[Sound Quest]

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But a 325is with the proper settings has louder, more defined bass than most beats...the lower end AKGs like the K44, although a bit muddier than a 325i, I know has louder volumes, is clearer and has more bass too.  Probably you can squeeze as much bass out of a Sennheiser HD 25-1, heck even my old HD 495s can match  most Beats with their Bass response.  BTW, does Beats post any technical specs for their headphones? Then maybe we can substantiate our claims that they aren't as good as other headphones.Here

Here is a frequency response graph comparing the beat solos with a couple of the headphones that you mention in your post above.
 

 
Of course you could artifically add more bass with the headphones you mention with the use of an equalizer, but that isn't the point. You can do that with any headphone.
 
The point of a balanced headphone is that you won't have to mess around with the equalizer in order to find the right sound.

 

[EF88]

Hmmm...interesting. Tell me, since I'm more used to seeing graphs for profitability, what do those squiggly lines mean? Hehe...was I right in stating that some of those other headphones had more bass or do I need to equalize my ears?
 

 

[Sound Quest]

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I'm reminded of a point Tyll made a few years ago, about how wonderful the brain is at "filling in" problem areas of a given headphone's response, and how listening to a single pair of cans exclusively will generally create the above problem (where the set you're familiar with, becomes the "standard of the world" and everything is judged against it (and invariably found lacking)). I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's certainly something to consider more broadly - most of us on Head-Fi have multiple pairs of headphones that we regularly switch between, and we celebrate their differences and quirks. And I'm guessing that's probably not the case for the majority of typical people.

I'll agree with the point about "your headphones lack bass" in comparison to Beats though. Not that I've ever found a "Beats Owner" to compare headphones with (I'll be honest, I've seen maybe 3-4 people on the street with Beats headphones in my entire life), but having demo'd a few pairs of Beats I certainly agree with the point about massively over-blown bass in the presentation. Especially relative to typical (or "old school") hi-fi headphones, that tend to be mid/treble emphasized to some extent.

I agree with you completely about the brain filling in the missing gaps.
 
Actually, this is how digital audio works. Because it takes samples of the waveform instead of capturing the full waveform, it's dependant on the brain filling in the missing gaps to create the illusion that you are hearing everything that should be there, when it actually isn't.
 
It works the exact same way with headphones. The brain gets used to a sound. When that sound is altered in some way (different headphones for example), the brain doesn't release the same level of endorphins that it otherwise would with the sound signiture that its most familiar with.

 

[Sound Quest]

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Hmmm...interesting. Tell me, since I'm more used to seeing graphs for profitability, what do those squiggly lines mean? Hehe...was I right in stating that some of those other headphones had more bass or do I need to equalize my ears?
 

Each line represents the headphone that the colour corresponds to.
 
If you look at each line from 0 to 200hz on the graph, you'll see that the blue line (the beats frequency response) is a great deal higher than the green and red line of the HD25-1 and SR325.
 
Of course, if you mess around with the equalization of your music, then you can artifically boost the bass on any headphone.
 
If you wanted to get the SR325's to produce a similar amount of bass up to 200hz as the Solos, then you would have to increase everything below 200hz by a whooping 20 decibels or so.

 

[chewy4]

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Actually, this is how digital audio works. Because it takes samples of the waveform instead of capturing the full waveform, it's dependant on the brain filling in the missing gaps to create the illusion that you are hearing everything that should be there, when it actually isn't.
 

That's kind of how lossy compression works, not digital audio. Digital audio can replicate a waveform perfectly(not just to the human ear, in an objective sense it is perfect) as long as it has a sample rate that is double the highest frequency.
 
Some people just like bass though. While I agree that you can adapt to any sound signature to some extent, some people just like more bass. It provides a physical quality that no other frequencies can.

 

[Sound Quest]

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That's kind of how lossy compression works, not digital audio. Digital audio can replicate a waveform perfectly(not just to the human ear, in an objective sense it is perfect) as long as it has a sample rate that is double the highest frequency.
 
Some people just like bass though. While I agree that you can adapt to any sound signature to some extent, some people just like more bass. It provides a physical quality that no other frequencies can.

 
A full analog waveform can never be perfectly replicated in the digital domain, regardless of how high you set the sample rate. It can however be fully transparent to the human ear. But its the brains abiility to fill in the missing gaps that makes this possible.
 
You're absolutely correct about lossy encoding taking advantage of this as well. But the real trick behind lossy encoding is its ability to compress sounds that it doesn't expect the human ear to be able to replicate. It works by compressing sounds that are masked by other sounds that the human ear can hear.

 

[chewy4]

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A full analog waveform can never be perfectly replicated in the digital domain, regardless of how high you set the sample rate. It can however be fully transparent to the human ear. But its the brains abiility to fill in the missing gaps that makes this possible.

It can. Check out the Nyquist sampling theorem.
 
