[RPGWiZaRD]

The more I listen through my music collection to the XB700 the more and more I like especially the mids and highs. Suprisingly I don't find the biggest "wow" factor when listening to electronica which is perhaps what I listen to most but stuff like Celine Dion, Beyoncé, Pink, Nightwish with the old singer etc. The vocals sounds so full and alive. I would almost go as far as to say I enjoy the mids the most about these headphones. I cannot stress enough how amazing I think they are for the low price 66€ I gave for them. I've started to find the optimal EQ profile for these headphones now, you'd be suprised how much I still strenghtened bass for them as they separate so well from mids and highs anyway and mids are so well present with a slight boost to them. I will hang onto these for years without being curious to try other ones most likely and if they break I buy another pair cuz they really have the EXACT sound I'm looking for.
 
Also I noticed another interesting thing, when I listen to the bassdrops or whatever you call them in trance tracks that goes from like 50Hz towards 0Hz, I can still notice the bass below 20~25Hz or whatever my limit for hearing is because it's vibrating my ears and at normal listening vol. levels. I haven't been able to get a similar experience before. You know the bass goes deep when you cannot hear it but FEEL it! xD

 

[Mochan]

That just makes me so excited to try them.

My order has gone though! I should have my pair by Tuesday or Wednesday. I can't stress how excited I am to hear these. Maybe it will usurp the throne of my HD650! Hahah! Or it might cure my longing for the DT150.
 
I love your review RPGWizard, especially as I could relate to every can you compared the XB700 to (I owned them all at one point haha! Except the 770 Pro)
 
I also can't wait to hear how these will sound off of the E5 and E7's bass boost.
 

 

[Katun]

I'm glad you were able to order some! I'm still trying to get some things cleared up before I get mine, but I just can't wait any longer!
 
Quote:

I also can't wait to hear how these will sound off of the E5 and E7's bass boost.
 

 You will have to report on that. I'm curious about the E5 and the XB700. Mainly because of the bass boost, but also to see if it improves SQ any.

 

[Olimoronio]

[size=10pt]The Auvio CH102 have more "bass impact" than any phone I've ever heard. As a matter of fact if you stray from listening from rock/metal, for which they sound amazing, the bass from these will surely make you ill.[/size]
 
[size=10pt]I had the XB500's and they didn't even come close honestly. Go to Radio Shack, try them and return them. They're definitely worth hearing for rock/metal.[/size]

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I tested the XB700 quick with E5 and bass boost and they handled it really nice. I don't use amp with kX Audio drivers tho cuz it seems to worsen the 3d positional sound a bit and doesn't seem to provide any noteworthy better sound IMO. Gary's amp color the bass and adds some sort of extra sound to it, not really what I'd like. Between those 2 amps I had rather used E5 with it especially cuz the E5 adds bass that covers the entire range while Gary's make it a bit more punchier than I'd like.
 
I must have listened to music like 10~12hrs in 2 days, gaming like I usually do the most didn't interest me as much. xD

 

[yashu]

Resistance is futile.
 
I am glad the word is spreading. Take care of the pads so they do not begin to warp to your face shape, moving the drivers closer to your years. I would massage the pads, like fluffling a pillow, or something... then I figured out the right sied rubber band could be places at the base odf where the pads are clamped down to the housings and it would force them to maintain their shape if you did it jus right. Has worked for me, and even improved the overall fidelity of the cans for me, because I have them broken in, but with pads set to proper position and shape eery time I put them on.
 
A quality extension is all that is needed to go to 1/4", and they don't need much more power than an emu 0202 provides, as well, there are, as i said more than enough eq options for use on the PC. A rockboxed DAP, I am sure would also work well. Efficient headphones, one of the most effiencnt full sized sets around really. It used to be a lot harder to convince people that these were about more than just bass, as you have discovered. The non fatiguing sound is wonderful, and the fact that it can do this while pumping out a hard 4 on the floor dance track, such as ethereal and dreamy female vocals, without sounding at all like any "cone breakup" to use a speaker term. Sony pulled off something interesting here. Sony is always doing little things like this, which is why there are so few R10s in the world, so many people were like "yeah whatever Sony".

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I wouldn't mind that the drivers would be closer to my ears, even when lightly pressing the earcups against the ears, the bass impact becomes much bigger, you start feeling it a lot more. Without pressing the cups I'd say the bass impact is even slightly less than that of HD 212 Pro or AKG K 518 DJ but if I press the cups it's way bigger. Suppose the distance to the driver is what makes these headhpones not all about bass. ^^ That's a nice thing I'll look forward to being a true basshead, the more I use them the more bass I'm gonna get. xD Personally I like to "feel" the bass.
 
With these soft pads it's a bit like using Koss the Plug IEMs, you have to wait like a min or two to get the best result when the pads are more tightly sealed on the head.

 

[leeperry]

the most percussive bass I've heard was from the HFI-780...too bad the mids were quite mushy.

 

[Viper2005]

I'm very impressed with my Audio Techica ATH-WS70's.  They have about 20 hours on them now.  The bass is really hard hitting.  I love the highs as well, they are forward but not sibilant.  My experience with other bassy phones are either the highs are too laid back (Sony XB700) or so forward as to be harsh (Shure 750dj).

 

[Mochan]

I never felt the SRH750 was harsh, while it's true the highs were forward I always felt they were crystalline and smooth rather than harsh. But different people have different sweet spots I guess.
 
I quite liked the WS70 as well, the bass has a nice hard thump to it that isn't present in the M50s, without being like a boxer glove like the HFI780 can be sometimes. But if you want percussive bass I would say the Pro900s are a lot more percussive!

