[desolateplanet]

To everyone who thinks that the ATH-M50s have bass, you have never owned a stand alone subwoofer in your car or home. The M50s SUCK at providing a deep clear bass. They blow. 

 

[GLrunner13]

I don't really think that is applicable...you are looking at a tiny speaker driver right next to your ears versus a large externally powered woofer.
 
Quote:

To everyone who thinks that the ATH-M50s have bass, you have never owned a stand alone subwoofer in your car or home. The M50s SUCK at providing a deep clear bass. They blow. 

 

 

[JamesMcProgger]

i wasnt impressed with mine right out of the box. i am now. burn in is necessary here. the bass wasnt there at first. between other things

 

[Erieg]

Quote:

i wasnt impressed with mine right out of the box. i am now. burn in is necessary here. the bass wasnt there at first. between other things

I burned them in for over 100 hours. You think that would have to be enough.
 
Desoluteplanet, I was not looking for thumping bass like a subwoofer. Just.. you know.. bass. Maybe if I wanted to impress the chick sitting next to me on the airplane I would would want pounding bass so she could dig how awesome the John Denver song I am listening to is. But otherwise.. just a waste.
 
I guess this is sorta pointless. I really have to assume that my ears just had a different response than everyone else who has tried them.

 

[slapshot30]

Some of you just don't understand. We don't want big crappy boomy bass. We want lots of it but not at the cost of lost clarity. The m50 just doesn't have the quantity of bass (unamped) that I was expecting. That doesn't mean I should go and buy some other headphones that are boomy as heck but not very good clarity. When I was told to get the m50's on here I was told they have "lots" of bass by several people. I guess different people just have different opinions of how much lots is. Listening to hip-hop or rock, it just isn't as much as I was expecting.

 

[JamesMcProgger]

100 hours is more than i did.
 
if you think the m50 has no bass ... I wonder what would you think of my denon hp700 then ...
 
you want an all over the place bass, even in the cymbals? ... sony xb series. 500 or 700. it was too much bass for me. and not really portables

 

[cycro27]

I think I understand why people feel the M50s have no bass. I used to own the Beats by Dre Solo HDs and those had a crazy amount of bass. The thing people have to understand is there is a difference between bloomy in your face bass and tight controlled bass. The M50s provide the latter (better then the beats at least imo) and I honestly love it way more then what the beats had to give. With the beats I would be feeling and hearing bass where there wasn't any (like JamesMcProgger's example of cymbals) and that bothered me. With the M50s there is bass exactly where it should be and it only lasts as long as it should unlike the beats which had so much bass that different bass notes were mixing together. One thing to try is find a song with decent bass and play it at a low volume. With the M50s you'll still hear/feel the bass, but with the Beats or anything else of lower quality, you won't hear anything. Besides when you get some real hardcore rap going these things make your head go crazy with bass so I dunno if some people may have gotten some defective pairs . I've actually had to take them off sometimes if I've had too much rap because I start to get headaches.
 
EDIT:
ALSO, burn-in is HUGE with these, I'm a total noob and even I could hear the huge difference after 50 hours of use. 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well I believe it's either fakes circling around or different versions (maybe from a different factory for example? Seagate for example had produced HDDs in the past with very different results depending on which factory it came from so this isn't totally impossible) because what people reports varies a lot, some people report M50 even being bassier than Denon D1100 and in my experience it was FAAAAR from it, D1100 having like 4-5x more bass and M50 barely any audible bass. I've got some "generic" philips "no-bass-at-all" headphones around and the M50 wasn't far away, between the headphones in my signature they all have at least 3x amount the bass of M50.

 

[JamesMcProgger]

Quote:

I have the coiled corded version in the white box (light blue on top) and it has plenty of bass. I have used them for 6 weeks so it has been burned in as well.

me too, and they have enough bass for me, but yes they dont go that low in the low end, nice punch, but maybe what OP is looking for is more sub-bass extension. but they sure do have bass.
 
