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Originally Posted by jnewman /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Good news - bass comes out of K501s.
Not at head-thumping levels, but it's there.
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Yes, it is there. Awhile back, someone did frequency sweeps of the K-501. Not only is there bass, but it goes surprisingly deep.
Just because it doesn't sound like a $29.99 PepBoys subwoofer rattling your trunklid, that doesn't mean it has "bad" bass.
This week, a story came out where a college professor had been testing his students' preference for sound. He'd play compressed MP3 tracks and other versions. Over the past six years, students began to
prefer the thin, lossy and awful MP3 sound.
You get conditioned to particular sounds. Cheap, sloppy and horrible bass is one people have been conditioned to. If they don't hear the subwoofer making its own sound (they do that) or boomy box resonances, then the bass must be crap, right?
The funny thing is that if you play low notes on an acoustic instrument - like the bass clarinet I have - then listen to the same on the K-501, the K-501 sounds shockingly like an actual bass note. Though I've heard a lot of headphones and speakers that, somehow, add bass where it didn't exist in the first place.
I invite you to try the same yourself.
If you don't like it, that's fine. But don't go around spreading the "no bass" urban legend. Again, try listening to a real-life low note and see what a K501 sounds like.
Grado is a matter of personal preference. I've never had a comfort issue with them. The vast majority of people don't. The ones who do have comfort issues tend to be very vocal. You hear a lot more from them than from those of us who wear comfortably.
And amps do make a difference and there's terrific variation between them. If you want to learn more, I recommend visiting the DIY Forum. There are lots of technical reasons - all fully backed by science, measurements, real world tests, and listener experience. You might want to try building one - you'll learn a lot. Even a CMoy for $20 will help you understand what's going on.