 

[DrSpiv]

Well, alright. So after poking around at them for a couple of days and then a couple of days reflection, I think it would be valuable for me to say a few things about the XB500s, even if not in the positive light others have shown it. I don't intend to be negative, but perhaps my different perspective will be useful to someone else.
 
The initial impressions were just as I stated before: tons of bass, nothing else to offer. To repeat: reminded me of being in the car next to a car with a major system. With the windows rolled up. At the recommendation of Katun I gave them another shot, this time EQing them back to try and reveal their other qualities.
 
First started with foobar's EQ. I prodded around for about an hour before I felt like I had something that seemed "OK." I set in for some listening and kept my finger on the "enable" button for the EQ so I could swap between the denons (which I think sound like a warm M50, but with a little less detail). In short, the denons were mauling the sonys in every category, except that the XB500's could carry the bass stronger below ~40hz. It made for a nice rumble, definitely a good feature for hiphop, triphop, techno, and funk. All of which are what I'm headphone shopping for. The problem was everything else. I figured maybe foobar's EQ was just too crappy for this, and rerouted through the yamaha EQ that is matched to my speaker amp, and back in to the Little Dot MKV, figuring it would give the cleanest sound.
 
Still no luck. I mean it was certainly possible to get vocals and highs to suitably shine through the boom, but the quality was not there by the time it did. I had to accept the fact that I was trying to do something with the XB500 that they were not created for. I wanted their bass extension, but they couldn't compare to my other stuff in any other category. I felt like...well it was like trying to use a pair of subwoofers as set of monitors. Subs are for the boom, the rumble, the bottom roll. You can get them to sing, but it will have a voice like Tom Waits instead of Allison Krauss. These are not either, exactly. Certainly less bourbon and cigarettes than Tom, but nowhere close to Allison to be certain.
 
Pros: Bass from the floor up. They don't thin out all the way down below my hearing range. They come on strong with it too. The price is good too. They are comfy, and don't make my ears sweat as much as the D1001's do.
 
Cons: Bass is what they have, and they pay for it with the rest. If these headphones are 6 foot tall, the waste is at about the 5' mark. Aside from the bass the actual sound quality seems to be only a mild step up from cheaper things like porta pros. (which, you know, I like porta pros for what they are, but always with that caveat).
 
The question I'm left with is what can I get that has bass all the way down, but without so much sacrifice. That's my impression anyway. I guess I'm not as much of a bass-head as a lot of the other guys in this thread who seem to be very happy with the Sony XB series cans. Wish I could get something that had the soul-shaking qualities of my monitors, but I might be asking too much.
 
Thanks again guys (and gals), hope I didn't offend, but also hope it helps others find what will make them happy.

 

[Katun]

That's just the thing.
 
I love my XB500's and recommend them to people for all sorts of reasons. But the thing is, this will most likely change when I get the XB700's. I might hate the 500's after listening to the 700's. Or, it might be the other way around, I just don't know until I get them and compare the two. I've read about some users saying the 300 and the 500 should be skipped for the 700's, because of the 700's being so much better than the other two. That, I won't know until, once again, I get them for myself.
 
I do agree with many parts of your review though. They are, after all the Xtra Bass series. Bass is what they do best. Sometimes, they do it too well, and you have to EQ it a bit, but there will always be there. At one point, I actually had my EQ set as: -5, -3, 5, 3, 0, and it sounded pretty good for some of the songs that I did not want too much bass on.
 
I'll have to report as soon as I get my XB700's, the problem being, it's taking me forever to get them ordered!

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mochan /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Maybe it will usurp the throne of my HD650! Hahah!
 

The HD650s do everything but the bass better.  Not by the ridiculously huge margin some may expect, but by enough to make me wish I was listening to the other, whichever one I'm listening to at the moment.  For music anyway.  The 650s win hands down for movies because of their soundstage.  I want something that combines the strengths of both of these, but I don't know if something like that even exists.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

DrSpiv> I believe XB700 would be a much better choice for you, I haven't heard the XB500 yet but I did order them just out of curiosity so I could compare them and it should be here tomorrow or on wednesday.
 
The XB700 I'm using now does sound more like a real headfi product than the $50 category or below, it's not all about bass with recessed/muddy mids/highs typical in this price segment, actually I think looking at the frequency response curve from headphone site
http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID[]=1193&graphID[]=1153
it looks like XB500 might even have a little more quantity in bass, more bass above 100Hz where the XB700 is slightly rolled off while being higher at very low frequencies <50Hz compared to XB500. The boost at above 100Hz could be an issue as to why mids sound so muddy or whatever. I find the XB700 to have really nice mids, very "full"/fat and very present, it sounds very close to products that are ~$150 or matches it depending on product, I did have ATH-M50 but sold it so it's a bit difficult to tell exactly as I might not have had optimal EQ profile for those but I think the mids sounded similar. Also I tried Beyer DT770 Pro/80 but I like the XB700 more. The highs compared to the mids are perhaps not quite as present on XB700, but the quality of them is still great though.
 
What's great with XB700 also is despite I abuse the EQ much on the low frequencies, the mids still shine through and sound very clear. I even boosted the bass a bit higher than I did with HD 212 Pro that has at least as much bass cuz the mids are so present anyways (ofc I also boosted the mids slightly and highs a bit higher than mids to counter the bass boost). They respond well to EQing so.

 

[Katun]

^ Yes! Thank you for getting the XB500! I really need to see a complete comparison between those two! (500's and 700's)
 
I still haven't ordered the XB700's, and I'm a bit hesitant now that I've read all the good things about the M50.
 
Now, it's between the M50 and the XB700. I really do like the XB500's though, but I hope the XB700's are significantly better. Because if they are, I'll definitely get those over the M50's.
 
I guess I'll have to wait for you to get yours! Also, can you recall much about your previous M50 to compare them to your XB700's?