[gerG]

0ops, one other thing. I noticed this some time ago on another system, but it might be relevant. I had a PC where the bass was absolutely dependent on the internal volume setting. Somehow the digital volume control within the system was seriously affecting the sound. Worse yet there were 2 or 3 places that the volume was set, and they all seemed to do whatever this compression trick was. It was not subtle, all of the bass would go away at lower settings. I was able to check since I had an external amp. Best sound was with all internal volume controls set to max, and an external attenuator in line with an amp to control the volume.

On that same note, make sure that there is not another piece of software interveneing. I've fallen for that one too.


gerG

 

[andrzejpw]

Personally, I was going through a similar dilemma a few weeks ago. I was rocking back and forth: "wait, do I hear bass? stupid me, no bass!"

The Clou Blue's changed everything. Believe me. The bass had much more detail and punch to it, and was much more defined. I know this wasn't really the answer you were looking for. . .

But fred may have a point. Break in also makes a huge difference.

 

[TimS]

andrzejpw:
I'm interested in a Cable replacement, but I need a good way to get one in Germany. Does anyone know a German shop which could ship one to me ?

Greg Freeman:
I tried setting the Audigy to max volume and using purely my Corda for adjusting the volume. This causes the Audigy to distort and clip very heavily. Guess no amp is really meant to be used at maximum volume. Currently I have the wave + master volume at 50% and my Corda between 25% and 75%. But I'll try to play a bit around, maybe I'll get a better result.

greetings,
Tim

 

[slindeman]

I always run both my SBLive and Turtle Beach SC at maxed out volume levels when I hook them up to a headphone amp or receiver, and I've never had problems with distortion or clipping. At max they put out about 1V RMS which shouldn't be too difficult considering AA powered portables often put out .6V RMS without problems. Perhaps you've got a bad soundcard.

With stock cables and my sound cards the HD600 has very weak bass at 50hz and nothing at 30hz and below. I haven't tried test tones with my cd players to see how much the soundcards have to do with it. However, bear in mind that I could hear a 30hz tone with HD570 on the same setup so it can't be completely the sound cards (or my ears) fault. Some of the blame must lay on the HD600. This was with dedicated headphone amps (Corda + DIY).

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Don't make me "pull an acidtripwow" again!

(Meaning that I should re-purchase one of the Sony MDR-V@#$%DJ phones, according to you-know-who.)

 

[Dreamslacker]

Quote:

Originally posted by TimS I use WinAMP and Windows Media Player. There's no equilizer activated except the one of the Audigy itself where I raised the bass to 85%.

If you use Winamp 2.X, get the MAD plug-in. It offers slightly better sound quality than the built-in decoder.

For the winamp output, set it to Wave out. Use Microsoft's wave mapper.

Turn off reverb or CMSS in the creative driver/software controls.

 

[TimS]

slindeman:
I have access to four computers with headphones at the moment. Two of them have SBLive!, one has Audigy/Live and the other one is my notebook with onboard sound. I tried all of them and the sound turns into complete garbage when I turn up the volume to max. I remember doing that some time ago with some Phillips soundcard and an external speaker amp, and got the same result. Don't know what wierd soundcards you have over there, but I personally yet have to hear one of my soundcards working at full volume level I also own 570s, and the HD600s absolutely got much deeper bass. Overall the 570s got some boosted mid range bass, as far as I can tell, but the 600s definatively go down deeper. I have no problem reproducing any bass sound, even without the amp. For me the problem is not that I don't hear these sounds at all, I just complained about the lack of bass during ordinary music listening. After all who wants to listen to test tracks all day There's just some music which I know from various speaker systems as very bass heavy. Some of these tracks seems to totally lack all bottom end on my setup. Wierd

 

[Guyferd]

I think I'm starting to know why you complain to the lack of bass in hd600. The fact is : You are a bass-head.
No.. it isn't vulgar words.. not like fu**head

It just means that you love bass alot. This is typical consumer. You are just like me. I find that headphones do not hold a candle to even $100-150 speaker system like altec lansing in terms of bass department.Even those >$300 headphones can have worst bass than these pc speakers. WOrry not, there is one alternative.

Go out and buy Beyer dt770 pro. Paired with my creek obh-11, they are my no 1 listening choice , I prefer it to even my klipsch promedia 2.1 . Youngsters and non audiphile often love to hear lots of bass impact. They do not really go for the extension. That is why last time I was also pretty dissapointed in even headphones like beyer dt250-80(which gained rep in terms of bass dept.), coz the impact is nowhere near the klipsch.

But now it's different with dt770pro. Try it, I never look back to my klipsch eversince my purchase, unless when I want to watch dvd then I usually use klipsch coz for me it's more realistic with speaker.

