Just different definitions of terms I suppose.  I too think of thin as lack of bass, and I consider the meat in sound the bass myself as well.  Hollowed out or recessed mids is what I'd call it too.  But as long as we can all understand what everybody else is talking about.
 
As the XB700 being nice and full, I'd say it's borderline bloated because it has a noticeable bass bloat that carries over into the lower half of the mids.  Akin to a poorly designed full sized woofer that has the duties of playing both mids and bass.  That's just the way I heard it, though.

tmraven said:

I don't really understand how you can talk about clarity and then only talk about bass.  To me it just sounds like you like a lot of bass.

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With many headphones, hard-hitting deep bass will have a detrimental impact on the rest of the frequency spectrum. This becomes a bigger and bigger issue the closer you get to the physical limitations of the drivers in the headphones. The DT770 is an excellent example of this. The XB700s on the other-hand have drivers that don't seem to distort as a result of bass, ever. Bass can hit deep and hard, harder than any other headphone I've ever heard, yet have no noticeable impact on the rest of the frequency spectrum.

That is really what I meant by clarity. If I'm listening to something that really doesn't have much bass I'd probably still give a slight edge to the DT770s. Once there is any bass in the music though, the DT770 is easily eclipsed by the XB700 as the XB700 is able to maintain it's clarity where the DT770 is not. But if I'm listening to music that doesn't have tons of bass, I'd probably use my DT990s instead of my DT770s. It's mainly that the XB700 has completely filled the niche that the DT770 used to fill for me (good bass headphones). That's an important "niche" since most of my favorite music has strong bass.

What songs in particular are you experiencing the limitations of the DT770? 

It depends what you're listening too... poorly recorded dubstep and the Sony XB500 sound better than my D7000s.

 
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gotnorice said:

With many headphones, hard-hitting deep bass will have a detrimental impact on the rest of the frequency spectrum. This becomes a bigger and bigger issue the closer you get to the physical limitations of the drivers in the headphones. The DT770 is an excellent example of this. The XB700s on the other-hand have drivers that don't seem to distort as a result of bass, ever. Bass can hit deep and hard, harder than any other headphone I've ever heard, yet have no noticeable impact on the rest of the frequency spectrum.
That is really what I meant by clarity. If I'm listening to something that really doesn't have much bass I'd probably still give a slight edge to the DT770s. Once there is any bass in the music though, the DT770 is easily eclipsed by the XB700 as the XB700 is able to maintain it's clarity where the DT770 is not. But if I'm listening to music that doesn't have tons of bass, I'd probably use my DT990s instead of my DT770s. It's mainly that the XB700 has completely filled the niche that the DT770 used to fill for me (good bass headphones). That's an important "niche" since most of my favorite music has strong bass.

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If you find XB700 impressive in that regard you should try Q40, this headphone is really impressive in terms of not crapping all over the mids or highs in bassheavy passages, I've never really got Q40's bass to overhelm the mids or highs in any recording despite even boosting the bass a bit with ZO2 amp and Q40 got more punch/impact than XB700 but it has a bit less subbass presence though (no suprise here as XB700 has like +15dB increase at like 10 ~ 120Hz. But Q40 also has impressive bass extension and to the ear it sounds even in the whole bass range and dubstep sounds very impressive on it for how accurate and textured it can make dubstep bass sound like (obviously needs slightly better recorded dubstep tracks, not the low quality one note bass tracks).
 
The XB700's bass is softer, slower compared to Q40 which is punchier with bigger impact. I've tried quite a lot headphones with bigger impact/harder hitting bass than XB700, but XB700 is one of a kind of terms of strong subbass focus but still so dubstep at say 50Hz didn't provide as much impact to my ears as say Q40, XB500, LP2, and maybe HTF600 & AKG K518 DJ does.
 

Heya,
 
I didn't see it mentioned, so I must ask: did you amplify the DT770 PRO's?
 
Very best,

tmraven said:

What songs in particular are you experiencing the limitations of the DT770?

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The beginning of the song "Twisted Transistor" by the band Korn stands out as being particularly terrible on the DT770. It makes it sound like a handful of bumble-bees trying to break through a sheet of tissue paper or something lol.

malveaux said:

Heya,

I didn't see it mentioned, so I must ask: did you amplify the DT770 PRO's?

Very best,

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Yeah I've used the DT770/Pro-80s with all 3 of my Little-Dot amps at various times.

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tmraven said:

What songs in particular are you experiencing the limitations of the DT770? 

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Try listening to "Changing of the Guard" by Pusha T. Vocals were noticeably distorted on the DT770s. Not so on my XB500s, Q40s, or D2000s.
 


 

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tseliottt said:

Try listening to "Changing of the Guard" by Pusha T. Vocals were noticeably distorted on the DT770s. Not so on my XB500s, Q40s, or D2000s.
 

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The bass on that song sounds pretty distorted to me off my D2000s.  Sadly I only auditioned DT770 80s at stores, so I can't really compare.
 
 
Same goes with the Korn song (doesn't sound distorted).  It's a nice, visceral rumble that sounds really low on the Denons, but I can't really compare the XB700s and DT770s unless I make a trip.

Quote:

tmraven said:

 
The bass on that song sounds pretty distorted to me off my D2000s.  Sadly I only auditioned DT770 80s at stores, so I can't really compare.
 
 
Same goes with the Korn song (doesn't sound distorted).  It's a nice, visceral rumble that sounds really low on the Denons, but I can't really compare the XB700s and DT770s unless I make a trip.

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Yea, the bass is pretty dirty, and it's definitely not the best mixed song in the world, but the cans I mentioned were able to separate the mids and bass pretty well. The vocals on the DT770s had a very audible wobble.

 
The bass is indeed slightly distorted but vocals sound separated and quite fine on the Q40 to me. I'm even using my ZO2 amp and the bass gives a short ear vibrating sensation whenever it hits while the vocals are still clearly separated and not affected by the bass.
 

The only song I know of that distorts the mids on my Denons is Late Night Tip from Three6Mafia.  Put a 10-12db bass boost on the 32hz region for that song, and the Denons can't handle it.  I wonder how the Beyers handle it.