matttcg said:

  They do push the limit of what is comfortable with regards to weight. I'm 5'10" and 160. I couldn't adjust to the weight. Granted I do spend a lot of time listening to hp's. Usually about 5 hours a day during the week and I can have marathon sessions on the weekend if the schedule permits. I'm at a point in my life and hp journey that I'll take extremely comfortable over better sound.

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I always thought you of you as like 6'3 250  must be that giant persona  .

zibra said:

  I was about comparing overall SQ between these two Its hard for me to try ADs in Europe and is it even worth bother while having 5LE?

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I would say yes,  They would be a great compliment to each other.  If your driving the 5LE then you wont have any issues with driving the ADs..

Mysterious answer... Im reading tread and see swspiers also got 5le and AD but not muc comparision. Ill wait for more info.
Wat is better in AD in your opinion?

The mids for sure..

zibra said:

  Mysterious answer... Im reading tread and see swspiers also got 5le and AD but not muc comparision. Ill wait for more info.
Wat is better in AD in your opinion?

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Yep- when I can I will be comparing the two.  I can tell you that there are times that the 5LE feels like I am wearing a subwoofer on my head, but I also feel that it is at the expense of harmonic detail.  I am a bass player, and a very geeky one at that.  I actually like to try and discern the difference between a Fender P-bass and a Rickenbacker, and flat-wound strings from round-wound. My bias is toward that detail at the expense of sub-bass extension, not the other way around. With the 5LE I get impact, but something about the presentation masks that harmonic detail at times.
 

This is not part of my initial impression.  It's going to have to wait, as I work full-time and am taking 24 semester hours- finishing a BA in psychology. Hopefully next weekend I can play key source material in a totally subjective head-to-head battle. But my paycheck and two research papers take precedence.
 
edit: I totally forgot to mention my ultimate torture test.  My main bass is a 6-string monster with a low fundamental of 30 Hz on my open B string.  My Eden Navigator pre-amp has a headphone out.  I will be trying both cans with the Eden, that way I am not at the mercy of a recording engineer or producer

grizzlybeast said:

  impact = engaging to me 
 
Please clarify here
 
so it has more impact and less slam..... lol
 
If that is not confusing I dont know what is. Greed says more impact. Prepoman says less slam 

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Simply put, both are subjective opinions and have to be weighed accordingly. I don't doubt Darryl hears what he hears, and I typical agree with what he hears and share similar opinions. In this case, I find the AD to be better extended and have better impact. Now, that could be because the bass is more linear which allows for a clearer and cleaner sounding bass (meaning less midbass, and more rumble). Also, engaging to me is simply sound that distracts me from what I'm doing. Having impactful bass doesn't necessarily engage me because if that were true - I'd probably be a basshead, which I'm not. I find headphones that have warmer, thicker bass to be more engaging (top-tapping). The AD bass in comparison could come off as polite - totally depends on the track and the individual, and of course your other gear. 

anyone tried the AD on speakertaps to a big homefi amp? 
hows the effect on the bass..improved?

If I were to ask 10 headphone reviewers what linear bass meant to them, I would probably get 10 very unique and separate answers.  This may be the reason for so much confusion.

sonitus mirus said:

  If I were to ask 10 headphone reviewers what linear bass meant to them, I would probably get 10 very unique and separate answers.  This may be the reason for so much confusion.

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I think linear bass is probably self-explanatory. It isn't a term that can easily be confused, IMO. Of course it wouldn't surprise me, since we all hear things different.

miceblue said:

  What does it mean when the bass is "linear?"
"Linear" isn't in my book of audio terms: http://www.stereophile.com/reference/50/index.html
 
I mean it's not like we describe audio as being "non-linear" do we?

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swspiers said:

  It simply means there are no peaks or valleys- the frequency response is flat.  It is the very definition of 'neutral'.

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I don't see why we use linear to describe the bass. Wouldn't "flat" be a more appropriate term? y = 2*x is perfectly linear but non-flat.

I dunno about you guys, but that looks pretty linear to me.
 
 
 
 

I would call this a fairly linear bass response too.
 
 
And this is a pretty "flat" bass response.

sonitus mirus said:

  If I were to ask 10 headphone reviewers what linear bass meant to them, I would probably get 10 very unique and separate answers.  This may be the reason for so much confusion.

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yeah but I also think its because people don't want to step on any toes. I have never seen so many different responses about the bass but I have only been here a year so I don't know much. 
 
When I first got the hd650 I didn't like its bass but then I got used to it and appreciated it over the modded fostex I had that extended further with less punch. I think that people begin to accept the bass of a headphone where its at because there is soo much more to appreciate about it.
 
a teeny beeny wince of Fanboism maybe... you really like a product so you stick up for the areas that it lacks in. Initial impressions are that it is light on the bass then that same listener later says that it isn't as bad as they thought. Its because they accepted it and focused on what the bass can do vs what it can't do.

The flat FR graph looks like an LCD 2 Rev. 2.  I believe that was one of the goals in the development of that headphone.  Mission accomplished.

lorspeaker said:

  anyone tried the AD on speakertaps to a big homefi amp? 
hows the effect on the bass..improved?

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I've tried it from a vintage receiver with gobs of power. And yes, it will scale up. The receiver has tone control for treble, bass and mids. The AD responds well to +4 on the bass control. 

matttcg said:

   
I've tried it from a vintage receiver with gobs of power. And yes, it will scale up. The receiver has tone control for treble, bass and mids. The AD responds well to +4 on the bass control. 

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so u do get the slammm...the impaccct...? or just more "neutrally louder bass" if there is such a term.. 

Here comes the science...
 
First, I have demo'd the AD and MD to at least a hundred people over the last three weeks.  Not ONE has told me they prefer the MD to the AD.  And nobody has said "wow, there's just not enough bass."  Sure, someone may have thought it, and surely someone will think this, but there have been a lot of people who have voiced a clear opinion to me on this.  
 
Why?  Because the headphone is all around better.  The bass is cleaner, it integrates more smoothly with the mids, and it is really fast, lively, natural and detailed.  
 
The bass is better in every way, and you kind of have to hear it to get it.  The MD has a bump from 100-180Hz or so.  The bump is due in part to resonances in the cup itself, which means it creates bass that lasts too long (overhang) and blurs the details out.  While there is "more" bass due to this, it is in no manner better.  Further, this region is where the harmonics of the low bass are, and what this means is that while there is more bass overall, the upper bass can somewhat obscure the lower bass.  Choice of music (e.g. where the bass energy is) may amplify the difference.
 
Because the upper octaves of bass are clean and free of resonance, the bass is cleaner and more detailed.  Perceptually I concur with Matt 100%: the bass on the AD feels heftier to me because I can feel and hear the low bass without a "veil" from the upper harmonics.  
 
Of course there are some people who will prefer the extra perceived bass of the MD vs the AD, but I believe that if you give it some time to adjust to a cleaner, faster, more detailed sound that let's you really feel and hear the bottom octaves without coloration or overtones you will never go back.  Some may want to eq for fun, or fiddle with the bass vent, but most everyone who has heard them has told me they like it as is.  
 
As usual YMMV and FWIW but I wanted to at least clear the record as to why some people appear to have conflicting views on bass quantity.