Sam L
Headphoneus Supremus
a post worth saving, lots of great observations and insight!Even more surprising to me is that in these situations such reviewers tend to only take into consideration bass impact (slam and punch) and/or depth (sub-bass) which is greatly affected by "fitting seal" but say nothing at all about bass resolution (the resolving detail and natural timbre of the bass) which is less affected by "fitting seal" and more so by driver design, quality, and tuning. Although earbuds, more often than not, are indeed very lacking in both bass impact and depth, their open-air design offers excellent natural sounding timbre and quite superb resolution which in-turn provides excellently accurate bass resolution. And with very little "fitting seal" required; less so than what is required by an IEM. Often times earbuds may and do trump IEMs in this regards (bass resolution). Case in point... with the bass/timpani drum, double bass, and cello their timbre and detail in the lower frequencies is not always quite right with IEMs although the impact and depth is indeed most definitely there (and wondrously at that!) they are often not accurate (natural sounding) in the bass registers. Even synth bass sounds through certain IEMS can exhibit wonky bass registers (to the point of distortion) and/or muddying timbre (the mixing and complete loss of separation between different bass sounds that are supposed to be distinct and apart). Every transducer type has it's cons but also has it's pros... it just is conveniently and often forgotten when it comes to earbuds.
Fully agree with your qualitative assessment of how earbuds render bass, which is why I love them as my main listening genre is classical music. I also think buds, in general, convey live classical music more accurately than iems. I still appreciate iems (my last 4 or 5 purchases inside of a month were all iems) but live classical music is rendered artificially compared to a decent earbud -- and not just the bass, the treble as well, which is why I can't stand electrostatics (but I'm willing to give the s12 a chance).