I got to hear the 501s at Hirsch's headphone meet, and the bass sounded fine, it didn't seem to be missing. It wasn't strong, it was more along the lines of the Grado SR60s. Listen awhile without A/Bing with other headphones and it could satisfy, but it certainly wasn't visceral. But overall, I do recall thinking to myself, that's a really nice sounding pair of headphones. I'm beginning to believe that it's the overall presentation, the whole package, that determines whether a headphone sound is pleasing and compelling... not whether one segment of the frequency response (such as low bass) is accurate or strong or not. I also think if you listen to a certain headphone enough, and the response is there, but a little weak, you can still enjoy it, with perhaps the exception of peaks and valleys in the midrange frequencies that we are most sensitive to (this is where the cheapies fall apart, imho).
I once left an audio-related forum because I was personally attacked by people who didn't agree with me on certain issues. Was I right? Yes. Did I handle the situation right? No. And so I ended up leaving something that I really liked. And what I have learned since then, in many many ways, is, to be very trite, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. Or to use another cliche, I have tried being smart, and I have tried being kind, and kind is better. (Especially since I'm not that good at being smart.)
My adjustment has been not to direct my disagreements to others personally, but to just state my differing opinion without confrontation or reference to anyone else and if I get a little personal barb from someone just ignore it or laugh.
Or if I feel a little more strongly about something, I'll use satire but carefully devoid of personal attacks. If someone takes it seriously and comes after me I laugh my head off, and believe me I REALLY laugh, and leave it alone. I've made my point.
Some people will always be a target because their opinions here hold a lot of credibility, and if someone disagrees, they have to persuade others that yes, believe it or not, this well-known person's opinion is wrong on this particular occasion, to get their opinion across the way they want to. And when that well-known person responds in kind and with a well-supported argument, well, let the flame wars begin. Let's face it, we're all a little nutty here and we do get emotionally attached to our headphone opinions and preferences.
But anyway, well-known-person, your bottom-line opinions are among the very best at head-fi. No doubt about it. I always get a strong flash of interest and being entertained when I see there's a well-known-person posting on some subject.
So I'd be genuinely disappointed if you left.
You're so vain, you probably think this post is about you.