[cheuh]

Quote:

 
+1!!! Mad Dog is trully worth it, tested so many headphones around the same price and none can compare. Even felt the lcd2 rev2 was to close to be worth having aswell, so decided to stick with Mad Dog and DT880 and he400 as a open cans.

 
You own all 3 of them? Could you do a comparison between them?

 

[Leonarfd]

Mad Dog is more detailed than dt880 and he400, he400 is darker in the signature than both and has abit more bass than dt880. I would call the dt880 and Mad Dog the ones with most detailes in the music, while the he400 just being really smooth with the music. Don't have much time atm to be to describing. All 3 of them are really good and fullfil my collection. Atleast for now

 

[Beagle]

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Good point, though that gets kinda tough with electronic music.  I've never encountered a actual wub wub out in the wild. 

 
Very true, some types of music cannot be referenced live....for these you will need to find the recording engineers gear and monitors!

 

[money4me247]

 
Quote:

Originally Posted by warrenpchi 

 
Well we're not talking about what a witness might have glanced out of the corner of their eye a few months back.  We're talking about sensory input that is being intensely focused upon and scrutinized, repeatedly, over a long period of time.  There is a difference.  If what your saying is true, then all impressions that are not gathered on the spot are faulty.  And we know that just isn't true.
 

Also, it is worth noting that those with ear training - or at the very least musical training - tend to perform better at auditory recollection.  I'll grant you that not everyone in the general population is capable of recollecting the nuances of what they have heard.  But amongst audiophiles, there does tend to be a better overall track record of such things.

 

I am not doubting your ability to analytically listen to your headphones & I am sure your ears are trained very very well. however, if I blind-folded you heh and randomly picked one headphone out of all the headphones you ever owned, played a random song, and asked you to correctly identify which headphones you are listening to, I would be extremely impressed if you could pick the right one. Or if I just hooked up a pair of headphones with a random amp and asked you to tell me which amp it is without looking, I am pretty sure it would be very difficult. I am sure your impressions of your headphones can be very accurate while you are demoing them, but I would be wary of a claim that someone's auditory recollection is so good that they can recognize the exact sound signature & all the audio subtleties of all their previously owned headphones. in the fact, I've heard that experiments have shown most people (including some audiophiles) cannot even consistently correctly identify the difference between a 320kpbs mp3 file from a lossless file in a blind comparison test.
 
Now I am sure your general impression is accurate and you remember what flaws/strengths you thought the headphones had, but that is a subjective preference. That is why I think that it is better for people trying to find headphones to read about a direct A/B comparison of the headphones' objective differences. Rather than just talking about your auditory recollection/personal impressions, you are comparing the sonic features that distinguish two headphones, which allows the person to demo one of those headphones, personally decide what they feel is the strength/weakness of those headphones, and conclude whether the sonic difference described in an A/B comparison for the alternative headphones is providing what they are looking for.
 
aka what I said earlier (with edits in italics to better illustrate my meaning): 

I just think that comparisons are more valuable because if "someone reading the comparison" only experienced one pair of headphones, then "that person reading the comparison" can use comparisons as a reference to see how the sound signature changes and if that is the type of change "they" are looking for.

 
Basically to summarize: No, I do not exactly remember every detail of each pair of headphones that I hear and I do not need to feel the need to pretend that I do. The Ultrasone Pro 900 and the V-Moda M100 are both very bassy v-shaped headphones from my experience with them separately. Yes, I am comfortable recommending the Pro 900 as a solid alternative as I liked their sound signature and found it comparable to the M100. No, I am not very comfortable talking about exactly how their sound signatures are different, because I did not get a chance to do a direct A/B comparison between them. Yes, I do believe that you can get a "rough mental image" of the sound signature and compare the rough mental images in your head, but I also believe that you need to do a direct comparison with the same set-up/source to minimize the biases due to different variables to gain a true understanding of what are the particular sonic "nuances" that distinguish them. Yes, you can remember & form an impression of what a certain pair of headphones sound after you take them off, but I don't think that allows you seriously analyze all the sonic differences between two sonically similar headphones if you never directly compared them. 
 
Now if you disagree with this opinion, that's is totally fine. I am a bit confused as you first say that you "generally don't remember every nuances of every headphones," but now you seem to be implying that due to your ear training, extensive ownership of each headphone, and testing with various setups/sources that your "rough mental image of their signatures" does actually also include very detailed nuance descriptions of all the headphones that you owned. However, I don't really see the need of continuing this discussion as the rest of your responses aren't really saying anything that I disagree with, so I am not even sure what you are arguing for. It seems to me that you may just be misinterpreting my points & hopefully, not arguing for the sake of arguing. I really don't think anything I said is something to take offense at or even beyond the realm of simple common sense, so hopefully, this thread can get back to talking about headphones w/ good & fast bass rather than this off-topic but very interesting side tangent. =)

 

[warrenpchi]

Quote:

Now I am sure your general impression is accurate and you remember what flaws/strengths you thought the headphones had, but that is a subjective preference. That is why I think that it is better for people trying to find headphones to read about a direct A/B comparison of the headphones' objective differences. Rather than just talking about your auditory recollection/personal impressions, you are comparing the sonic features that distinguish two headphones, which allows the person to demo one of those headphones, personally decide what they feel is the strength/weakness of those headphones, and conclude whether the sonic difference described in an A/B comparison for the alternative headphones is providing what they are looking for.

