Deleted.

[EhmSzi]

Deleted.

 

[EhmSzi]

Deleted.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

With both headphones, starting with the DSR, I noticed that upon hitting play the sound was radically different. Almost like it was distant, tinny, and reminiscent of a pair of in-ear 'phones I might have purchased at a convenience store as a kid. With the DSR in particular, if I pressed notably hard to increase the clamping force, it began to slightly reduce this effect. I'd like to say the mid range was recessed, in both pairs- but to say so would not be doing justice to this effect I think. I notice that the lower frequency components of some of my sample tracks are reproduced with sufficient power to suggest amplitude is not the problem, nor depth. At least, not in that spectrum. As a whole all the content sounds less like it is "immersing you in the sound, as if you were right in the midst of the orchestra"(WS99BT), and very much more as if you are "listening to a secondary recording of a song, the original having been played on a pair of speakers and then recorded with a studio microphone that had a thin piece of cloth draped over it". Just returned my proper microphone actually, otherwise I'd post links to recordings of the two- but I hope to someone somewhere this sort of thing is understandable.

The effective responseis most likely the difference. For starters, look at the names and marketing nomenclature on those headphones:

ATH-WS99BT
Solid Bass® Wireless Over-Ear Headphones with Built-in Mic & Control

ATH-DSR9BT
Wireless Over-Ear Headphones with Pure Digital Drive

Arctis Pro Wireless
Wireless. Lossless. Peerless Gaming Audio System

See the difference? Your older ATH-WS99BT literally cites "Solid Bass®" (look at how it's trademarked too) - that means that they engineered it specifically for boosted bass response. On top of that, it's also possible it has some boosts in the midrange and treble, though again, very far from linear.

By contrast not only do the others not have it, but they're also newer headphones, and newer designs tend to have a flatter (though none are still perfectly flat throughout) and broader response. At the same time they're also doing other measures to improve imaging, like how initially AKG had angled earpads (followed later by Audeze and HiFiMan) and Ultrasone had their "S-Logic" mount (Beyer dynamic also implemented something similar; Sennheiser's HD800 and HD700 also have this and more visible from the outer side of the earcups) to mimic the toe-in angle of speakers, because you don't put the speakers at the left and right flanks firing directly into your ears.

One reason for that is that non-linearities can affect the imaging. Take the response on Grados for example, which is a result of both the response of the drivers and how they sit directly on top of the ear canals. The midrange boost pushes the vocals forward, but you still don't get any depth of the vocals relative to the percussion because there's also a boost in the upper bass that pushes it forward; treble boost also pushes the cymbals too far forward and to the flanks, making it seem like the Fantastic Four retired to be a band and Reed Richards is on the drums showing off his stretchy arms.

On top of all the differences, you're also used to the sound of the bass-boosted headphone, so chances are anything that doesn't have close to that kind of bass performance will then sound drastically different to you, even to the point of an otherwise properly designed headphone sounding like cheap earbuds.

Back to marketing...the Arctic Pro is also a gaming headphone. Most cheap gaming headphones just focus on more bass for impressive explotions and other low frequency sound effects, but the higher up you go, the less emphasis on bass and more emphasis on imaging for pin point accuracy in FPS games or at least just generally more immersion for those who like it that way. Total War might come with a 360deg camera that isn't bound to where your general's unit is actually facing, but being able to hear thundering hooves from a more specific location is more like actual ancient combat. Kind of like if you wanted WW2 game immersion then you'd be able to hear the clanking of tank tracks before the shooting starts (like while you're a paratrooper holed up in Dutch or Belgian town before the Germans counterattacked) or with Dolby Atmos, hearing that scream of a Stuka divebomber coming from above.

There is of course still the possibility that instead of a slightly flatter (if not actually broader) response, the drivers on the new ones have a much narrower range, ie, no boost in the bass and also rolling off earlier. However given the fact that the first AT headphone is marketed as a bass boosted headphone it's not likely that they're objectively deficient otherwise.

As I type this I'm trying to quantify the difference, and the only thing my mind can come up with is "Ah yes, the reminds me of the time buying those cheap earphones when the present pair broke during the long walk home from school". Cheap headphones, to generalize and simplify. But in what world could "cheap" possibly apply to a pair of cans like the DSR9BT?

