LCD2 weak bass? Any way to increase it?

[Br777]

though i cant imagine what it would be, I really am starting to question whether my LCD-2's have a defect.
 
here's my current rig
ipod touch 4g all lossless music, LOD to sr71b on high gain, balanced out to my LCD-2's
 
i am simply amazed at the lack of bass and sub bass they are producing. 
For instance i can listen to rap or dubstep songs for , that would otherwise be SLAMMING and the bass is simply non existant.. no impact and certainly nothing even approaching visceral. whatsoever.   Even with normal music i dont feel much of anything in the sub bass department that seems "normal" to me unless i heavily eq....
 
only when i take extreme measures  adding 12db to everything about 80hz and below with an eq app do i start to get even "normal" results. 
 
Am I really such a basshead?

 

[Br777]

ok.. so i just did a test.
 
i took my clip+, and a pair of free sony ear buds (not iems, earbuds) that came with an old phone.. using no eq  i played a dubstep song that has mad bass.
then i went back to my non eq'd lcd-2's  
the earbuds had far more bass and sub bass visceral impact than the LCD-2's
 
what gives?

 

[TMRaven]

Those must be some pretty insane earbuds.
 
I have a pair of skullcandy buds that measure to be extremely bass heavy:
 

 
But their bass is really weak in comparison to something even like the Beyer DT990.  Against a D2000 or an LCD2 I'd imagine their bass would be anemic and non-existent.

 

[koolkat]

Sub-bass is anything below 90Hz right, which is basically what makes Arctic Monkeys and RHCP. 
 
I don't own LCD-2s but even my HD438 and SR60is can produce enough sub-bass. While the sub-bass on the SR60i
is less powerful, I can still hear it. On extremely bassy songs, I can feel the thump. 
 
Maybe you're supposed to hear the bass on the LCD-2s, not feel it 

 

[Graphicism]

Taking aside amping and all that goes into the headphone chain, this looks like it's the age-old master volume debate. If said album was mastered with bass heavy cans/speakers then neutral cans/speakers won't pick up on the bass because it's non-existent. 
 
You mentioned dubstep; artists like The Glitch Mob, Skrillex have no sub-bass whatsoever, this is because they are mastered on bass-dominant gear and will sound fine on bass-dominant gear. Trying to listen to this on neutral (DT880, HD800) gear that extends further than said bass-dominant gear (DT990s, Denons, Ultrasones) will have no recorded information in the lower frequencies.
 
Take a well recorded piece of electronica like Trentemoller for instance and that sub-bass will come alive.

 

[koolkat]

If stock ear buds can produce the sub-bass better than the LCD2s can, I don't think it's got anything to do with the "age-old master volume debate". 
 

 

[Graphicism]

Quote:

If stock ear buds can produce the sub-bass better than the LCD2s can, I don't think it's got anything to do with the "age-old master volume debate". 
 

If this sub-bass kicks in at say 80Hz on the 'stock ear buds' and at 50Hz on the LCD2s and the recording falls off after 80Hz then of course the stock ear buds will sound better. Crap in, crap out. This isn't even a debate of are stock ear buds better than the LCD2s but a question of why you hear bass in ear buds and not top-tier headphones. A lot of bass-lovers go for the headphones that 'kick-in' sooner for this bass-forward experience, but others like myself like accuracy and don't wan't bass rumble in pianos or percussion.

 

[koolkat]

Doesn't really make sense to me.
 
A bass heavy headphone bumps the bass frequency tones up, making them louder than the mids/highs, therefore making the bass more pronounced.
A treble heavy headphone bumps up the highs, making the highs sharper and more emphasised than the bass and mids.
 
Cheap stock ear buds would be able to able to perfectly reproduce bass tones of 80Hz, and so should better headphones.
When you get lower, that's when the cheap ear buds start to show. They cannot produce those low bass tones that higher
end headphones like LCD-2 (etc) can. 
 
So what cheap ear buds can do, LCD-2 can do even better.
If you play a bass test track or something, the LCD-2 should extend lower, and they should be able to play the higher frequency
bass tones than the cheap ear buds can without a problem.
 
In other words, a bass heavy song will sound bass heavy on the LCD-2 and even bassier on the cheap ear buds. A treble heavy song
should sound high on the LCD-2s, but muddy and distorted on the ear buds that were meant for bassy songs. A/Bing the LCD-2
and cheap ear buds, the LCD-2 should still be bass heavy, when you put on bass heavy songs.
 
And dubstep like Flux Pavillion and Nero are bass heavy songs. They should sound bass heavy on the neutral LCD-2s. Claiming
that the LCD-2s produce next to zero bass in comparison to the cheap ear buds is a bold statement. There's obviously something
wrong here. 
 
 

 

[Graphicism]

Quote:

Doesn't really make sense to me.
 
A bass heavy headphone bumps the bass frequency tones up, making them louder than the mids/highs, therefore making the bass more pronounced.
 
Cheap stock ear buds would be able to able to perfectly reproduce bass tones of 80Hz, and so should better headphones.
 
If you play a bass test track or something, the LCD-2 should extend lower, and they should be able to play the higher frequency
bass tones than the cheap ear buds can without a problem.
 
And dubstep like Flux Pavillion and Nero are bass heavy songs. They should sound bass heavy on the neutral LCD-2s. Claiming
that the LCD-2s produce next to zero bass in comparison to the cheap ear buds is a bold statement. There's obviously something
wrong here. 
 

