I totally agree with you; i don't think a lot of the bass port mod lovers have put the stickers back in place once they removed them- that's when you see what it gives up.  The bass port mod really reminds me of my k240mk2s.   I wrapped the outside of the ear pads with some duct tape, which...

I'd like to propose a different tape bass mod than the popular one where you remove the sticker over the port.  I took some gaffer's (duct) tape and ran a winding around the ear cups.  It's not nearly as obvious as removing the stickers on the bass ports was, but it pulls up the bass and...

Be sure to get an amp with a low output impedance.  They sound a lot better hooked up to my objective2 amp than they do out of my marantz receiver.  WIth that said, i recommend the o2 amp.  Plenty of power and no distortion for cheap.

To me, it's cuz you can listen to loudspeakers with other people, so some of the money is going to creating an environment to share.  If YOU don't get 400$ worth of happiness from listening to headphones, then it's a waste of money.  On the other hand, 400$ headphones offer up a lot better sound...

Oh man, a thread i can participate in!  My old housemate has some 558s he was running on an x-fi and i have q701s i was/am running through an x-fi until i got a o2 amp to go through.  Without the amp (out of the soundcard) the 558s were better.  The Qs didn't really sound that great in general...

There's no way to soften them up.  I've read of people cutting them off, riveting in a new headband, covering them in various materials... They'd be better if the headband was installed upside-down!     Here's what i did with a shoelace, about a year ago.  Works nicely, although i wish i had...

  So many people have trouble with the bumps, i dont know how they made it to market.  Here's what i did.

I'm not an authority, just a casual listener with q701s and a couple other nice phones.  I had to tie a shoelace around the bumps to make them wearable.  Not pretty, but now i like how they are to slip on, like any other self-adjusting AKG.  I also really like how it's so easy to identify each...

I have 3 sets of nicer headphones- etymotic hf3 for my phone, and a AKG k240mk2 and Q701 amped with O2s running on computers.  I use an EQ to get them to sound all about the same.  I can listen to the etys for an entire day, the k240s until my ears get too sweaty, and the Qs for about 1.5 hours...

I pulled the bass port stickers and put them back in a couple times over the last few days.  I think i'm leaving them in place, you lose the incredible instrument separation and detail in the bass, and the bassyness can be regained with EQ.  If i had no EQ or was just watching movies i'd leave...

  So to put what you're saying in moron's (scottzg's) terms, etymotic research has picked a target for accuracy, and are using the source's output impedance as a tool to tune the sound and hit their accuracy goals.  On the other hand, the standard for accuracy is not a simple objective...

Alright, i've been reading about output impedance, and i understand that with a relatively low output impedance there is more electrical damping and the headphone offers up a more accurate sound.     So as i understand it with the etymotic er-4 series the drivers are the same; the difference...

Quote: I initially hooked the AKGs up to the sound card, but running a 1/8" cable to the receiver was a definite improvement, and running the optical cable to the receiver was a significant improvement; i wouldn't have believed it until i heard it.  I don't have hdmi on my receiver, i've...

This is really 2 questions based on observations from a head-fi noob.   1- I was at a magnolia recently and they had some really nice headphones (in the 300-600$ range) hooked up to A-B test.  Everything was blown away by the little bose stand next to them, where bose had selected the music...

I'm not sure this is widely known, but it looks like this is the change between the k701 and the q701.  My Qs did not have anything there.

I'm new to this, bought some etymotic hf5 headphones because i liked the earplugs, was blown away, and decided to get a nice headphone set up for my desktop.  I don't know much about this stuff, so i feel like i'm missing something important- hooking up the stupid optical cable was incredibly...

I'm probably the last person who should be offering advice....   Yep, those 3.5mm ports are line level outputs.  Not really enough power to drive a headphone with the impedance your ath-m50s have.  Need an amp, and a xonar dg won't really do them justice either.  I know, i have one.  Optical...