Quote:
It doesn't sound like you have a good seal.
Do this: Put your 16's in and with no music playing rub your thumb and finger together near your ears. Can you hear it? if so, you don't have a good seal.
The 16's sound great straight out of an iPod. An amp is a small improvement with these particular phones, but won't bring a large bass increase.
What kind of music and file types are you using?
I have a good seal. Rubbing my fingers I can't hear them, they isolate as good or better than my TF10 did with comply foam tips.
I'm not saying they are "lacking" in bass. I expected more out of Quad Bass drivers, and from all the reviews that call them bass monsters, I disagree. They are not lacking, but not monsters. The SF5 EB were Bass Monsters. (although sounded like crap).
I never claimed the 16s didn't sound good. They sound super crisp, and clean. Only that the bass isn't "monstrous" as others claim. They can handle the bass, and if you eq the sound, behind an amp they will shake your ear drums out. But with no DSP, or "flat" eq they sound very balanced, not "monster bass". Alot of it has to do with the song I feel. Some songs the bass feels powerful, others it feels slightly lacking, which could be how the artist intended it to be.
My self, my iPhone EQ, "bass booster" setting lowers the mids/highs and over all drops sound quality, so I just leave it off, and live with it. On my PC/Receiver I add the values I stated above giving the music extra bass.
But yes, I have a good seal, rubbing my fingers it can hardly be heard at all i have to strain to hear it... and holding a conversation with someone with them in my ears is almost impossible.
I'm not knocking the quality of the sound, and maybe it's my bass-head ways... I find them very balanced, and I'm happy they are tuned the way they are, because on some songs i think if they had more bass it would be over powering. The way they are tuned seems to be a perfect balance for "general" listening, where anything will sound good. Then you can EQ and tweak the sound to your liking for that song, or overall.