 
Well for a start you're confusing bass volume with bass extension. Bass volume being how forward and pronounced the bass in relation to the spectrum, and bass extension being how low a frequency accurately reproduced. The two are not automatically related. For example my Sony XB500s have lots of bass volume but fall short on extension, my DT880s have neutral bass volume but extend further.
 
Nero sounds great on my XB500s and in my car, but sounds thin and lacking on my DT880s... you could say that's because my 880s have no deep bass. Now put something like Trentemoller or Pantha Du Prince on and there is enough bass extension in my 880s to make my ears bleed.
 
Question is what's going on?
 
Neutral cans will accurately reproduce the frequencies. A bass-forward headphone will inject it's own bass a lot higher up in the frequency giving you a fun, in-the-club experience but it's lacking what the neutral dominates in, and that's accuracy.

 

[koolkat]

Ah thanks for clarifying. 
 

 

[Mochan]

Quote:

though i cant imagine what it would be, I really am starting to question whether my LCD-2's have a defect.
 
here's my current rig
ipod touch 4g all lossless music, LOD to sr71b on high gain, balanced out to my LCD-2's
 
i am simply amazed at the lack of bass and sub bass they are producing. 
For instance i can listen to rap or dubstep songs for , that would otherwise be SLAMMING and the bass is simply non existant.. no impact and certainly nothing even approaching visceral. whatsoever.   Even with normal music i dont feel much of anything in the sub bass department that seems "normal" to me unless i heavily eq....
 
only when i take extreme measures  adding 12db to everything about 80hz and below with an eq app do i start to get even "normal" results. 
 
Am I really such a basshead?

While the LCD2 doesn't have THUNDER MONSTER BASS volume, there is no way to say it has weak or non-existent bass. I'm more partial to saying your LCD2 is defective.
I'm an extreme basshead but I'm very happy with the LCD2's bass.

 
Quote:

Those must be some pretty insane earbuds.
 
I have a pair of skullcandy buds that measure to be extremely bass heavy:
 

 
But their bass is really weak in comparison to something even like the Beyer DT990.  Against a D2000 or an LCD2 I'd imagine their bass would be anemic and non-existent.

You likely don't have a proper seal.  Seal is everything for IEMs especially when it comes to bass. I have no reason to doubt that the Holua has strong bass. A lot of reviews say they have a ton of bass. I am pretty sure they have more bass than the LCD2. As for the quality of said bass, that is a different matter and one I cannot comment on without hearing said gear. I used to have a Logitech Z5300. It had bombastic bass. I "upgraded" to a Z5500, its bigger brother. Bass was nowhere near as loud or boomy, but it was tighter with more control and definition, while still having pretty much all the oomph I wanted.  But something with a freq response like that, backed up with qualitative reviews, I have no doubt that its bass is anything but anemic.

 
 

 

[TMRaven]

No I definitely got a seal, If I could shove them further down my ear canal I'd be piercing my eardrums it feels like.  They might have more 'quantitative' bass than  say the DT990 (hard to tell because they're real muddy) but the bass is definitely not as strong or visceral as that of the DT990-- which isn't even a closed headphone.  I've no reason to believe a small 10-15mm driver can produce the same type of strong bass that a 45-50mm driver can.

 

[swbf2cheater]

Quote:

No I definitely got a seal, If I could shove them further down my ear canal I'd be piercing my eardrums it feels like.  They might have more 'quantitative' bass than  say the DT990 (hard to tell because they're real muddy) but the bass is definitely not as strong or visceral as that of the DT990-- which isn't even a closed headphone.  I've no reason to believe a small 10-15mm driver can produce the same type of strong bass that a 45-50mm driver can.

Sennheiser MX980 awaits your ears

 

[power]

Try the ultrasone pro 900 and you will be grinning from ear to ear. I garantee you

  mellow clear huge massaging waves with crystal clear whip on top tiltilating and engulfing psymutaneously? 

 

[TMRaven]

Quote:

 
Well for a start you're confusing bass volume with bass extension. Bass volume being how forward and pronounced the bass in relation to the spectrum, and bass extension being how low a frequency accurately reproduced. The two are not automatically related. For example my Sony XB500s have lots of bass volume but fall short on extension, my DT880s have neutral bass volume but extend further.
 
Nero sounds great on my XB500s and in my car, but sounds thin and lacking on my DT880s... you could say that's because my 880s have no deep bass. Now put something like Trentemoller or Pantha Du Prince on and there is enough bass extension in my 880s to make my ears bleed.
 
Question is what's going on?
 
Neutral cans will accurately reproduce the frequencies. A bass-forward headphone will inject it's own bass a lot higher up in the frequency giving you a fun, in-the-club experience but it's lacking what the neutral dominates in, and that's accuracy.

 
 
[size=medium]

Um, I still havn't gotten an answer as to why something like a DT880 extends deeper than say a Denon D2000 other than a generic 'it produces tones more accurately' comment, which is pretty snug when talking about electronic music if I might say so myself.
 
Trentemoller sounds deeper on the D2000 compared to a DT990 regardless, so unless the DT880 has a magically more robust extreme lower end compared to the DT990, I call some serious tomfoolery on that statement.
 
The argument of certain headphones having inflated bass is all well and good, but that takes absolutely nothing away from their ability to produce strong and clean tones down to 20hz-- if they have the ability to do that, then they still extend deep, like it or not.  If the headphone has a strong 20db boost in the 100-80hz region then sharply rolls off after, then one could say it's bass heavy with a sub-bass rolloff, but if its frequency response is literally a straight line all the way down, then it extends pretty low.
​

[/size]