The Midrangehead Club (new thread - 2013)

Basshead club now a midrange club......the headphone is i have on now is midcentric - sennheiser HD 449 

I'm not sure to what extent there's consensus on this, but in my experience the MEElec A161P was quite mid-centric. Some folks classify them as sweet, though, with enhanced bass to go with the mids. I didn't hear that, though that might have been a seal issue. In any case, this is one for consideration for the list. Anybody want to weigh in, one way or the other?

Ah, the infamous flat line chart for the A161, which they use to suggest that they're neutral. That chart is quite accurate, since Tyll at IF got a virtually identical set of measurements.

Normally, though, I've found that neutral-sounding headphones don't extend in a flat line to ~3kHz on compensated charts; they start a very gradual roll off right after 1kHz. That extra extension of the line is likely responsible for the perceived midrange bump. It's not an unpleasant sound by any means--I'm assuming those looking at this thread like a mid-centric balance (EDIT: gee, what was my first clue? ), and I think if that's the case you'd be thrilled with the A161. I was quite surprised by it, though, since they didn't sound anything like I expected.

No love for midrange on headfi, anyone? 

I think that bass and treble get more type because they're often novel, being the first things you notice once you upgrade to decent equipment. Also, as much as I love midrange, I've learned that a mid-dominant sound works no better for me than a brash V-shaped one does. The magic, IMO, is conveyed through the mids, but there has to be balance, or else (in the worst cases) it ends up sounding like an AM radio.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argyris 

I think that bass and treble get more type because they're often novel, being the first things you notice once you upgrade to decent equipment. Also, as much as I love midrange, I've learned that a mid-dominant sound works no better for me than a brash V-shaped one does. The magic, IMO, is conveyed through the mids, but there has to be balance, or else (in the worst cases) it ends up sounding like an AM radio.

really? I always thought, if mids were perfect, vocals will sounds perfect

Quote:

Originally Posted by KamijoIsMyHero 

really? I always thought, if mids were perfect, vocals will sounds perfect

That's an extreme example I gave. Usually there's enough bass and treble to avoid that effect. That said, the usual convention that vocals and guitars exist in the midrange is a bit of an oversimplification. While the fundamental and more prominent/characteristic overtones of typical midrange elements are certainly in the 250 Hz to 4 kHz range, if you had a headphone which only produced those frequencies it would sound exactly like an AM radio. This is because the overtones from virtually all sounds extend right up through the treble, even if the instrument in question is usually thought of as inhabiting the midrange. Different frequency ranges are best thought to contain different aspects of a sound, not different sounds outright. You can certainly bring the mids forward by emphasizing the range around 2.5 kHz or so, since the portion of the sound that occupies this range is more apparent (i.e. much higher in amplitude) than the part that extends higher up. But the timbre of any given instrument or vocal is determined by the amplitude distribution across its entire frequency bandwidth, and too much extra midrange emphasis will throw off the timbre.