[gikigill]

Double the intensity would be very noticeable on the Nighthawk. It's not an Ety after all.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Double the intensity would be very noticeable on the Nighthawk. It's not an Ety after all.

 
Except not exactly. The rule of thumb is that it takes 10dB to be "twice as loud", but that's hazy territory because of the nature of how we hear. If you know your music, particularly vocals, bass isn't nearly as audible as higher frequencies. Doing (just as a random example) choral or barbershop singing, the bass singers are told to put a LOT more force into their part because of that.
 
If you had perfectly, 100%, ruler-flat headphones, they would be almost unlistenable. Put a sine sweep through that and you'd find that the high frequencies are PAINFUL. So boosting the bass by 3dB isn't going to be nearly as stark a boost as if you did it in the 10KHz range. Audio's weird.

 

[inthere]

3-4db boost is double the bass. Not the best example of barely noticeable.

Agreed but until some universal measuring standard is found no one knows exactly what's going on. For instance, one measurement shows the Nighthawk with a +3-4db boost and the TH-900 with a +1 db boost, yet the TH900 is the #1 basshead headphone in the extreme bass thread while the Nighthawk failed the bass test to even make the list...........many in that thread and others have called the Nighthawk bass-light. 

 

[gikigill]

I own the TH900 too and the closed design definitely helps in matters of bass. The Nighthawk is more audiophile bass than basshead bass.

I straddle both worlds and enjoy both my Planar wall of bass and the Nighthawks textured bass

 

[Greggo]

3-4 dB is not double the bass. Where do you guys get this nonsense???  The doubling of speaker drivers operating in unison will create plus 3dB.  Most folks can barely detect a 2dB change in the range of live music and/or normal listening levels, and that is a broad spectrum change. I could literally embarrass you all day long by sitting you down at a system and adjusting select frequencies plus or minus 3 dB within a fairly narrow range or "Q" and you would be completely clueless 90% of the time depending on the music involved and the prominent instrument/voices and their frequencies. There have been studies of actually disconnecting the EQ settings on studio mixing boards and engineers only thinking they hear a difference to their setting when in fact there are none. Play with any EQ setting that does not drive any component into distortion, especially at low frequencies, and tell me you honestly hear night and day differences of 60 Hz plus or minus 3 dB. I call a big bucket of BS on this.
 
EDIT: OK, I will tone it down a bit (no pun intended).. I probably should have originally said that I hear the Nighthawk as maybe being 2-3 dB up in some part of the bass range as that would be more honest (and IMHO most other headphones are 2-3 dB down in most of the bass range and even more in the lower part of that range). I will also say that I have gone back and done a little "googling" looking for reputable sources and there is not really all that much to add here. Most of us can probably detect a 1-2 dB change in music loudness but I am not so sure about how reliable that is in certain frequency ranges and within certain range limitations as compared to across the board full spectrum changes in dB. According to a few articles with tables, 3 dB requires double the amplifier power but only yields 23% more actual acoustic level. That still seems very substantial to me and not how I would subjectively describe the Nighthawk. I would say roughly 10-15% more bass than I hear from the HD600 or HD700, and 5-10% more than what I hear from the EL-8 Open for example. I would also change my above challenge to plus or minus 2 dB instead of 3 dB, I do think many of you/us could detect 3 dB boost in most ranges, but perhaps still struggle with 3 dB cut, as my experience has been dips are harder to detect than peaks.
 
Happy Listening. 

 

[SomeGuyDude]

  3-4 dB is not double the bass. Where do you guys get this nonsense???  The doubling of speaker drivers operating in unison will create plus 3dB.  Most folks can barely detect a 2dB change in the range of live music and/or normal listening levels, and that is a broad spectrum change. I could literally embarrass you all day long by sitting you down at a system and adjusting select frequencies plus or minus 3 dB within a fairly narrow range or "Q" and you would be completely clueless 90% of the time depending on the music involved and the prominent instrument/voices and their frequencies. There have been studies of actually disconnecting the EQ settings on studio mixing boards and engineers only thinking they hear a difference to their setting when in fact there are none. Play with any EQ setting that does not drive any component into distortion, especially at low frequencies, and tell me you honestly hear night and day differences of 60 Hz plus or minus 3 dB. I call a big bucket of BS on this.

 
a 3dB boost is double the intensity, 6dB doubles the pressure level, 10dB doubles the "loudness". just a few definitions.

 

[Eudis]

I own the TH900 too and the closed design definitely helps in matters of bass. The Nighthawk is more audiophile bass than basshead bass.

I straddle both worlds and enjoy both my Planar wall of bass and the Nighthawks textured bass

From my tests on the E-MU teak and THX00 the drivers will have deeper reaching bass with out the cups. My guess would be without the cups the TH900 will have even more bass and mid presence as per the tuning of the drivers allow.

My THX00 with my E-MU's Madagascar Ebony cups have very nice deep reaching and well textured bass response compared to the mahogany wood. Without the cups it still reaches further. These drivers like to move lots of air. I'm thinking the partial open design of the Nighthawk is what helps control the bass more.

 

[SearchOfSub]

I think everyone complaining about details and midrange should just wait until velour Pads are released for the NH. I do think it'll be a almost perfect with the new velour pads. (ofc. nothing is perfect!)

And as for now with stock pads, you might get more details with the hd650, but it will also come with more distortion than NH in all areas. Kinda like good FM station to AM station in comparison. Someone like me, I'll get fixated on the distortion and nothing will really matter so what's the point?

