Paradox and Mad Dog Comparison - Page 2

great read, thanks. you mentioned you "slightly eq" both. have you ever given them a try with a more substantial eq curve? say +15 db in the sub-bass region for example? im curious if these can be turned into basshead cans with some eqing. perhaps open two instances of an equalizer where the 1st is a +10 boost from 250hz and lower, and the 2nd instance adding another 5 dB in the lower frequencies, peaking at 60 hz maybe. how susceptible are these two to equalizing in your opinion?

I was particularly interested in bass, overall neutrality and sound isolation....
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by hans030390 

Of the two, the Paradox is slightly darker and more intimate or close sounding. The Mad Dogs have a lighter, drier, slightly brighter sound to them. ...

The Mad Dog is arguably more linear overall from 20Hz to 1KHz. The Paradox has a slight emphasis in the 60-300Hz range approximately. I have always noticed this to a small extent, and you can see evidence of it in both Tyll's and purrin's measurements. It gives is an ever-so-slightly thicker sound. I do not find it displeasing, as it is very mild and can make music a bit more lush sounding. 

 

The Mad Dog has a similar emphasis around that area, but it is of lower magnitude. It also has a slight dip in the 40-80Hz range, giving it a slightly thinner sound. 

I spent some time with the newest mad dogs and thought I heard an emphasis in the  ~50-150 Hz range and a dip in mid-treble ~2-10kHz, giving them a thick sound. Yet your comparison (which I trust more b/c you had them for much longer) finds that mad dogs are a little thinner and brighter relative to the paradox.  And I have LCD-2 which measure very much like paradox and to me have none of this bass hump and treble dip.  My brain hurts...  Could it have been the alpha pads?  

Quote:

Originally Posted by eucariote 

 

I spent some time with the newest mad dogs and thought I heard an emphasis in the  ~50-150 Hz range and a dip in mid-treble ~2-10kHz, giving them a thick sound. Yet your comparison (which I trust more b/c you had them for much longer) finds that mad dogs are a little thinner and brighter relative to the paradox.  And I have LCD-2 which measure very much like paradox and to me have none of this bass hump and treble dip.  My brain hurts...  Could it have been the alpha pads?  

I can't provide any anecdotal evidence, as I'm still waiting for my paradox to arrive, but I don't believe the LCD-2 measures that much like the paradox in terms of treble...

LCD-2:

Paradox:

As you can see, it appears the LCD-2 has a very noticeable downward slope from 1khz, with a small peak around ~7khz. Whereas the paradox is pretty flat beyond 500khz, with only a gradual bump to 10khz.

The Mad Dogs w/ alpha pads however, do measure a lot like LCD-2's... I have tried the alpha pad Mad dogs though, and I preferred their treble over the LCD-2. Gonna have to wait a couple more weeks before I can try out the paradox though...

Quote:

Originally Posted by hans030390 

 

I've not tried anything quite that extreme. I might be able to get back with you on that, but I'm very busy right now. If you're looking to turn these into basshead cans with EQ, I'd look elsewhere. They seem to respond well to a little bit of EQ as far as I can tell.

if you can find the time i would be very appreciative, ofcourse, if you cant, thats totally understandable =]

im not interested in making them bass monsters per se, but ive heard many claims that the best bet for a really great basshead can is to get a great overall can, and eq it to ones liking. granted, it will be a very long time until i actually try this for myself, but the mad dogs are the headphones i was thinking of, and since your thread popped up, i thought id ask. 

many thanks to you if you can be bothered trying out what i suggested, and if you cant - many thanks for your comparison, it was very helpful to me, and i enjoyed reading it.

in overall bass quality and texture, sub-bass in particular, did any of the two stand out in their capability in your opinion?

Quote:

Originally Posted by hans030390 

 

Well, there hasn't been much change in the bass with the alpha pads. My Paradox had a slight emphasis in the 80-300Hz range, and the Mad Dog has a relatively smaller dip around 40-80Hz. Most of the alpha pad changes occur above 300Hz, leaving my initial comments more or less unchanged. I'll say that the alpha pads seal better, so you might get better bass response in that case. Dan also said they have less distortion, but I haven't been able to verify that. It certainly sounds clean. 

 

I'd say the Paradox is a neutral/dark-ish can, with the Mad Dog + dog pads being very similarly tuned but with a lighter overall sound (likely due to what I just mentioned above). With the alpha pads, the Mad Dog has shifted to a more neutral sound due to the boost in the 200Hz-5KHz range. So, just take my original comments and apply the changes I just mentioned and you might be a good idea. They're both fairly neutral with slightly different voicing.

 

As for sound isolation, I have no idea. They're both pretty decent at it. The Paradox might be better, but I honestly have no clue.

 

 

Thanks for your input....its really helpful

Quote:

Originally Posted by hans030390 


Took a second to try adding a 10-15db boost in the lower regions. Rather, I dropped everything else down to avoid clipping and distortion. I think you could make it work just fine, though my UHA-6S MkII had difficulty putting out much volume with the EQ lowering the gain so much.

As for bass quality, that's hard to say. The bass on both the MD + alpha pads and Paradox is quite good and clean, though I can't say which is better off the top of my head. I think I preferred the Paradox below 80Hz, because it did not have the dip around 40-80Hz and might have had a slightly stronger response below that point than the Mad Dog (or too close to tell). Of course, with a good parametric EQ, you can account for the tiny flaws in each headphone. I EQed both, and in the end it simply became a matter of which involved the lower cost for me. Performance overall between the two was too close for me (the Paradox did not technically sound better than the Mad Dog to me). I wish I still had the Paradox on hand to compare with the new alpha pads on the MD, because I think the new pads might push the MD to an greater value point than the Paradox.

thank you very much for trying it out. eqing down is the way i do it too, i think its the simplest way to avoid clipping. and you say it works? its interesting because i talked to someone on a different thread who said that no matter what he just couldnt get enough bass from the MDs... many conflicting opinions on this one, i guess ill just have to try it out for myself eventually. im sure my O2 will be able to supply ample volume if pressed.

thanks once more for your time. cheers =]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hans030390 

Many headphones have high harmonic distortion in the lower regions

could you elaborate on this? any good examples of headphones with high harmonic distortion? how can i tell if this is true to a specific headphone, are there graphs? ive only recently learned what harmonic distortion IS and im curious to know its effect on headphones (less so than amps).

thanks! im assuming the peaks represent the distortion points?

Quote:

Originally Posted by adamlr 

thanks! im assuming the peaks represent the distortion points?

It is a measurement of total distortion.....the peaks are increases in THD