking especially 80~120Hz range or so). The mids have A LOT better detail on the HTF600 but they need burn-in though before starting to realize how big difference it is here (I did some minor mods to it to further improve the mids). A lot more balanced mids which you can hear when comparing the 2 headphones, the XB500 is too much forward around ~2kHz compared to 1kHz for example which gives slightly wrong tonality to the mids (I've heard a lot worse though), especially noticable with female vocals. The highs are also slightly more forward and more even on the HTF600 but they are still slightly too recessed to be able to be concidered "neutral" but this gives them a warm & musical sound that is never fatiguing to listen to and they still keep a lot of details in the mids. The bass is a bit more controlled and textured on HTF600, I think the mod I did improved the bass response a tiny bit on HTF600 too (this headphone is easily moddable so you can improve it if you're not happy with the sound out of box). The soundstage is even more "in-your-face" sounding on HTF600 but imaging is even better, so you can tell the directions nicely. But yea generally this headphone has slightly less bass but more forward and even mids and highs and better detail in mids.
Sounds like warm sounding heaphones aren't your thing though if you dislike XB500, HTF600 is still a warm/smooth sounding headphone but less so than XB500. Q40 is quite neutral, not warm/dark nor cold/bright. It's the first headphone I'm listening with EQ disabled! And I'm an EQ maniac that has always been able to improve all the other headphones in my signature. What I'm looking for is greatly boosted bass response (in this case ~11dB on Q40 compared to 15dB on XB500 or maybe ~10dB on HTF600) but neutral and as even as possible mid and highrange, the Q40 offers that. Well I don't say no to very slightly boosted mids but it has to be done evenly so in that case as I hate when the tonality is off as my ears will notice it so easily if vocals sounds off.
Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 12/29/11 at 2:57am
