[punit]

The M9 mids are quite good with HD 800, I would say it has neutral mids does not emphasize them. If that had been my first amp with TH 900 then maybe I wouldn't create a big fuss but I was using the TH 900 on WA22 which has glorious slightly forward mids, so when I moved to M9 I immediately felt the slight recession in mids as TH 900 is slightly mid deficient to begin with.

 

[Paul Meakin]

you've gotta be kidding

 
That large, well amplified speakers can far exceed the bass that the TH900s can generate, in low frequency extension, speed, and impact?
 
Otherwise, please post a more helpful, intelligent, and insightful comment. Your last attempt does not qualify on any of those points.

 

[HemiSam]

I think his point is that it wasn't a fair comparison to a pair of closed headphones.  I agree....speakers have a lot more room to play with and, therefore, can provide more bass impact (e.g. a subwoofer) vs a closed set of cans.
 
HS

 

[up late]

That large, well amplified speakers can far exceed the bass that the TH900s can generate, in low frequency extension, speed, and impact?

Otherwise, please post a more helpful, intelligent, and insightful comment. Your last attempt does not qualify on any of those points.

happy to oblige. the stax lambdas i've heard don't have the th900's visceral bass. lambda bass has good extension and is tight but not impactful.

the th900's bass goes lower than most bookshelf/standmount speakers. the comparison to large speakers being driven by powerful amps goes without saying really - the th900 is a headphone after all.

don't agree with your comment about its "perceived limitations" being "a source/amp issue" either. the importance of this is overstated.

trust that's "more helpful, intelligent, and insightful" for ya.

 

[Gandah]

That large, well amplified speakers can far exceed the bass that the TH900s can generate, in low frequency extension, speed, and impact?

Otherwise, please post a more helpful, intelligent, and insightful comment. Your last attempt does not qualify on any of those points.

happy to oblige. the stax lambdas i've heard don't have the th900's visceral bass. lambda bass has good extension and is tight but not impactful.

the th900's bass goes lower than most bookshelf/standmount speakers. the comparison to large speakers being driven by powerful amps goes without saying really - the th900 is a headphone after all.

don't agree with your comment about its "perceived limitations" being "a source/amp issue" either. the importance of this is overstated.

trust that's "more helpful, intelligent, and insightful" for ya.

Guys, keep calm and just know bass isn't everything.....

 

[up late]

no need to moderate man. it's all good at this end.

 

[kurochin]

....and just know bass isn't everything.....

You've got to be kidding =P

 

[Gandah]

You've got to be kidding =P

Gulp..... lol

 

[sir poulet]

Does anyone have opinions on the best positioning for these headphones on your head? For example, front and up (so that the pads are hugging the bottom and back of your ears) or bottom and center (so it's almost resting on top of your earlobe with your ears in the middle). I'm also curious about the positioning of the headband on your head since when you look at the Fostex logo on the phone it's at a steep angle compared to the headband -- if you're wearing the headphone and want the logo parallel to the ground, the headband has to be slightly forward on your head which feels a little out of place. This is easy to play around with myself but I'm curious to hear what others have settled on!

 

[Kyle 491]

I wear them with my ear centred in the cups, headband untilted. Seems to provide the best imaging and bass response. The TH900 doesnt seem really affected by positional changes, but much more by pad rotation or material changes. The HD800 can sound a little less prone to harshness if you wear them low and forward, with the headband tilted towards the brow, but I dont get this effect with the TH900.

 

[plakat]

  I had my TH900 re-terminated with a 4-pin XLR and then had an XLR to single-ended adapter constructed from the original TH900 single-ended connector.  This way, I can use my TH900's with single-ended or balanced output amps.
 
My headphone amp is not a balanced design, however, it has XLR and single ended outputs, so it was easy for me to run A/B tests using each connector.
 
The balanced connector sounds better to me.  Just my two cents.

 
 
do I understand that right that your amp is *not* balanced, it just offers XLR output connections in addition to the 1/4" jack? In that case comparing those outputs might make much sense...
 
 

Admittedly, I listen to a lot of electronic music, so my bass needs will, I imagine, be higher than those into acoustic or classical. My question is: am I doing this wrong, somehow? I read posts stating that the Fostex TH900 have so much bass that it actually bothers people enough to return them(!). By default? Really? I don't understand how that could be possible, unless folks saying this haven't spent time with a decent home theater setup, or just plain hate bass.

