Audio Question (Defective headphones or just their design?)

[LordBigDog]

I bought some new Audio Technica ATH-M50X headphones. I have been using them with my Samsung Galaxy S5 Smartphone listening to music from my Google Play stored on the Micro SD card. The music stored from Google Play is at 320 kbps in MP3 format. I was listening to Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 In A Major, OP 92: 2nd Movement: Allegreto from Time Life's Classical Power: Fire album. I don't have the exact track time on the music sequence, but at a point somewhere between 00:00 and 01:00 minutes, the quieter instruments sounded so faint it was almost as if no music was playing before the louder instruments kicked in. I was not certain if there was a problem with the M50X headphones so I listened to the same part of the track with my Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones and it sounded less faint. I am not very knowledgeable about headphone designs or highs, lows, and mids so I wanted to know if what I am experiencing is just the way my M50X headphones are designed or if they have a defect. Thanks.

 

[buke9]

Well I would have to say that the 280's probably would sound louder as they have a efficiency of a 113 db at 64 ohms and the M50's are at 99db and 38 ohms. Don't have that particular track so can't say but I doubt they are defective the 280's should be louder at the same volume being that much more efficient.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

I bought some new Audio Technica ATH-M50X headphones. I have been using them with my Samsung Galaxy S5 Smartphone listening to music from my Google Play stored on the Micro SD card. The music stored from Google Play is at 320 kbps in MP3 format. I was listening to Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 In A Major, OP 92: 2nd Movement: Allegreto from Time Life's Classical Power: Fire album. I don't have the exact track time on the music sequence, but at a point somewhere between 00:00 and 01:00 minutes, the quieter instruments sounded so faint it was almost as if no music was playing before the louder instruments kicked in. I was not certain if there was a problem with the M50X headphones so I listened to the same part of the track with my Sennheiser HD 280 Pro headphones and it sounded less faint. I am not very knowledgeable about headphone designs or highs, lows, and mids so I wanted to know if what I am experiencing is just the way my M50X headphones are designed or if they have a defect. Thanks.

That's because it's properly recorded with the right dynamic range. You're probably used to Loudness War recordings which is practically everything nowadays, except for a few classical recordings) which have barely any difference between the softer and louder notes.

Look for a player app with a DSP feature for Dynamic/Loudness Compression. Which is basically making the recording crappier, but if that's what you prefer then there's really no other way around it.

 

[MindsMirror]

Well I would have to say that the 280's probably would sound louder as they have a efficiency of a 113 db at 64 ohms and the M50's are at 99db and 38 ohms. Don't have that particular track so can't say but I doubt they are defective the 280's should be louder at the same volume being that much more efficient.

Those efficiency numbers are not comparable. Sennheiser specs efficiency at 1VRMS while Audio Technica specs it at 1mW. Converted to equivalent units they are similar.

There are no faults that a headphone could have that would do what you described unless there were other more obvious symptoms. It is just the tonal character of the different headphones which does or does not emphasize certain frequencies which could make some types of instrument sound quieter or louder on different headphones. Or perhaps one headphone isolates outside noise differently, so the instruments are masked by external noise more on one headphone than another. It's also likely that you didn't equally match the volumes of the headphones. Even a slight difference in loudness can cause a huge difference in your perception.