 
 
Quote:

Actually it lacks bass connected to my PCs Sound Blaster card, my Macs headset output, the USB preamp hooked to my mac to practice the guitar, my Yamaha home theater receiver/amp, my iPhone 4, my iPad, my wife's iPhone 1st gen and my sons nano. My wife who was watching me run around the house plugging the things into everything but wall socket, after she stopped laughing, tried them out. She listened to some old 80's music (the Cure) then handed them back and told me they sounded worse then her stock earbuds. I totally disagree with that assessment though. I think the highs and mids are just stellar.
 

 
this is really weird, I just put some rush (2112) in my clip+ right now and the M50, no amps, I am listening to this right now and i can hear the bass, i can hear the riff, the BOOM and the punch... not as much as from my zune of using the clip+ but i can totally hear Geddy's bass, and Neal's punch in the bass drum.
 
Have you heard bass in any other headset/system? maybe you are bass-deaf?
 
 
Quote:

I was once again cruising amazon after spending way too much time here and ended up saying screw it. I ordered another set of M50s for reference, I ordered the HD595s for comparison and I ordered the E7/E9 as a base to test on. I have 2TB of music in FLAC. I figure I have my bases covered. All of this started because I couldn't find my 20 year old $20 kenwood headset to use on my USB preamp my wife got me so I would finally starting learning to play the guitar. Amazing.
 

 
its called the upgrade bug, be careful, its a truly monster.. and welcome in.
 
 
Quote:

Well here is what I found. The E7/E9, New ATH-M50s and the HD595s came in and I started experimenting. I used a FLAC copy of American Idiot (sorta felt appropriate) for reference. I started with the new pair of M50s and they sounded exactly the same as the first which makes me wonder about burning in. I burned the first pair in for over a hundred hours. The highs and mids were outstanding but the bass was almost non-existent to me. For the heck of it I played a classical cut and they were perfect. I unfortunately don't listen to much classical.
 
Next I tried the HD595s and they made me realize I was not in fact suffering from hearing loss. The sound quality was outstanding. There was a problem though, they are open. How I missed that in the description I do not know. I think I had spent so much time pouring over different brands that I somehow skipped over that fact. Due to various reasons (one 8 year-old son and one 6 year-old daughter being the main ones) I really need closed to kill ambient noise.
 
I would like to say the E7/E9 combo is really cool. They are really well made and really do a great job. I am at loss as to what to do at this point. I sent both the M50s and the HD595s back to Amazon. I am keeping the amp/dac I like them too much. It might sound funny but my current IEMs sound outstanding through them. Why? I don't know. I think part of it is that I don't have to turn them up very loud to have great sound.
 
I still need headphones so the quest continues. I also decided to replace my IEMs also. I figure why not, just less money to fight over in the inevitable audio induced divorce. I am looking at Grado right now.. I need to read more first. Does Amazon ever cut you off due to returns? I hope not, I don't want next Christmas to be a victim of this search.

If you are willing to spend 50$ in a small, orange, cute bass monster, i'd recommend my Equation RP15, amazon sells them too, more bass than the M50 for sure, and very tight and controlled bass, but overall (bass, mids, highs) not as clear as the M50. I'm yet to try its bigger brothers RP21 and RP22x. and Grados are open, they leak a ton of sound and you said you rather closed. 
 
again, no mean to offence, could it be possible some sort of bass-deaf? tried any rush recent record? Snakes and Arrows is very bass heavy all over... just saying.
 
Quote:

Well I believe it's either fakes circling around or different versions (maybe from a different factory for example? Seagate for example had produced HDDs in the past with very different results depending on which factory it came from so this isn't totally impossible) because what people reports varies a lot, some people report M50 even being bassier than Denon D1100 and in my experience it was FAAAAR from it, D1100 having like 4-5x more bass and M50 barely any audible bass. I've got some "generic" philips "no-bass-at-all" headphones around and the M50 wasn't far away, between the headphones in my signature they all have at least 3x amount the bass of M50.

now that would be an odd rarity. but it will explain why some call it "bass monsters". to me they are far away from being monsters in the bass department. but maybe is a thing about references? they sure have more bass than the AKG K240 per say. i'd put them in the same range as my grado SR80i.
 
