I dont use these headphones on an iphone. I use them on my desktop with the fiio e17 connected with an optical cable.
The bass hits hard yes, but I think i can get harder hitting cans when i play on this volume. When you max out the EQ ... the music also has to be listenable. I REALLY like the overall sound of these tho. They have a great soundstage and sound good with all kinds of music. But i mainly listen to house music
Regi in the mix is the max
If I buy the JVC HA-MR55X pads, what does this do to the sound? Does it give more bass or just comfort?
@ hawaiibadboy I think you dont fully understand what I mean. I use my fiio e17 with these settings: gain +12. bass +10. treble -2 and volume max +24. This is the max volume that I can handle before my ears start ringing after a while. At this volume they hit hard, but not like a subwoofer. But I also think that none headphone will distort at this volume, but some phones can give more bass at this level of listening I think. And I think the beats pro is an example of this and perhaps the ultrasone pro900? I havent had the chance to test the ultrasone, but I will have those next week.
I ordered a bunch of headphones on amazon to try out. Denon d600, beats pro and ultrasone pro900. I am really curious if there is a headphone that will perform better bass wise than the sz2000 AT MY LISTENING LEVEL.
And the 55x pads will not give the bass you get, because I only have the fiioe17 and not the cowon + e12 i think? Is there such a big difference if you chance the pads then? thats so weird
Before anything else, Hummel, every, time I see your name I always remember
CB's genius post about you...right now I'm still clutching my stomach laughing
Okay.
I will try to answer you seriously without laughing.
I think what you're trying to say is that, you can't raise the bass enough with the equipment you have (E17) and you can't lower the rest of the frequencies either--the 2KHz-5KHz range for example
breaches your perceived loudness threshold earlier than the other ranges. You can't raise the volume further as the more sensitive frequencies get too loud. You are stuck with these settings, and with these same settings the SZ2000 bass cannot deliver (because the only control you have is the volume control, which raises the volume of all the frequencies). And with the same settings, you are comparing other headphones with stock FRs that have the bass boosted higher than the SZ's.
With your reasoning, you are trying to solve your problem by relying on stock FRs. Hey, many, if not the majority, in here are averse to audio processing of any kind and rely on stock FR. I respect that. That is fine. And costly.
You need EQ. Because it's cheap. And it can bend your perceived FR however you want it (within an inaudible margin of error). For example, you have headphones that are harsh on the 2KHz-5KHz range and lacking in the sub 100Hz range. You can use EQ to attenuate (turn down) the 2KHz-5Khz range and emphasize (turn up) the sub 100Hz range to make the FR flat. In fact, Golden Ears has launched an EQ product that simply uses an inverse linear filter customized to match the stock FR of your headphones, basically cancelling out the dips and spikes for a resulting flat FR.
However magical a tool it is, EQ cannot correct room reverberations. Excessive room reverb is when sound gets echoed off walls (such as the headphone cups and earpads) and create standing waves that interfere with the direct sound (sound coming directly from the speaker). This is why it is ideal to have an anechoic chamber (basically a chamber with walls that absorb sound to mimic an infinitely open space, and at the same time prevent external noise), or a simulation of it when it comes to headphones. To minimize room reverb in headphones, most of the big name manufacturers use an open design, which you will notice is the most implemented design among Summit-Fi cans. For closed headphones, some line the interior with sound absorbent material. Room reverb is the bane of acoustic engineers. For bassheads, however, room reverb is often beneficial especially for the lower end, as it adds room gain to the lower frequencies and sometimes lowers the peak frequency, making the bass deeper. Basshead cans such as the old XB series have these huge, roomy leather pillows for earpads that enhance the bass experience. The SZ2000 earpads are covered in a kind of absorbent leather, and the isolation isn't strong enough that it leaks sound--this design possibly was an attempt at minimizing room reverb, but to most of the owners that was a mistake.
Can room reverb be corrected with audio signal processing? Perhaps, I've seen a few solutions already, but they aren't widely used. There IS a method called convolution, which takes the impulse response of a room (the room reverb of an actual room or inside a headphone can), and "convolves" any audio signal using that impulse response to simulate how that signal sounds like in that room. In Foobar2000, you can get the Convolver plug-in and use the impulse response of a basshead headphone to enhance your bass experience. EQ can't do this. Now, if you want the other way around, such as recording the impulse response of a room, and creating an inverse filter function to counter its effects, it is called deconvolution and you can find some solutions in Google, but I personally haven't tried them.
One irony with people averse to audio processing of any kind is that the volume control itself is a form of audio processing. Increasing the gain of all the signals equally, with little distortion, either requires amplification of that signal to add gain, or an attenuator that decreases resistance if you want to increase volume. My simple point is: Don't be afraid to use tools.
Again, the SZ2000 can reach 125dB at 30Hz peak freq. in my testing, and that is currently the world record in headphones (if you want to challenge this claim, bring your own measurements to the
Extreme Bass Club). To say that the SZ lacks bass because you don''t know how to EQ properly only says something about how you don't know how to EQ properly
They aren't bassy unEQ'd, in fact I find it suprisingly NOT bassy for a bass marketed headphone. There's headphones out there with +15dB boost to go. Should be a disclaimer that these are BASS capable and can take a lot of it and go loud before distorting but in the default package, it's not overly bassy at all.
The lower midrange boost is also the reason for muddiness, definitely needs some lowering in the 200 - 1kHz range.
As we discussed in the
Extreme Bass Club yesterday, the SZs look obviously underdamped in those measurements. High output impedance (greater than 1/8 the headphone impedance) will underdamp bass--but I couldn't find any specs on the "Golden Ears Headphone Amplifier" they used. That site certainly knows their stuff as they've written a thorough article regarding
impedance mismatch, and in the same article I found a list of amplifiers with their corresponding output impedances, but nothing about this "Golden Ears Headphone Amplifier."
I have with me the Sennheiser HD439, which sounds lacking in the 100Hz-below range at normal volume compared to the SZ with everything flat. Golden Ears measured the HD439 as such:
This is a bit suspect. I trust dummy-head HRTF measurements more than subjective reviews, but this simply doesn't add up. Regardless, nobody can say that we of the extreme bass crew didn't recommend EQ enough. And as I reasoned above, stock FR, excessive room reverberations aside, is meaningless to EQ and audio processing enthusiasts.
I'm not a huge EQ Guy. I kind of like the whole plug and go situation, though I'm definitely willing to change that for these cans, but I just need to find this sweet spot everybody seems to have been finding. I mean I've only been using crappy music app EQ's and ones built into downloader or streamer apps. So Quality may play it's part in EQing? I have an iPhone and soon a new laptop to use as sources for these. I'm just not sure what else I can do though. I've tried my iPhone's EQ and a couple amps' bass boost options, but the only way I get somewhat decent amounts of bass is if I play them so loud that it kind of actually hurts and the music just sounds obnoxious. I was hoping for a more enveloping, full, club-type bass, but all I've found so far was very tame bass or when blasted, just loud screaming kind of annoying bass. I know why these cans were labeled Kings, I just need to know what I'm not putting in these to get out what others seem to be getting.