 

[GU1DO]

I compare the Nighthawk (after 200hr burn in) To Audeze LCD-X 
and i can say with out any doubt the Nighthawk are bass heavy and missing a lot of details (triple wise).
 
i enjoy them in some music specially jaz and old 70s music because of the nice sound stage and dynamics ,
also they have sound signature of old speakers , not sure how but this is the best way i can describe it ..
 
As secondary headphone it is a nice addition but as primary headphone look elsewhere !
 
Tip : high gain is better than low gain if you have the option to change it in the amp ..

 

[Jackson9696]

I owned the lcd X about a month ago and I can say that while it has better bass and mids than the nighthawk, the nighthawk has a better soundstage, imaging, and I prefer it's treble presentation. The nighthawk is also far more portable, comfortable, and more efficient.

 

[Greggo]

   
a 3dB boost is double the intensity, 6dB doubles the pressure level, 10dB doubles the "loudness". just a few definitions.

 
Fair enough, but most readers will interpret "intensity" as something they experience in terms of loudness and it does not correlate. Intensity is a calculated acoustic energy level and not a direct human hearing experience. Our perception of loudness in general, with time and spectral variations is very difficult to pin down. The bottom line here is that all one has to do is run a digital parametric eq on their mac or pc, or use JRiver Media Center, and experiment for themselves. Then you can appreciate the fact that 1-2 dB is often not perceptible, and in those cases where it is, it is barely noticed...  3-4 dB is often fairly noticeable but not completely obvious by any means at any random frequency but again it depends on a number of variables.... 5-6 dB is often but not always a clear change in frequency balance. You can hear these more readily when the changes are executed in real time, and much more difficult to notice when separated by time. There is also a really good chance that changes within the 500-4,000 Hertz range will be much easier to notice than in ranges above or below. I can EQ out the spike at 6k in my HD700, but it takes a lot more dB cut to notice any change than I ever would have guessed (3-4 dB) and a lot more to make the top end listenable for me (6-8 dB) than I would have expected.
 
So I would argue that while stating that 3 dB is double the intensity of calculated acoustic wave energy is technically correct, given the scale and complexity of power, energy, acoustic waves, the human ear and human perception and the ability of of any layman to comprehend the numerality at play, it does nothing but cause confusion when the goal is to relate to the final stage of human perception and the listening experience.
 
So I am standing by this general, admittedly very imperfect guideline that:
 
a) The Nighthawks do not have bloated or exaggerated bass
b) They very well may have slightly rich or be on the warm side of neutral
c) If they did in fact have 2-3 dB of boost in a fair chunk of the bass range, it would be subtle at best and nothing for the critics to get all high and mighty over.
 
Not your preference? Fine by me.  Hear things differently and prefer to get your music from another transducer? Fine by me... but don't come in here trashing a more than decent product with a bunch of wild claims of radical deviation from anything that could be considered reasonably accurate and musical reproduction of a stereo audio signal. If there is an obscene deviation at play, it is in the listener and not the headphone.
 
In the spirit of welcoming more criticism and feedback from a variety of other people, I will now stand down and leave this thread alone for a while. After I hit the 200 hour break in mark, and especially after I get a chance to try some more electronic components in the mix, I will be back with more thoughts for whatever they are worth.

 

[gikigill]

3db is much more noticeable on headphones than speakers for obvious reasons.I have 0 problem differentiating on any of my headphones including the Nighthawks and the Fostex.

 

[Loquah]

  I compare the Nighthawk (after 200hr burn in) To Audeze LCD-X 
and i can say with out any doubt the Nighthawk are bass heavy and missing a lot of details (triple wise).
 
i enjoy them in some music specially jaz and old 70s music because of the nice sound stage and dynamics ,
also they have sound signature of old speakers , not sure how but this is the best way i can describe it ..
 
As secondary headphone it is a nice addition but as primary headphone look elsewhere !
 
Tip : high gain is better than low gain if you have the option to change it in the amp ..

 
I have no intention of criticising the poster, but these are the types of posts that create the defensiveness in this thread.
 
It is completely fine that you prefer the sound of the LCD-X over the Nighthawks, but that doesn't make them definitively better for everyone. I have owned and auditioned a great many headphones with a great many amplifiers and I have sold everything except and not bought anything since the Nighthawks because for me they are absolutely my primary and only headphone (they stole all head time from the HD800 and LCD-2 that I owned when I first got the Hawks). Does this make me right or make the Nighthawks the perfect primary headphone for everyone? Absolutely not. Nothing is definitive in this hobby.
 
@GU1DO you prefer the LCD-X as a primary headphone, but I prefer the Nighthawks. All that shows us is that it is important for open and honest discussion of our tastes, preferences and perceptions and for there to be all types of different products with different signatures available on the market to suit all these different tastes.

 

[gikigill]

This thread is just as big a ****show as the Fostex TH900 thread. I'll leave the worshippers of the BEST HEADPHONE EVAR!! alone.

 

[wuhanclan]

As someone who owns and enjoys his NH's and has been following this thread since December, yeah, literally every time anything negative was ever said about the NH, someone has to pipe up and tell him how he's wrong, or he needs to state more clearly that his criticisms were only his opinion, or you need to burn it in more etc etc. I find all the defensiveness pretty sad but whatever, this is the internet.