 
Erieg, good luck with your next buy, seems like you have a lot of research to do

 

[Erieg]

Actually the chance that maybe I have experienced hearing loss resulting in my perception of no bass was one of the things I considered so there is no offense taken. The HD595s had a large amount of bass which is funny because almost everything I read states that's an area they lack in and my cheapo vmoda vibes dou probably have too much, they are ear buds though so I don't think thats a fair comparison.
 
I wish there was a place around here that I could go and compare headphones (no.. not bestbuy). It would make life a lot easier then ordering and returning which I am starting to feel guilty about.

 

[BRSxIgnition]

This is rather unsettling news for me. I've just bought some new M50's to replace the ones I lost due to faulty repair about a year ago. I remember them as being good at bass, with good punch, and deep extention. Now I'm hearing that they have none of what I remember?

I have the AIAIAI TMA-1's now, and they have good bass, deep extention, but they're a bit too dark for my tastes. After realizing this, I checked out the SRH-840's at my local London Drugs, played them both side-by-side, and realized that the SRH840's ditch the darker, muffled tone of the AIAIAI TMA-1's, and replace it with clarity, while retaining nice bass punch and extension. I have owned the M50's and 840's a while back, and I preferred the M50's due to their harder hitting bass, while not sacrificing too much clarity.

That's why I ordered them again, but hearing this is unsettling, do the newer ones really not have the bass I remember them as having about a year ago? I ordered the white-box version if that helps...

 

[Erieg]

Quote:

This is rather unsettling news for me. I've just bought some new M50's to replace the ones I lost due to faulty repair about a year ago. I remember them as being good at bass, with good punch, and deep extention. Now I'm hearing that they have none of what I remember?

I have the AIAIAI TMA-1's now, and they have good bass, deep extention, but they're a bit too dark for my tastes. After realizing this, I checked out the SRH-840's at my local London Drugs, played them both side-by-side, and realized that the SRH840's ditch the darker, muffled tone of the AIAIAI TMA-1's, and replace it with clarity, while retaining nice bass punch and extension. I have owned the M50's and 840's a while back, and I preferred the M50's due to their harder hitting bass, while not sacrificing too much clarity.

That's why I ordered them again, but hearing this is unsettling, do the newer ones really not have the bass I remember them as having about a year ago? I ordered the white-box version if that helps...

I think I am really starting to regret posting this. I have been told that there is no difference between the old and new M50s. I am sure you are going to be happy. I apparently have a different reaction to them as most people do i guess.

 

[slapshot30]

At this point, my conclusion is that different people have different needs in terms of bass. I listen to eminem and lil wayne so I might've been expecting too much. It all depends on your tolerance and I'm sure if you've already had them once, you'll have a similar experience if you buy them again.

 
Quote:

This is rather unsettling news for me. I've just bought some new M50's to replace the ones I lost due to faulty repair about a year ago. I remember them as being good at bass, with good punch, and deep extention. Now I'm hearing that they have none of what I remember?

I have the AIAIAI TMA-1's now, and they have good bass, deep extention, but they're a bit too dark for my tastes. After realizing this, I checked out the SRH-840's at my local London Drugs, played them both side-by-side, and realized that the SRH840's ditch the darker, muffled tone of the AIAIAI TMA-1's, and replace it with clarity, while retaining nice bass punch and extension. I have owned the M50's and 840's a while back, and I preferred the M50's due to their harder hitting bass, while not sacrificing too much clarity.

That's why I ordered them again, but hearing this is unsettling, do the newer ones really not have the bass I remember them as having about a year ago? I ordered the white-box version if that helps...

 

[Erieg]

Maybe I am suffering from some type of  "audio tone frequency dyslexia". Hearing bass in places I shouldn't and not hearing it in places I should.
 
Just kidding.
 
I think.

 

[BRSxIgnition]

Maybe I am suffering from some type of  "audio tone frequency dyslexia". Hearing bass in places I shouldn't and not hearing it in places I should.


 


Just kidding.


 


I think.

 


I thnk there's a kind of doctor for that if you wanted to seriously check.. Audiologist or something? Same Place you'd go to to get an ear mold done for a custom IEM right?