[Thommohawk]

Quote:

 
The quality of the bass, just like the quality of the rest of the frequency response, is all important. But boosting the quantity of any one element to make it dominant does not improve the music.
 
I'll go back to my previous point - after listening to one sound signature for a week or so, your mind adjusts to the levels anyway. That reaction someone coming from bass dominated headphones "these have no bass" is just that there is less bass than your mind is conditioned to expect. Within a week that amount of bass would seem like the right amount too and going back to the bass dominated cans again you'd feel like you were being repeatedly punched in the face by the bass and would notice how much less detail of your music you could hear clearly.

The music remains the same throughout, just boosting one frequency over another conforms to one person's preference of the frequency band they'd rather hear more of....
 
Also the statement about less bass becoming 'normalized' after a week or two of listening, speaking for myself, is not necessarily so - the reason being that I've had headphones that I felt lacked bass and I used them everyday for a year until I sold them - and after a year of constant use when I sold them I still felt the sound sig lacked bass. So I guess it depends on the person. Others have said it best though, bass is a third of the music (taken as a whole) and that lots of genres rely on the bass to give the songs their necessary rhythm & beat otherwise they just don't sound right at best, but at worst sounds like it's had it's legs sawn off.
 
Obviously this is just my opinion. Feel free to agree/disagree as applicable. 
 
 

 

[EddieE]

Well I'd elaborate on a few points.
 
First is that I mean real bass, lower bass, not the lower mids/upper bass realm known as mid bass. Mid bass for me is the most fragile and unforgiving of areas in the frequency response. Too much and the music is blurred, muddy and ill defined; too little and its hollow, thin and tinny. There's the smallest range it works with and if its wrong its broken. With lower bass its much more forgiving and the mind can adjust to a much greater range and "normalise" it.
 
Second is to do with that range. Obviously there is an amount that is just too little; the human ear strains to hear it. There is also an amount that is just too much; your jaw starts to vibrate and you feel physically nauseous. When I talk about the mind adjusting to levels of bass it takes into account a reasonable range and excepts headphones where there is just too little or way too much.
 
Third is to do with ranges again. I am not advocating completely balanced headphones alone and slamming all others. I think what "balanced" even meant when it comes to audio would be a debate of its own. I'm suggesting it is best to have no one element of the audio overly dominating the sound. That leaves a lot of variation at each part of the audio range to be a bit more or less prominent and a broad variety of sound signatures to pass muster without it getting to a point where its actually hard to appreciate any other part of the music properly but the one propelled into the foreground by excessive boosting.
 
All my headphones have a frequency response within a reasonable range of each other, but they all sound very different - its not "one sound to rule them all" with me - just a dislike of headphones that force you to focus on just one area of the music at the detriment of all others.

 

[jerg]

Listen to music - bass
Hear music - treble
Experience music - mids
 
and all that.

 

[DaBomb77766]

Quote:

Well I'd elaborate on a few points.
 
First is that I mean real bass, lower bass, not the lower mids/upper bass realm known as mid bass. Mid bass for me is the most fragile and unforgiving of areas in the frequency response. Too much and the music is blurred, muddy and ill defined; too little and its hollow, thin and tinny. There's the smallest range it works with and if its wrong its broken. With lower bass its much more forgiving and the mind can adjust to a much greater range and "normalise" it.
 
Second is to do with that range. Obviously there is an amount that is just too little; the human ear strains to hear it. There is also an amount that is just too much; your jaw starts to vibrate and you feel physically nauseous. When I talk about the mind adjusting to levels of bass it takes into account a reasonable range and excepts headphones where there is just too little or way too much.
 
Third is to do with ranges again. I am not advocating completely balanced headphones alone and slamming all others. I think what "balanced" even meant when it comes to audio would be a debate of its own. I'm suggesting it is best to have no one element of the audio overly dominating the sound. That leaves a lot of variation at each part of the audio range to be a bit more or less prominent and a broad variety of sound signatures to pass muster without it getting to a point where its actually hard to appreciate any other part of the music properly but the one propelled into the foreground by excessing boosting.
 