 
I'm working as a sound engineer, often building PA systems with several kW for bass systems alone, so I think I know what visceral bass might be
Still I consider many presentations much too bass-heavy (PA as well as many headphones), to me its simply fatiguing to listen to them for longer (and I listen primarily to EDM), so I guess its a matter of taste... plus, in my case, I've done what I considered necessary... and now know that there is such a thing as too much bass for me.
 

  That large, well amplified speakers can far exceed the bass that the TH900s can generate, in low frequency extension, speed, and impact?

 
I think the problematic difference is that speakers can generate the very important part in perceiving bass that headphones by their very nature can not: body vibrations. Coming back to what I said above regarding PA systems: is a whole other level standing in a room in front of an array of decently powered infras and *feeling* the bass kick. I get goose bumps despite I'm wearing hearing protection while working... no headphone can do that. Still a good headphone can very well reach down deep where most home speakers would never go (at least not with a similarly clean impulse response, therefore most subs do not count). I'd say a headphone like the TH900 wins in extension and maybe speed, but fails utterly in impact. On the other hand it won't disturb your fiancé or neighbors

 

[zolkis]

Compared with a good speaker set-up, the TH900s LACK bass, at least at the low-end. They're generally good, and preferable to most headphones that I've heard, although I think my Stax Lambdas probably kick harder at the low end. From my limited exposure to HD800s and T1s, no thanks, they're tilted to the treble and lack bass compared with the Fostex and Stax.
 
Listening to something like Brand X, Unorthodox Behaviour emphasizes the point; it's weedy on the Fostex, but has lots of low-end growl and enormous slam on a high-end speaker system. However, the bass should be missing most of the time, and rattling the windows when it kicks in... it probably goes to lower frequencies than headphones can manage, though.

 
I think you expect too much from headphones in general
I have pretty good speaker setup (being my preferred way of listening), with separate stereo woofer units AND large subwoofers which allegedly go down flat to 20 Hz and to about 7 Hz at -6dB (I appreciate its dynamic scale even more than its bass extension), and I can say that my modded TH900 gets very close to it in bass impact, energy, vibrancy, name it, down to about 25 Hz - except sound stage and spatial resolution. The TH900 definitely kick hard, deep, and fast, I can almost feel it in the guts when there is low bass content. It is my favourite late night movie headphone (gorgeous with electronic bass and low rumbles and explosion afterwaves , and I don't miss much compared to speakers, at least with bass, and that is before taking into account the order of magnitude in price ratio. Speakers and my Stax 007 sound more clear and with better musical resolution, but the TH900 is one of the bass kings among headphones, and quite versatile at that. The stock version is a bit more limited with bass, but even that has much more bass impact than any Lambda, and I have owned/heard a few, of which the 507 had biggest bass impact, but not matching that of the TH900. The 007Mk1 has more "musical" and more effortless bass, but less than the TH900 (they feel like speakers going down to something like 30 Hz but very good dynamic scale at that), and the TH900 has better bass texture and body in the lowest end (25-30 Hz). Indeed headphones cannot reproduce realistic impact at the lowest frequencies, which you mainly feel with the bones, but the TH900 got amazingly close to it.

 

[up late]

the th900 and abyss do a convincing job of reproducing speaker-like bass. guess too much bass is never enough for bass heads.

 

[Whazzzup]

the th900 and abyss do a convincing job of reproducing speaker-like bass. guess too much bass is never enough for bass heads.

I'm really looking forward to my Jenna lab cable upgrade, I suspect even more detail to the entire spectrum, but the th900 has something over speaker thump and that's detail to the low end. It's not about a souped up bass pump, it's the clarity and seperation which allows those low frequencies to roll down ones spine. Th900 is not fake, course we all know that.

 

[NinjaHamster]

and of course, getting good low bass from speakers involves so many room interactions etc. that even the greatest speakers might struggle in the typical room. This is possibly the biggest advantage I perceive to headphone bass (though there's nothing like a speaker vibrating your bones and providing an internal massage) and perhaps to the headphone experience in general.

Of course, my Audeze's have MUCH better bass than my standmount speakers with a 6" "fullrange" (LOL - except for the treble and bass) driver !