Ugh. Sorry all, really wish I was hitting this more on the head but... threw on my 99BTs now, and it sounds as if I'm listening to the song proper, not jamming two portable bluetooth speakers in either ear. I reckon vocals are a huge indicator of the recession between these cans- with the 99BTs the artist is singing into my ear. With the two others... I'm much more distantly "listening to a recording of the artist singing"

Well it's hard to quantify unless you have a dummy ballistic flesh head with a mic in it hooked up to a Real Time Analyzer.

As for the qualitative, don't fret because this isn't all that rare. I have friends who can also tune a guitar by ear but can't tell the difference between my HD600 (which is practically as flat as you can get for not a lot of money before HiFiMan's HE400i and the HD650 came around, though the latter has a wider swath being imbalanced relative to each other) vs their Apple earbuds. Even AKG regressed back to flat earpads because people interpret bass being imaged to the rear of the vocals as "weak bass," despite the fact that in reality, the drummer isn't sitting one inch behind the vocalist (even bands where the drummers are vocalists aren't recorded to have them imaged in the same spot along the Z-Axis), and the only way you're going to hear bass that strong is if you're sitting front row, which isn't that ideal if you want the best sound. In an opera hall, you're supposed to be sitting in the middle of the center section, not just from left to right but from the front to rear (the upper private booths are actually terrible acoustically, but they cost a lot thanks to being private booths). I once scored the expensive tickets in that section and the most cultured billionaire over here was sitting right behind me, and he had to pay for the tickets.

Speaking of which, that's another thing you got accustomed to with headphones. The point in recordings isn't to put you in the middle of the band, because what stage has the audience standing there? Even the ones that have a catwalk and a VIP pit still have these in front of the vocalist. Which is just another thing you got accustomed to - the "middle of the action" sound of headphones wasn't really the correct way to listen but a technical limitation from when headphones were simply an alternative to speakers if you needed sound isolation. Nowadays technical innovations such as the toe-in angle of the drivers and flatter response, as well as processing like Crossfeed (which filters some of the frequencies above a chosen frequency to be filtered at a limited amplitude across both channels to mimic how both ears hear both speakers in-room, unlike one ear to one driver limitation in headphones), have developed along with the demand driven by how housing has become expensive or suburban living impractical (ie people no longer have large suburban homes and then drive downtown, so no space for speakers; or even if they do have a spare room, it will require extensive acoustic treatment to not piss off the neighbors sharing the walls).

I run a light Parametric EQ somewhat fitted to match an Equal Loudness Contour(set up one proper a while ago, however my present does not go beyond 250Hz), so there is a decent bit of sub 60/40Hz boost when using the WS99BTs with my mobile player(ArmAmp), but toggling that off does not do much to diminish the difference between the headphones.

If you don't need it as a global EQ app and need it only for locally stored files then try Neutron and run a low shelf EQ centered at 120hz, Q 1.4, +3dB to +6dB for the newer headphones.

I also purchased the Velour Brainwavz Replacement earpads(popular around this forum, for this headphone) for the WS99BTs, which add a fair bit of low end and sound isolation over the stock earcups.

I use the angled velours on my HD600 to add imaging depth and boost the low bass range. See the flat hybrid velour+heather side earpads fit on the whatever else you get later if you want to boost the low end but without adding depth to the image, which can just offset each other for your preferences.

I believe the diaphragm size on the WS99BTs is 55mm... with the 40/45mm drivers on the smaller cans would that much of a difference be noted?

If all other driver design parameters are the same, then yes, a smaller diaphragm will tend to have less bass.

However that's just the most common determinant of the response. The HD800 has a 70mm driver, and it's not exactly known for prodigious bass thanks to its open back, zero isolation and bass trap acoustic effect design, though it does have wider response than the HD600; at the same time it doesn't have its lower treble peak, but it does have a taller peak higher up the range. An IEM like the Aurisonics ASG-1.2 with its 15mm driver or their later (now Fender) version with the 10mm driver also has a stronger bass response than nearly every headphone out there, on top of which, you hear a lot less ambient noise that gets in the way of hearing the bass.

And that's just dynamic drivers. Planars can hit 10hz while some are practically flat all the way up to 1000hz, like the HE400i, but people still think the bass is weak and they're tinny or flat and boring overall because they're not boosting 100hz and below.

Hm. Don't have another pair of cans to test, but I might purchase a few just to figure out this phenomenon.

If you just want to test it and can return it, try the HE400S. Its response isn't as flat as the HE400i (its response is closer to a K702 or HD600) but it has a much higher sensitivity, high enough that it can do well enough to test even without purchasing an amplifier. It's not drastically boosted in the bass region either, but if you find its performance closer to the two you didn't like, then at least that can lead us to what kind of headphones you like. Maybe get a wireless Beats since Sony doesn't make the XB500 anymore (and it didn't have a wireless version either).