 
And one of the things that I've been trying to point out is that you cannot make an objective comparison between two subjective points, whether its done through direct A/B, auditory recollection or otherwise.  If neither reference point A (a subjective impression), nor reference point B (another subjective impression) are fixed, one cannot be sure of determining a uniform difference between the two.  It will be a subjective difference.  This is because people will hear the two headphones differently, so they will also contrast the two headphones differently. 
 
Consider the following questions between any two headphones.  How are they different?  To what degree is are there such differences?  Just because you perceive a difference to a certain degree, does that mean that someone else will perceive the exact same difference to the exact same degree?  Objectivity leaves no room for interpretation in such cases.  And yet we know that people can (and have) disagreed on such matters.
 
I would much rather that we agree on direct A/B resulting in an increased chance of more accurately discerning subjective differences.  But to say that those differences will be objective is stretching it way too far.  You see where I'm going with this?
 
Quote:

I am a bit confused as you first say that you "generally don't remember every nuances of every headphones,"

 
I don't.  I think that would be a bit of an outlandish claim for anyone to make, and I know that you agree.
 
Quote:

but now you seem to be implying that due to your ear training, extensive ownership of each headphone, and testing with various setups/sources that your "rough mental image of their signatures" does actually also include very detailed nuance descriptions of all the headphones that you owned.

 
Well now hold on, I don't believe I've made any personal claims about ear training or extensive ownership of headphones. 

  I made one reference to one pair of cans that I have (the Q701).  And I did speak generally of audiophiles being better able to recollect impressions than the average Joe.  But I don't believe I localized those comments to anyone, certainly not myself
 
But what I have been saying is that - short of whipping out graphs - all impressions are subjective.  This includes impressions gained through direct A/B, as I've pointed out above.  And if a direct A/B is not strictly required to yield substantially more information that would be relevant to the OP, then why not offer your impressions of the two right?  I mean, you had already made the recommendation.  Why not explain why you made the rec right? 
 
I certainly don't think that the OP expected your impressions to be perfect or spot on.  And I don't think he was expecting you to have any kind of objective data at all.  Having either of those expectations would have been both unreasonable and unrealistic.  But as he has heard neither, I'm sure your impressions would have helped him.  No one, not you, not I, not anyone, is going to be able to give impressions that he can absolutely bank on... especially since he has different ears from everyone else in this thread.  But more impressions do serve as more data points, which are helpful nonetheless.  And you gotta admit bro, it took a quite a few posts (and some effort) to finally yank some impressions out of ya.  

 
On one hand, I wanna say WTG on being conservative about handing out casual impressions.  But OTOH... DAYAM! 

  It's not we're asking you to divulge classified information or something there buddy! 

 
EDIT:  BTW, I don't really see this as an argument.  It's more of a discussion where we happen to agree on some things and disagree on others.  But I agree with not thread crapping too much here.  I'd be happy to take this to PM if you like. 

  Then we can chat without feeling like we're intruding on everyone else.  Cheers!

 

[warrenpchi]

Quote:

Quote:

 
Good point, though that gets kinda tough with electronic music.  I've never encountered a actual wub wub out in the wild. 

 
Very true, some types of music cannot be referenced live....for these you will need to find the recording engineers gear and monitors!

 
And hope that they weren't using NS10s. 

 

[talkinghead]

To shortly interrupt the discussion of ludicrously expensive orthowhatever headphones handcrafted from neutron star material by space dwarves in the center of a black hole...
 
The ATH-M50s are really, really nice and pretty much exactly what i was looking for. The bass is perfect.
They could be more comfortable but it seems like they get a little looser the more i wear them so i guess that should be fine. I could stretch them i guess but i'm a bit worried that if i overstretch them the bass will get a bit weaker.

 

[Jepu]

I'll add Focal Spirit Ones to the list of headphones to consider. Their bass response is really, really good and fast in my experience. Bonus-portability is there too, designed for portable use and all. I'd say their biggest drawback is just the difficulty to use a proper headphone amplifier with them. They're pretty sensitive for 32 Ohm headphones and any slight hissiness tends to be pretty audible with them if you use them on amps meant for more power-hungry headphones.

 

[tseliottt]

Yamaha Pro 500s have very fast bass, but plenty of punch. They have an amazing ability to separate and have very nice treble which would match perfectly with electronica, trance, etc.

 

[SIDWULF]

Have you considered the $99 M-Audio Q40's?
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/600026/m-audio-studiophile-q40-review-and-appreciation