[ZzBOG]

Hello!
 
Unfortunately I don't have resources (edit: I mean time / space in life) to collect music, so my main source is Spotify - but I do listen to it all day so it's pretty important to dissolve in it sometimes.
 
Given that neither CD nor FLAC nor anything of that kind will be sending music through headphones, what would be the best possible headphones that would still make a difference?
 
I mean would HD800 be an overkill given such scenario? Or LCD (x/2/3)? Stax 007?
 
Of course we are talking about using them with proper amp/dac.
 
If that matters - music pretty much anything with heavy tilt towards experimental electronic, classical, jazz, sometimes hip-hop, sometimes indie, sometimes doom / death, oldies. 
Never pop though or pure EDM or house or DnB. 
 
Right now I have q701+PHA-1 as main setup and find the bass missing honestly and curious what my endgame scenario is. 
 
I would say my limit is about $2K. 

 

[ZzBOG]

Bump
Or is it a wrong sub-forum for this?

 

[GREQ]

No, it's the right forum, just most guys would think that K701 is already end-game for spotify, so your need for bass is more a subjective pursuit than technical or the search for 'perfection'... whatever that is.
 
If you want just a tad more bass and a more tactile/agile bass presentation, I'd say go for an HE-500 (or HE-560 - but I have not heard it, but all impressions strongly suggest the two are absolutely siblings). Just amp it really well, maybe even consider speaker taps (using a speaker amp like the Emotiva mini-x a100))
 
If you need quite a bit more bass because you need it like a drug, then you might need a closed-back headphone.
I havn't heard either of them, but the Fostex TH-900 and the new Sony MDR-Z7 might be worth researching into (just to point you in some direction - maybe head over to the new Z7 thread for a lot of interesting reading - http://www.head-fi.org/t/728006/sonys-new-flagship-2014-mdr-z7/2295#post_10983238
 
HD800 or Stax most likely won't give you the bass you're looking for.

 

[ZzBOG]

Thank you for your response!
Well bass is kind of the thing I find obviously lacking when listening to bass-rich music (I know the artist undedef the bass to be deeper).
The question is more about whether I would gain more from going up the headphone ladder given my source is always 320kbs MP3. And at which step of the ladder it makes sense to stop due to source-limitations.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Thank you for your response!
Well bass is kind of the thing I find obviously lacking when listening to bass-rich music (I know the artist undedef the bass to be deeper).
The question is more about whether I would gain more from going up the headphone ladder given my source is always 320kbs MP3. And at which step of the ladder it makes sense to stop due to source-limitations.

 
The thing with mp3 compression is it basically shaves off the extremes of the frequency response; in most music losing respone below say 40hz isn't noticeable, but that depends on what is in the music program to begin with.
 
Also that's just one dimension of it, and that only affects the the overall tone of the bass as well as the extent to which a subwoofer can knock your rear view mirror off the windshield if you played it in a car. As GREQ already stated, it can for the most part be subjective. If the artist already recorded the music on a monitor with a reasonably flat response, then a headphone with a similar response would only reflect what the artist put in. The problem is if the artist had been using a monitor that had a plateau in the bass region for the actual monitoring as opposed to, say, part of real world testing - basically listening to what people buying the album would likely use.

I don't know what other artists use, but one of my favorite bands, Nightwish, have done real world tests first on those B&W's behind their main composer/keyboard player (the guy with long hair; I think the guy in the foreground is a sound engineer), since they're conveniently in the same studio where they recorded a couple of albums - Abbey Road. 

 
 
You don't listen to EDM, but in case it helps (and is related to what I discussed above), the thing with needing more bass from headphones for those is because the reference of the listeners are the clubs they go to, where "more bass!!!!" always helps for a lot of things, but mainly to provide a beat that people can feel, enhancing the effects of alcohol or pills that the club may be selling them. 
 
 
Another thing you have to keep in mind is that you should go for a headphone that has a better seal and is easy to drive. A hard to drive headphone (low efficiency, very high impedance, etc) and especially one with a tipped-up bass response is more likely to distort (at least due to the inability of the amp; cheaper headphones distort easily due to driver flex for example) without proper amplification, or at least won't be loud enough. That said a closed headphone will prevent sound from coming in (and out), ensuring that noise won't get in and in the way of what you hear.