On the other hand, if you happen to like it, then that can confirm that the other two headphones probably just roll off too early, like some older budget Sony monitoring headphones.

Just note that the HE400S are open headphones so you still need a very quiet environment.

Update: Still furiously trying to kick the brain into action. Can say one thing for certain, there is certainly a greater "forward" presence with the WS99BTs. It isn't enough to say with the DSR9BT and Steelseries the sound is *only* "further" away- but it is certainly accurate to say the WS99BTs bring the sound much "closer"(bass seems to be somewhat similar, though the WS99BT continually delivers more presence in that regard- mid to high end is both farther away and has some metallic property... perhaps as if listening through-

That's got a lot to do again with how newer headphones are bridging the gap between headphones and speakers in terms of imaging. Instead of making everything sound like they're inside your head, they're slightly outside of it as much as possible, kind of like with speakers, except you still don't get a room-sized soundstage getting imaged in front of you. But the key there is that on headphones like the K701/K702 for example they don't push the vocals forward but push the percussion farther to the rear because that's how a band is laid out on stage.

Ever listened to the "sound of the ocean" through a sea/conch shell? It sounds like that! As if there was a speaker inside the shell, and the way the shape/structure of the shell modulates the sound as it reaches your ear(the way a shell "transforms" the "sound of the ocean" making it something which is both close and yet also much more distant sounding) is the same way this sound is being transformed! Though to a slighter less degree than a shell might, granted.

It sounds partially like a DSP effect like Virtual Surround, which might be non-defeatable on the Siberia, however if you're hearing the same off the other Audio Technica, which isn't a gaming headphone, chances are it's really just that you're not used to having any actual soundstage imaging. Or your music doesn't really have it to begin with so such innovations have no value for you.

Update 2: Another description came to mind, tying in to what I mentioned about a recording of a recording- for anyone who is familiar with the application VirtualDJ, there is a built-in effect called "Vocals+". If you toggle that on, the effect it produces is damn close to the sound that the Steel and DSR9BT did, for me. So some kind of mid/high-end boost?

You have to look at the overall response. That kind of response isn't always from a boosted midrange but could also be due to weak bass. What such EQ tricks do might not even just be boosting 1000hz to 4000hz but also trimming everything outside of that range.

At the same time, if your reference for normal sound is a bass boosted headphone, then anything that isn't bass boosted will sound drastically deficient for you. It's kind of like if someone whose car has an Audiobahn system with four 12in subwoofaz and two 1,000watt amps hearing a system with a DLS sound system, which, even if it had three 12in subwoofers with each running off a 1,000 watt amp with dedicated 6.5in midwoofers in the doors (and midrange and tweeters on the A-pillars), is still tuned flat (ie like Scott Buwalda's IASCA champion Nissan), then that system will still sound like it has no bass.

 

[EhmSzi]

The effective responseis most likely the difference. For starters, look at the names and marketing nomenclature on those headphones:

ATH-WS99BT
Solid Bass® Wireless Over-Ear Headphones with Built-in Mic & Control

ATH-DSR9BT
Wireless Over-Ear Headphones with Pure Digital Drive

Arctis Pro Wireless
Wireless. Lossless. Peerless Gaming Audio System

See the difference? Your older ATH-WS99BT literally cites "Solid Bass®" (look at how it's trademarked too) - that means that they engineered it specifically for boosted bass response. On top of that, it's also possible it has some boosts in the midrange and treble, though again, very far from linear.

By contrast not only do the others not have it, but they're also newer headphones, and newer designs tend to have a flatter (though none are still perfectly flat throughout) and broader response. At the same time they're also doing other measures to improve imaging, like how initially AKG had angled earpads (followed later by Audeze and HiFiMan) and Ultrasone had their "S-Logic" mount (Beyer dynamic also implemented something similar; Sennheiser's HD800 and HD700 also have this and more visible from the outer side of the earcups) to mimic the toe-in angle of speakers, because you don't put the speakers at the left and right flanks firing directly into your ears.

One reason for that is that non-linearities can affect the imaging. Take the response on Grados for example, which is a result of both the response of the drivers and how they sit directly on top of the ear canals. The midrange boost pushes the vocals forward, but you still don't get any depth of the vocals relative to the percussion because there's also a boost in the upper bass that pushes it forward; treble boost also pushes the cymbals too far forward and to the flanks, making it seem like the Fantastic Four retired to be a band and Reed Richards is on the drums showing off his stretchy arms.