 
Quote:

If a function x(t) contains no frequencies higher than B hertz it is completely determined by giving its ordinates at a series of points spaced 1/(2B) seconds apart.

(source)

 

[ThinkAwesome]

I agree. You can't tell me a 2013 Corvette looks better than a 1970 Chevelle SS. What you can say is the Corvette gets to 60mph 3 seconds quicker, gets 8mpg more and brakes from 100mph in 40ft less. No one buying Beats is aiming for a flat frequency response.

They are aiming for good bass (assuming they are looking for headphones and not hairbands). The Beats don't have good bass imho. They have a ton of muddy bass. Though some people will probably prefer the muddy Beats bass, I think people would prefer other headphones if they gave other decent basshead headphones a shot. 

 

 

 

Why compare Grados to Beats? One is a treblehead headphone and the other is a basshead one. At least get the sound signature right. 
 
The HeadRoom graph was interesting though, so I went out an made my own with Sony XB500 (because its a great budget basshead headphone that I think really appeals to the sound quality most Beats users like), Denon D2000 (because it was mentioned earlier), and two Beats. 
 
 

So. Observations.
 
Bass quantity XB500 > Beats 
Bass quality XB500 > Beats
Fashion hybrid hairband/necklace usage Beats > XB500
Everything else XB500 > Beats
 
The D2000 fails to deliver enough bass quantity. It might be bassy by non-basshead standards, but its not quite up there with the MOAR BASS headphones. The other interesting thing was the total lack of sub-bass from one of the Beats, quite surprising that they don't even manage to deliver quantity there much less quality. 

 

[reddragon]

from what i understand, chewy is right. for example, 44.1khz, thats already lossless because divided into half, its 22.05khz. usual human hearing is 20-20khz. 

 

[Rocko1]

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They are aiming for good bass (assuming they are looking for headphones and not hairbands). The Beats don't have good bass imho. They have a ton of muddy bass. Though some people will probably prefer the muddy Beats bass, I think people would prefer other headphones if they gave other decent basshead headphones a shot. 

 
 
Why compare Grados to Beats? One is a treblehead headphone and the other is a basshead one. At least get the sound signature right. 
 
The HeadRoom graph was interesting though, so I went out an made my own with Sony XB500 (because its a great budget basshead headphone that I think really appeals to the sound quality most Beats users like), Denon D2000 (because it was mentioned earlier), and two Beats. 
 
 

So. Observations.
 
Bass quantity XB500 > Beats 
Bass quality XB500 > Beats
Fashion hybrid hairband/necklace usage Beats > XB500
Everything else XB500 > Beats
 
The D2000 fails to deliver enough bass quantity. It might be bassy by non-basshead standards, but its not quite up there with the MOAR BASS headphones. The other interesting thing was the total lack of sub-bass from one of the Beats, quite surprising that they don't even manage to deliver quantity there much less quality. 

Comfort-XB500
Bass-XB500
Price-XB500
Justin Beiber Likes You-Beats

 

[ThinkAwesome]

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Justin Beiber Likes You-Beats

One of the best reasons to not buy Beats that I have ever heard. 

 

[Sound Quest]

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from what i understand, chewy is right. for example, 44.1khz, thats already lossless because divided into half, its 22.05khz. usual human hearing is 20-20khz. 

It's lossless to the human ear because its "transparent" to the human ear.
 
It isn't however lossless from a purely technical point of view as not all the information is contained within the wave form, even if we can't hear the information thats missing anyway.

 

[chewy4]

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It's lossless to the human ear because its "transparent" to the human ear.
 
It isn't however lossless from a purely technical point of view as not all the information is contained within the wave form, even if we can't hear the information thats missing anyway.

What you're saying goes against the theorem that digital audio is based upon. Care to back it up?
 
Here's a really good video on digital audio that you should watch: https://www.xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml
It contains demonstrations proving what you're saying wrong.

 

[reddragon]

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It's lossless to the human ear because its "transparent" to the human ear.
 
It isn't however lossless from a purely technical point of view as not all the information is contained within the wave form, even if we can't hear the information thats missing anyway.

 
 
well speakers, headphones, iems have their limits too, even if you go as high as 192khz on your music, your speakers/headphones/iem may not even be able to reproduce it and 192khz may cause intermodulation distortion... just saying

 

[jake120]

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It's lossless to the human ear because its "transparent" to the human ear.
 
It isn't however lossless from a purely technical point of view as not all the information is contained within the wave form, even if we can't hear the information thats missing anyway.

 
I don't think so,
 
all the data at the required spectrums is there or not... if its not there then its the instrument wasnt used or it was mastered out but the music is still lossless it still has the content originally intended even if the master didnt do the job as was intended.
 
lossless from a technical point of view is moot, if it already meets its designed spec no one cares about all the extra bits we will never hear.