[Oregonian]

..............to not really feeling the bass with Mad Dogs.  I'm used to Sony XB700's and M Audio Q40's for a point of reference.  I love bass and my truck has 1200 watts with a 10" sub so yes, you could say I like the thump.
 
I hear and see on graphs that the MD has plenty of deep bass.  The graph I looked at showed the MD's go DEEPER than Q40's! 
 
I do not hear/feel it.  Not even close, so though I truly believe the MD's are great phones and a step up in the audiophile ladder of life, how did you get used to the 'apparent lack of bass'.  Or did you? 
 
I'm perplexed - maybe if I got a better amp than a ZO/E-11 I could hear this deep bass but do I want to spend more $$ to test the theory?  Maybe a Magni for $100 - might that drive them better than portable amps?
 
Help me out here guys!   Or I go back to an uncouth basshead for life........................

 

[DS21]

Keep in mind that there's frequency response, and there's SPL. Or to look at it another way, small-signal FR and large(r)-signal FR.
 
The Fostex planar magnetic driver doesn't have the volume displacement of the bigger dynamic drivers. So even if it can go low, that doesn't mean it can do so loudly. (Likewise, the big Denons with their edge-suspended drivers are known for powerful bass, and the reason is simply that they have more throw than the typical "balanced dome" headphone driver (Senn, AKG, etc.) of the same nominal diameter.
 
Think of the difference between a speaker with  4" woofer and one with a 12" woofer, both in closed boxes with an F3 of 50Hz. They may have the same extension, but the latter speaker will move a whole lot more air down low.
 
And an amp would, at best, give you a bass placebo. It won't affect the underlying physics.
 
That said, I'm currently listening to T50rp's, unmodded, and generally like them. No, they don't move as much air as my D2000s, but they definitely have potential to sound great.