[dooodstevenn]

 
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What's your budget? M-Audio Q40 at $120 is the first "basshead" headphone I've tried with very neutral and balanced sounding mids & highs (not recessed or emphasized). See my signature, I've tried most of the headphones spoken about in this thread.

i say 100 and under, but realistically i am only willing to spend that 100 if they blow me away, but i dont think anything in the 100 and under range will really do that 

 
whats your take on the panasonic htf600? 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

i say 100 and under, but realistically i am only willing to spend that 100 if they blow me away, but i dont think anything in the 100 and under range will really do that 

Well here's some info on some of those brought up in the thread:
 
XB500 vs XB700:
 
The XB700 has more pronounced highs, just very slightly exaggerated but for many people about suitable amount of presence in the highs. The lower mids aren't as forward sounding as on XB500 which leads them to having somewhat "thinner" sound. The XB500 is more "fullier", smoother but for many maybe too smooth/warm sounding why some EQing should be applied. The mids are generally slightly more forward sounding on XB500 but XB700 while having slightly further back pushed mids have a bit clearer sound (without any EQing taken into account obviously). The problem with XB500 is that the bass is pushed in a 15dB boost all the way from like 15Hz to 300Hz (300Hz can't be called bass anymore, that's already whereabouts the lower mids starts at) and this hurts the clarity of mids, lowering 250Hz on a EQ should help quite a lot already (either that or boosting the whole 500Hz+ range). XB700 has a 15dB boost in bass from like 10Hz - 100Hz and it slowly rolls-off from there, so it doesn't pack nearly as much mid/upper bass as XB500 which gives the bass in XB500 a whole lot more impact/punch. The soundstage on both are very close, the XB700 had slightly bigger stage but XB500 had clearer imaging/positioning (I spent quite a lot time comparing them while gaming).
 
HTF600 vs XB500:
 
The HTF600's bass is not extending down as well as XB500, the XB500 has quite a lot more subbass but in mid/upper bass they are actually nearly/about the same, both have a lot of impact/punch (now we're talking especially 80~120Hz range or so). The mids have A LOT better detail on the HTF600 but they need burn-in though before starting to realize how big difference it is here (I did some minor mods to it to further improve the mids). A lot more balanced mids which you can hear when comparing the 2 headphones, the XB500 is too much forward around ~2kHz compared to 1kHz for example which gives slightly wrong tonality to the mids (I've heard a lot worse though), especially noticable with female vocals.  The highs are also slightly more forward and more even on the HTF600 but they are still slightly too recessed to be able to be concidered "neutral" but this gives them a warm & musical sound that is never fatiguing to listen to and they still keep a lot of details in the mids. The bass is a bit more controlled and textured on HTF600, I think the mod I did improved the bass response a tiny bit on HTF600 too (this headphone is easily moddable so you can improve it if you're not happy with the sound out of box). The soundstage is even more "in-your-face" sounding on HTF600 but imaging is even better, so you can tell the directions nicely. But yea generally this headphone has slightly less bass but more forward and even mids and highs and better detail in mids.
 
Sounds like warm sounding heaphones aren't your thing though if you dislike XB500, HTF600 is still a warm/smooth sounding headphone but less so than XB500. Q40 is quite neutral, not warm/dark nor cold/bright. It's the first headphone I'm listening with EQ disabled! And I'm an EQ maniac that has always been able to improve all the other headphones in my signature. What I'm looking for is greatly boosted bass response (in this case ~11dB on Q40 compared to 15dB on XB500 or maybe ~10dB on HTF600) but neutral and as even as possible mid and highrange, the Q40 offers that. Well I don't say no to very slightly boosted mids but it has to be done evenly so in that case as I hate when the tonality is off as my ears will notice it so easily if vocals sounds off.
 

 

[B-Dawk20]

Yeah, the XB500 and 700 conversation goes back and forth...some people prefer the 500 and others the 700. Some think the 500s are a way better deal and others think the 700s are way above. I'd personally get the 500s from my reading but that's just me.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

Yeah, the XB500 and 700 conversation goes back and forth...some people prefer the 500 and others the 700. Some think the 500s are a way better deal and others think the 700s are way above. I'd personally get the 500s from my reading but that's just me.

Yea it comes back to how you want it to sound like. It's very invidual, every1 got a bit different taste how they want it to sound like why it's always difficult to talk which is "better", best is to explain the differences in sound and let the other person decide which is better for him/her. I even bought XB700 before I tested XB500 and ended up selling XB700 and usually the headphone you've used for a little while has an advantage as you've gotten used to the sound signature.
 

 

[jburn244]

Hopefully this post will be useful for those searching Head-Fi for information about the XB500s...
 