On top of all the differences, you're also used to the sound of the bass-boosted headphone, so chances are anything that doesn't have close to that kind of bass performance will then sound drastically different to you, even to the point of an otherwise properly designed headphone sounding like cheap earbuds.

Back to marketing...the Arctic Pro is also a gaming headphone. Most cheap gaming headphones just focus on more bass for impressive explotions and other low frequency sound effects, but the higher up you go, the less emphasis on bass and more emphasis on imaging for pin point accuracy in FPS games or at least just generally more immersion for those who like it that way. Total War might come with a 360deg camera that isn't bound to where your general's unit is actually facing, but being able to hear thundering hooves from a more specific location is more like actual ancient combat. Kind of like if you wanted WW2 game immersion then you'd be able to hear the clanking of tank tracks before the shooting starts (like while you're a paratrooper holed up in Dutch or Belgian town before the Germans counterattacked) or with Dolby Atmos, hearing that scream of a Stuka divebomber coming from above.

There is of course still the possibility that instead of a slightly flatter (if not actually broader) response, the drivers on the new ones have a much narrower range, ie, no boost in the bass and also rolling off earlier. However given the fact that the first AT headphone is marketed as a bass boosted headphone it's not likely that they're objectively deficient otherwise.




Well it's hard to quantify unless you have a dummy ballistic flesh head with a mic in it hooked up to a Real Time Analyzer.

As for the qualitative, don't fret because this isn't all that rare. I have friends who can also tune a guitar by ear but can't tell the difference between my HD600 (which is practically as flat as you can get for not a lot of money before HiFiMan's HE400i and the HD650 came around, though the latter has a wider swath being imbalanced relative to each other) vs their Apple earbuds. Even AKG regressed back to flat earpads because people interpret bass being imaged to the rear of the vocals as "weak bass," despite the fact that in reality, the drummer isn't sitting one inch behind the vocalist (even bands where the drummers are vocalists aren't recorded to have them imaged in the same spot along the Z-Axis), and the only way you're going to hear bass that strong is if you're sitting front row, which isn't that ideal if you want the best sound. In an opera hall, you're supposed to be sitting in the middle of the center section, not just from left to right but from the front to rear (the upper private booths are actually terrible acoustically, but they cost a lot thanks to being private booths). I once scored the expensive tickets in that section and the most cultured billionaire over here was sitting right behind me, and he had to pay for the tickets.

Speaking of which, that's another thing you got accustomed to with headphones. The point in recordings isn't to put you in the middle of the band, because what stage has the audience standing there? Even the ones that have a catwalk and a VIP pit still have these in front of the vocalist. Which is just another thing you got accustomed to - the "middle of the action" sound of headphones wasn't really the correct way to listen but a technical limitation from when headphones were simply an alternative to speakers if you needed sound isolation. Nowadays technical innovations such as the toe-in angle of the drivers and flatter response, as well as processing like Crossfeed (which filters some of the frequencies above a chosen frequency to be filtered at a limited amplitude across both channels to mimic how both ears hear both speakers in-room, unlike one ear to one driver limitation in headphones), have developed along with the demand driven by how housing has become expensive or suburban living impractical (ie people no longer have large suburban homes and then drive downtown, so no space for speakers; or even if they do have a spare room, it will require extensive acoustic treatment to not piss off the neighbors sharing the walls).




If you don't need it as a global EQ app and need it only for locally stored files then try Neutron and run a low shelf EQ centered at 120hz, Q 1.4, +3dB to +6dB for the newer headphones.




I use the angled velours on my HD600 to add imaging depth and boost the low bass range. See the flat hybrid velour+heather side earpads fit on the whatever else you get later if you want to boost the low end but without adding depth to the image, which can just offset each other for your preferences.




If all other driver design parameters are the same, then yes, a smaller diaphragm will tend to have less bass.

However that's just the most common determinant of the response. The HD800 has a 70mm driver, and it's not exactly known for prodigious bass thanks to its open back, zero isolation and bass trap acoustic effect design, though it does have wider response than the HD600; at the same time it doesn't have its lower treble peak, but it does have a taller peak higher up the range. An IEM like the Aurisonics ASG-1.2 with its 15mm driver or their later (now Fender) version with the 10mm driver also has a stronger bass response than nearly every headphone out there, on top of which, you hear a lot less ambient noise that gets in the way of hearing the bass.

