[Axl]

While looking at several headphones I'm starting to notice that in modern days headphone manufacturers seem to exaggerate the bass a bit too much. A decade ago the bass was not as prominent on headphones as it is today. Many headphones today seem to drive bass too easily and a simple bass guitar is really boisterous. The bass roars so much other frequencies get neglected and onyl the very high remains. Bass is important but bass from a stage speaker is more pleasant to hear than many of todays headphones. Is this something you have noticed as well or is just me? Too boomy bass can be very exhausting to listen to for a very long time.

 

[fewtch]

Bass exaggeration doesn't imply flabby, muddy or boomy bass. If it's clean, I don't mind some exaggeration in bass (adds a sense of punch and dynamics).

I dunno, I like the HD580/600 a lot, but I don't think I could listen to them all the time.

 

[wallijonn]

it all depends on the music gendre. if it's jungle music, hip hop or techno, chances are that the bass is there for it to be visceral. if it is more main stream, the bass tends to be somewhat muted. top-40 will appeal to the largest music buying segment, so it will always be exaggerated to match their boom box car speakers.

 

[MusicLover]

Many younger people who listen to music now care mainly about the bass, and not the sound quality. Therefore, a lot of the bad quality headphones out now advertise how much bass they have (but it's usually muddy and bloated).

 

[bangraman]

I'm listening to Kelly Rowland's CD right now and I wouldn't want to listen to this on an HD600, HD280, ATH-W1000 or other "true high fidelity" phone.


Which is the reason why I have a V700DJ on my head right now. I'll probably switch to the W2002 for Calexico / Feast Of Wire coming up next, and the K271S for Opeth / My Arms, Your Hearse after that.

 

[00940]

it has been discussed so many times before...

of course most consummer products have too much bad bass. That's why we're buying good stuff.

Well, once the bass is well rendered, it's a matter of taste and musical style. For me, my cd test for bass is "One quiet night" from Pat Metheny ( see here ). To each one his tastes.

 

[adhoc]

perhaps it's not the headphones that have become bassy, but the music?

just a thought.

 

[zeplin]

Quote:

perhaps it's not the headphones that have become bassy, but the music? just a thought.

i believe that to be more closer to the truth. the concept of speaker design has remained pretty much unchanged over the past 80 years. only better materials, and better construction have been implemented thus producing, if anything, a more realistic presentation. so i don't see how these small, suttle improvements could cause such an increase in the bass notes...unless you have all the bass boosts turned up all the way. i think producers and mixers put more bass into the songs purposely to help sell more and also because people like that big bass sound, which they associate with a higher quality of sound. at least this is way i've observed peoples reactions.

 

[Kor]

I can't find where now, but I read somewhere that some N'SYNC CDs were recorded 'hot', and some Rush CD was recorded 'too loud', of course at the expense of sound quality.

And yeah, most people like bass.

 

[MusicLover]

It's all about the bass baby! Crank up those 47" subwoofers and open the windows to show everyone what music is about!

 

[averydonovan]

My RadioShack Pro-35A's, aka the Koss KTX-Pro 1, seem to demonstrate this perfectly. While not bad, they aren't great either. The bass is very boomy, and many parts of the sound spectrum are just plain shrill. Treble is very lacking, too. While not nearly as bad as many Sony headphones, it shows the boom-boom quality of most headphones made nowadays. I like Beyer DT770's, and I find the bass on the KTX-Pro 1 to be irritating and excessively boomy and I question why I bought another pair (I had the Pro-35, or original KTX-Pro before) since they still aren't very good. And as adhoc mentioned, part of it is the music too. I generally avoid mainstream stuff, and what I listen to is at least generally mastered decently, or at least not just to go as loud as possible. But all too many people think whatever "bumps" the most with their dual 16", 1000-watt subs in their car is the best stuff...

And I've heard dual 12" car subs. All I could think was "God, this is awful!". Why do people do this?

 

[DanT]

I don't remember who said it but

Because very crappy speaker have little to no base. So there is a market trend that said that a lot of base must mean very good speakers. ( load of crap but it like the very loud cd Here the tread about why loud is crappy ) also when you see "Hot cars" they have those huge subwoofer so obviously those cool guy have much better sound systems so Me too I want more base.

So they put mega bass more base is better. especialy with the crappy 128kbps mp3.

 

[Wilson M.]

Loud/hot sound and exaggerated bass have been problems for quite a while now.

Part of the problem is radio. Every radio station wants to be the loudest on the band because most people will take notice and listen (equals advertising dollars). So songs are typically recorded with compressed dynamic range so the average volume level can be set higher.

Bass boosting is all about the visceral feeling. There is a primal appeal to a thumping rhythm that people aren't even aware is affecting them.

Loud and visceral to most people equate to musical involvement for certainly the actual musical material is not worth getting excited about.

That's why when you A/B any kind of equipment, you have to be careful with setting volumes so that they are equal levels. Our brains seem to translate "loud" as better. Again, it is the "musical involvement" thing.

I've also noticed that a lot of mastering engineers are EQ'ing music so that it sounds best in the 85-90 dB range. If you try to listen to the music at a lower volume setting, bass all but goes away and there seems to be no dynamics until you raise the volume to the threshold level. If you keep pumping up the volume beyond the EQ point then bass response and dynamics become prodigious.

Now because people try not to listen to music at those levels (because 80 dB is about the max that you can listen to for hours without fatigue), headphones tend to get juiced up in the bass and treble because those are the two areas that will suffer at low volumes. No bass or sense of sizzle/dynamics which for most people means no musical involvement.

I'm not sure if there is an immediate or even near future solution. Try to listen to well-recorded music would help but that isn't so easy to do when the record labels are telling engineers to juice up the mastering.

 

[MusicLover]

You have a good point, Wilson. That would explain why some of my music seems to sound better when it is louder. Fortunately, I have enough well recorded music to make up for it.

 

[Axl]

You got a point there. Aren't there rules about the levels when mastering the music? Just in recent years I've personally seen a deprture from that. Isn't it the job of the amplifier to create the "loudness" effect and not the CD.