[roma101]

Go for the Q40s. Another great basshead can is the Shure SRH-750DJ. Only thing is I found them a tad uncomfortable. But in regards to what you're looking for sonically, they absolutely fit the bill.

 

[Canuck99]

Related to the M50 - can anyone tell me where the ATH-PRO5MSA fits in? Is it the M50? In Canada FS has them for a lot less than L&M sell the M50 - the Pro5MSA has camouflage on the cups.

 

[ssrock64]

The entire Pro5 series is a more traditional style of headphone, in the same vein as the Sony MDR-V6. It's built as a sturdy, cheap monitor, with some random "design" editions like the MA being thrown in. At its price, the MDR-V6 is superior with a similar design. They are more flat-sounding than the ATH-M50, and also lack the bass impact of the more popular headphone.
 
EDIT: That's my 1000th post, folks!

 

[RayleighSilvers]

Quote:

The entire Pro5 series is a more traditional style of headphone, in the same vein as the Sony MDR-V6. It's built as a sturdy, cheap monitor, with some random "design" editions like the MA being thrown in. At its price, the MDR-V6 is superior with a similar design. They are more flat-sounding than the ATH-M50, and also lack the bass impact of the more popular headphone.
 
EDIT: That's my 1000th post, folks!

lol congratulations. Now you can retire from head-fi and wait for the rest of us to catch up.

 

[markzi]

Well, I listen to Metal and Rock, just like you, I own a pair of Sennheiser HD 598s. They are amazing. And my amp hasn't even arrived yet. They lack some bass. But I'm sure my Fiio E7 will fix that once it gets here.
So I'd recommend the HD 598s

 

[Pianist]

To the OP: So what is it that you don't like about the M50? Lack of bass quantity? How about quality of bass and the rest of the spectrum?

 

[gdscei]

Quote:

Yet as soon as I put it on, I was disappointed.

Judging from this comment, you have not burned them in yet. I've heard people say it gets better. (talking here 50-100h)
 
But, if you really are a basshead, you shouldn't have looked for the M50's But with a burn-in it should get better. Also an EQ / AMP may make a big difference and may save you $150.

 

[ssrock64]

Quote:

Judging from this comment, you have not burned them in yet. I've heard people say it gets better. (talking here 50-100h)

Burn-in does make a difference, but not so much that your opinion of the sound would change. When comparing a brand-new white-box ATH-M50 to an example that had 1000 hours on it, I did notice some small differences. The midrange was a bit less present and the bass was a bit ill-defined on the new ATH-M50 with no burn-in, but the change from that to the one with 1000 hours on it was negligible. If the OP didn't like the original sound, they still won't like it a year from now.

 

[musubi1000]

It all starts with the source files. If you have bad files it won't sound very good no matter the choice of equipment. I find pandora files to be adequete. an EQ is also useful but if you're playing from an iPod you're up a creek on this one. Your player source is next. If you have a weak player the music can sound flatter. The M50s don't need an amp for the most part but it can make the greatest of differences to the music heard. Check out a simple JDS labs CMOY BB amp. $60. It will practically double you bass side nicely while being pretty transparent. If you wanna tweak it some more try rolling the op amp in it. With more power the music becomes more dynamic with bigger bass and usually a bigger stage. it does with the M50. Another suggestion I didn't see were the AT Pro700mkII which are DJ phones. also known as Allen & Heath Xone 53. These get raving reviews about bigger bass than the M50 but still retain most of the qualities that made the m50s so good. I haven't heard these myself but maybe some here can chime in.

 

[obobskivich]

256k is still not "the best," it also can't be VBR and 256k - it's either variable or it's not. If it's 256k it's not variable, it's 256k. If you want full fidelity 320k is generally where that starts, but V1 or V0 can (if implemented right) save you a lot of space and not kill fidelity. 
 
I disagree with the comment on bass. It *can* take power, but it also depends on how sensitive a given pair of cans are - none of the "bass" headphones really need that much power to cleave your head off. Most portables can get there, most sound cards can get you there, most amps can get you there and back again. 
Quote:

I think the earlier comment about one of your sources, Pandora, has gone unrecognized. At 64k AAC you're missing ALOT of information cropped in the compression scheme. That's probably making a neutral headphone like the M50 (which you may not have been impressed with anyway) sound worse... They are likely exposing the weaknesses of the extreme compression. That's an issue you will have with any good set of cans (at any price) when listening to Pandora and other Internet streaming music.
I'm actually re-ripping all of my cd's at 256k AAC vbr... with my headphones and amp I can hear the difference between that and 192k mp3 (what I had formerly ripped at).
Also, good, clean, tooth-chipping, bass takes juice... the average iPod, sound card, etc. just doesn't have the power to dig deep and clean. You may want to consider an amp to go with your headphone purchase.
I can't comment on the 'phones suggested as I have never auditioned them, but I think that once you get a pair that have the bottom end you want, and you drive them with a juicy amp, you'll be smiling for days...

 

 

[bengoshi2000]

Agreed, 256k vbr isn't the best... lossless is. But I've found, for myself, 256k vbr AAC to be a reasonable compromise between SQ and disk space available on my portable devices.

I also agree on your sensitivity comment. But IME clean bass is always going to take some additional amount of power. But I'll be the first to admit my experience is limited to a very very few sets of 'phones.

 

[obobskivich]

Again, 256k cannot be VBR. VBR means Variable BitRate. It's inherently different from a constant bitrate (like 256k). 
 
The argument on bass is something I'm not buying; take something like a Denon or Beats headphone. They're very sensitive and have a boost (to varrying degrees) on the bottom end. They need less than a fraction of a mW (which is 1/1000W) to produce 90 dB SPL (which is loud enough to damage your hearing). It doesn't matter if you've got a 50mW amplifier or a 10,000mW amplifier behind them - they will only draw that fraction of a mW to produce that signal (90 dB). Having the extra amplifier power does nothing at all, until/unless you want things louder, which needs more power. Bass does take power sure, but with modern headphones (which are very efficient) and modern devices (which tend to have more power than they know what to do with) it's usually not something we have to worry about; if you want a lot of bass, just get a bassy headphone (or IEM). 
 
Sure, there's some exceptions to this. But usually it's older equipment.
Quote:

Agreed, 256k vbr isn't the best... lossless is. But I've found, for myself, 256k vbr AAC to be a reasonable compromise between SQ and disk space available on my portable devices.
I also agree on your sensitivity comment. But IME clean bass is always going to take some additional amount of power. But I'll be the first to admit my experience is limited to a very very few sets of 'phones.

 

 

[TMRaven]

I don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of the labeling of 256k being vbr or not. What's he supposed to say, 80kbps-430kbps aac? 256kbps vbr is still 256kbps vbr, the encoder just tries to average everything out so the end result still takes up around the same amount of data as a constant 256kbps aac.

 

[obobskivich]

It's either AAC VBR or 256k CBR - or I'm misunderstanding him. Perhaps it would be better to say: What exactly do you mean by "256k vbr"? 
 
ABR is still different (and is what you're describing): 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_bitrate
 
Just trying to be on the same page as everyone else, not meaning to snap anyone's head off. 

 
Quote:

I don't understand why you're making such a big deal out of the labeling of 256k being vbr or not. What's he supposed to say, 80kbps-430kbps aac? 256kbps vbr is still 256kbps vbr, the encoder just tries to average everything out so the end result still takes up around the same amount of data as a constant 256kbps aac.

 

 

[TMRaven]

What do you mean it's either aac vbr or 256k cbr? You've never ripped in 256k or 320k vbr aac before? VBR and ABR can be the same thing.