All my headphones have a frequency response within a reasonable range of each other, but they all sound very different - its not "one sound to rule them all" with me - just a dislike of headphones that force you to focus on just one area of the music at the detriment of all others.

So just to be clear, you're only talking about the headphone's frequency response here, are you not?  Because there is a lot of music that has its bass and treble EQ'd to be louder than everything else, namely a lot of pop and electronic music.  Often it's just part of the style...and not necessarily a bad thing.  But it can get nauseating after awhile.  
 
Still, just having one bit of the signature being somewhat forward doesn't really mean it's "dominating" the sound.  And at that, a lot of lower-end offerings often can either be a jack-of-all trades but master of none or simply focus on one part of the signature.  As such, you can have dominating mids if the rest of the signature simply is not of high quality, rather than being boosted.
 
-is tired and may not even be making any sense right now-

 

[EddieE]

Yeah just talking about headphones. The only thing that can be done with poor recordings is to not buy them!

 

[AnAnalogSpirit]

deleted -- oops!

 

[Quote]

I believe that many people do obsess over the bass. A list of many reasons/examples of this:

1. (biggest case, IMO) The people who drive down the street with their bass so tuned up that I can hear it over my own music's bass.
2. One of my friends who says that my M50s suck because "you can't even hear the bass at all!", yet I keep my EQ on my iPod on "Rock," both because my main listening genre is metal and there isn't a metal EQ, but also because my ears are very insensitive to bass.
3. The same friend as above who has his EQ on his computer as max in the bass range and minimum in everything else.
4. People that complain about how they can't hear the bass or how it sounds bad. Know why? THEY'RE USING 96kb/s FILES. I once tried to have y friends listen to how funky my FLACs are, but they just said there's no difference(which is preposterous in every sense of the word.)

A major case and point: the Beats.

 

[Dancingduck]

Hi Quote.. I'm just quoting your post due to the mention of car audio/Beets.
 
Not much of an audiophile.. I guess I can say I fall into the commoner or lesser audiophile type.. audiopeon.  I digress.  I started out as most kids who liked car audio.  The big sub woofer bass .. you know the kind that rocks strollers and car alarms?  I remember the bass being so loud in the trunk it would give you a massage in the backseat!   Yes, I'll admit it when I was young I was a basshead.. that I do know.. and still lurve the bass to today..  back in the day it was rap, hip hop, with bass heavy music.. throughout the years my musical tastes have changed.. rock, classical, dance, electronic, yet still love music with good bass and can appreciate it. Here's an example:   This is a bass test..                
 
Warning: this is not high quality by any means.. but something a basshead may love. Audiophiles may be disturbed.
 
 

 
Do people obsess?  I sincerely believe so.  Even though I love bass.. I am repulsed by the Beats primarily in context to their asking price for their sound.  I think it's important to consider that their are folks who love their bass, but I wonder what is considered overkill?  I think a possible example of someone who is obsessed is my dj friend who works in the hip/hop genre.. spins the top 40 (which is mostly hip hop/rap/pop).  He is set on his Beats by Dre. (A part of a fashion$$ and image thing as well)  I think anyone who likes the Beats really only want their Bass 'personally' and imagery.   I had him try on my sony xb-700's and he liked the sound.. (just being nice possibly) but said they looked funny on your head.
 
Can we say people who are obsessed with their bass are the ones who don't care for the rest of the sound and focus primarily on the bass? Am I obsessed?  I don't think so..  or maybe I am?

 

 
Quote:

I believe that many people do obsess over the bass. A list of many reasons/examples of this:

1. (biggest case, IMO) The people who drive down the street with their bass so tuned up that I can hear it over my own music's bass.
2. One of my friends who says that my M50s suck because "you can't even hear the bass at all!", yet I keep my EQ on my iPod on "Rock," both because my main listening genre is metal and there isn't a metal EQ, but also because my ears are very insensitive to bass.
3. The same friend as above who has his EQ on his computer as max in the bass range and minimum in everything else.
4. People that complain about how they can't hear the bass or how it sounds bad. Know why? THEY'RE USING 96kb/s FILES. I once tried to have y friends listen to how funky my FLACs are, but they just said there's no difference(which is preposterous in every sense of the word.)

A major case and point: the Beats.