And that's just dynamic drivers. Planars can hit 10hz while some are practically flat all the way up to 1000hz, like the HE400i, but people still think the bass is weak and they're tinny or flat and boring overall because they're not boosting 100hz and below.




If you just want to test it and can return it, try the HE400S. Its response isn't as flat as the HE400i (its response is closer to a K702 or HD600) but it has a much higher sensitivity, high enough that it can do well enough to test even without purchasing an amplifier. It's not drastically boosted in the bass region either, but if you find its performance closer to the two you didn't like, then at least that can lead us to what kind of headphones you like. Maybe get a wireless Beats since Sony doesn't make the XB500 anymore (and it didn't have a wireless version either).

On the other hand, if you happen to like it, then that can confirm that the other two headphones probably just roll off too early, like some older budget Sony monitoring headphones.

Just note that the HE400S are open headphones so you still need a very quiet environment.





That's got a lot to do again with how newer headphones are bridging the gap between headphones and speakers in terms of imaging. Instead of making everything sound like they're inside your head, they're slightly outside of it as much as possible, kind of like with speakers, except you still don't get a room-sized soundstage getting imaged in front of you. But the key there is that on headphones like the K701/K702 for example they don't push the vocals forward but push the percussion farther to the rear because that's how a band is laid out on stage.





It sounds partially like a DSP effect like Virtual Surround, which might be non-defeatable on the Siberia, however if you're hearing the same off the other Audio Technica, which isn't a gaming headphone, chances are it's really just that you're not used to having any actual soundstage imaging. Or your music doesn't really have it to begin with so such innovations have no value for you.




You have to look at the overall response. That kind of response isn't always from a boosted midrange but could also be due to weak bass. What such EQ tricks do might not even just be boosting 1000hz to 4000hz but also trimming everything outside of that range.

At the same time, if your reference for normal sound is a bass boosted headphone, then anything that isn't bass boosted will sound drastically deficient for you. It's kind of like if someone whose car has an Audiobahn system with four 12in subwoofaz and two 1,000watt amps hearing a system with a DLS sound system, which, even if it had three 12in subwoofers with each running off a 1,000 watt amp with dedicated 6.5in midwoofers in the doors (and midrange and tweeters on the A-pillars), is still tuned flat (ie like Scott Buwalda's IASCA champion Nissan), then that system will still sound like it has no bass.

Hey there bud.

Reading through your reply now, but I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to reply. After some flaming on a crosspost of this topic to Reddit, I did my best to just cut to the chase, and posted a new thread.

Means a lot someone took the time to read and provide such a detailed response, truly. I'll update this once I have time to digest and finish the full message.

Thanks in advance.

Z

*Response Proper*- If it's not too much bother, I'm going to need to read your reply over a few times, and perform some small tests on my end to confirm a few things. I think you're bloody well spot-on with several points that I simply had not considered, or rather- did not think possible to the extent that they are(could be/presently are/ have been? etc!).

For me, step 1 is going to be ordering the headphones recommended by the chap with the level head who has broken this down in a very agreeable fashion- those HE400s. It will be a few days before such is possible, and then a few more until delivery- but once I have them my plan is to write up a reply based on the research and testing I've done, and quite possibly with a question or two for you if you'd be so kind as to allow them.


While there is nothing inherently wrong with using the same pair of cans for years I suppose, from a whatever floats your boat perspective... I am somewhat taken aback by the notion that I have grown so used to a particular signature that I find the listening experience on a more accurate pair of headphones subpar to my norm. Most of all, the idea that I have grown accustomed to not only an inflated sound, but by extension an inaccurate one.

There is a dangerous line here, where chasing the flattest response or most technically impressive sound reproduction sometimes becomes a journey that you look back on and realize the effort was not worth it- but be that as it may I would very much rather remain with the march of technology and be able to try out and update my collection. Not find myself humming and hawing because I've grown accustomed to a pair of cans which are not producing the sound as it ought to be.


Right well, need to get my head back in the game. Will be referencing your reply over the next few days and re-acclimating myself to the world of audio as much as I can.

I'll leave it at a thank you, many times over, for your reply and the galvanization it has inspired- and hope to have a conversation proper in some days' time from now when the time is ripe.

Cheers mate.

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Hey there bud.

Reading through your reply now, but I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to reply. After some flaming on a crosspost of this topic to Reddit, I did my best to just cut to the chase, and posted a new thread.

Means a lot someone took the time to read and provide such a detailed response, truly. I'll update this once I have time to digest and finish the full message.

Thanks in advance.

Z