I also was not a fan of them. The bass was there, and it was quite impressive. They were also very comfortable. But to me, the bass drowned out and muddied up the mids and highs. Even EQing the mids/highs up and the bass down still just didn't clear them up enough for me.
 
They also leak sound quite a bit through the three vents on each side. I actually put tape over 2 of the 3 vents on each side, and it did help clean up the sound a bit...made them more balanced, tightened up the bass and made it a little less boomy/more controlled, and of course they didn't leak as much sound. Seems like the tape 'tuned' the bass response, not unlike different sizes/lengths of a port in a ported subwoofer enclosure in a car. But in the end, clear mids/highs win out over strong bass for me, and the XB500s just lacked the clarity I was looking for. If you listened only to electronic/house/bass-emphasized stuff, they'd probably be great.
 
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned the Shure SRH440s...I just got those and they sound excellent. No where near as much bass as the XB500, but enough there for me. 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well if you got XB500 and like SRH440 u clearly made the wrong choice, XB500 is for basslovers among the headphones with the strongest bass out there while Shure SRH440 has no boosted bass whatsoever, we're talking like 15dB differences in bass here, so it would be good to do at least some research first.

 

[Totally Dubbed]

Quote:

Well here's some info on some of those brought up in the thread:
 
XB500 vs XB700:
 
The XB700 has more pronounced highs, just very slightly exaggerated but for many people about suitable amount of presence in the highs. The lower mids aren't as forward sounding as on XB500 which leads them to having somewhat "thinner" sound. The XB500 is more "fullier", smoother but for many maybe too smooth/warm sounding why some EQing should be applied. The mids are generally slightly more forward sounding on XB500 but XB700 while having slightly further back pushed mids have a bit clearer sound (without any EQing taken into account obviously). The problem with XB500 is that the bass is pushed in a 15dB boost all the way from like 15Hz to 300Hz (300Hz can't be called bass anymore, that's already whereabouts the lower mids starts at) and this hurts the clarity of mids, lowering 250Hz on a EQ should help quite a lot already (either that or boosting the whole 500Hz+ range). XB700 has a 15dB boost in bass from like 10Hz - 100Hz and it slowly rolls-off from there, so it doesn't pack nearly as much mid/upper bass as XB500 which gives the bass in XB500 a whole lot more impact/punch. The soundstage on both are very close, the XB700 had slightly bigger stage but XB500 had clearer imaging/positioning (I spent quite a lot time comparing them while gaming).
 

Couldn't agree more.
 
For me put short:
-500's little muddy, not much of a soundstage, but very tight bass
-700's, not portable, not a punchy bas, but brilliant at everything else it does - you can kiss goodbye (part from punchy bass) the beats pro's put it that way.
 
 
TO THE OP & ABOVE:
Give them time to settle in.
My 700's, i still remember 2yrs ago, were VERY muddy, NO soundstage, give them a while, and they open up, they take long to burn-in unlike my earphones.
I would say a good 100hrs to burn in is what's needed for these headphones.

 

[JK1]

How do the JVC headphones sound in comparison? There were some positive comments about the HAM750, and even the very cheap HAS600 and HAS4x.

 

[roker]

I still say spend the extra dough and get a Denon D1100
 
underrated bass performer in my opinion

 

[dooodstevenn]

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I still say spend the extra dough and get a Denon D1100
 
underrated bass performer in my opinion

I was at the local frys and saw a little tag that said denon d1100 and got excited until i looked down and there was nothing on the rack...

 

[John In Cali]

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I was at the local frys and saw a little tag that said denon d1100 and got excited until i looked down and there was nothing on the rack...

They didn't have any in box?  They might have let you try them out.

 

[dooodstevenn]

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They didn't have any in box?  They might have let you try them out.

oh sorry, i ment none what so ever, be it new in box or display.  i was gonna grab one to try at home, and if i didnt like them or could no justify the price i could easily return them. 

 

[dooodstevenn]

I have some htf600's on the way, 30 bucks from amazon so i figured i'd try them to see what all the hype is about, will try to do out of box comparisons because i didnt burn in the xb500's for too long, only about 10 hrs. does anyone know the suggested burn in for the panny's? 

 

[Totally Dubbed]

Quote:

I have some htf600's on the way, 30 bucks from amazon so i figured i'd try them to see what all the hype is about, will try to do out of box comparisons because i didnt burn in the xb500's for too long, only about 10 hrs. does anyone know the suggested burn in for the panny's? 

that would explain why you were disappointed with the xb500's...lol
 
Remember your only paying $30 to $50 for these headphones, don't expect them to be denon d7000 quality...
 
 
 

 

[bowei006]

the hfi 580's are $118