 

[fredpb]

Quote:

Originally posted by Guyferd I think I'm starting to know why you complain to the lack of bass in hd600. The fact is : You are a bass-head. No.. it isn't vulgar words.. not like fu**head It just means that you love bass alot. This is typical consumer. You are just like me. I find that headphones do not hold a candle to even $100-150 speaker system like altec lansing in terms of bass department.Even those >$300 headphones can have worst bass than these pc speakers. WOrry not, there is one alternative. .

I was a bass head, I thought. When I first started with Head-Fi I was on a quest to get some bass for my HD600's.

My discovery that the HD600's are bass capable is threefold...

1) BREAK IN. They need a lot of break in, with low freqs.
And it depends on how low you want them. Rock does not go down that low, classsical music does.

2) Cables. These do help. I use Clou Reds.

3) Amp. You need an amp that can provide the power at the low freq impedence hump of the HD600/580's.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

I used to be that so-called 'typical consumer' of a music listener, who thought that 'more bass is better'. But nowadays I listen to the quality of the bass, not just quantity. And I find that too much bass can actually muddle the entire sound of the headphones - even if that bass itself is tight and defined. (Etymotic needs not apply here.

)

 

[slindeman]

Quote:

Don't know what wierd soundcards you have over there, but I personally yet have to hear one of my soundcards working at full volume level

I'm sitting here at work with all levels maxed into a DIY amp and get no distortion at all. No distortion on any of the 200+ albums I have ripped to my hard drive. Are you sure you are using the line-out and not the headphone jack? It is not normal to get distortion from your soundcard's line-out even at max levels, which are a paltry 1V RMS. On the 4 soundcards I've used in the last 2 years (2 SBLive, 1 TBSC, 1 built-in-to-motherboard) I've never got distortion from the line-out at max levels. Just to be very clear, you are hooking your amp directly to the line-out of the soundcard and you have all eq settings turned off, both for the soundcard and for the winamp/media player, right?

Quote:

I got my treble at 70% and my bass at 85% since I can't stand the sound otherwise

If this is still true then there is your distortion at max levels. Don't blame your soundcard for distortion if this is how you are listening to music. Soundcards shouldn't be blamed for user error.

Quote:

There's just some music which I know from various speaker systems as very bass heavy. Some of these tracks seems to totally lack all bottom end on my setup. Wierd

Not weird if your speaker systems also have the bass knob cranked like your soundcard does.

The HD600 with the right amp and cables has bass very close to the best speaker systems I've heard, though still lacking at the very bottom end. Unfortunately the Corda is not that right amp, but it brings me close enough for now. If the HD600/Corda doesn't bring you close enough to what you want without a lot of eq then I would suggest looking at other headphones rather than upgrading your source and amp.

Quote:

I was a bass head, I thought. When I first started with Head-Fi I was on a quest to get some bass for my HD600's. My discovery that the HD600's are bass capable is threefold... [good advice snipped]

Sure, that will get you great, accurate bass, but it won't get you that booming thumping bass that typical consumers have come to know and love in their lo-fi gear with its ultra-mega-bass settings.

It astounds me how much the other guys here at work can tolerate all of that super muddy boomy distorted bass they submit themselves to in their cars and at their desks with their bass knobs and megabass switches. Most have no idea what deep bass even sounds like, they think mid/upper bass eq'd at +20db is real bass.

Quote:

A better solution if you'd like to add more bass would probably be Meier's Analoguer with bass boost circuit, but I haven't tried it myself. There are some explanations of how that works on HeadWize along with some sample wavs to give you an idea.

You could just build one level of the bass boost circuit with 3-4 resistors, one capacitor, and one opamp per channel. You'd need a PS too, but even with nice opamps your looking at under $50 for the parts. Also, I'm pretty sure that this sort of circuit can easily be added to the META42, especially if the resistors are socketed. You just replace one resistor in each channel with two resistors and a capacitor. Very easy to do and you can set the frequency and amount of bass boost by just choosing the right cap/resistor values. The .wavs you talk about are for the complicated bassenhancer project though, not the simpler bass boost which is built into the Analoguer.

 

[wallijonn]

you probably have one of those portable (small) stereo systems with the detachable speakers.

if so, connect the line out from the sound card to the aux input of the stereo system. now install your headphones to the headphone jack on the stereo system.

is the bass there?

if so, you need a pre-amp. then it's either ebay, a trading post, or a pawn shop. you can usually find a good one for under $25.00.

of course you can hook up your sound card to your stereo system, but most people do not have their computers near their stereo because the computer fans make so much noise. i advocate the SS50G computer for low noise levels / computer home entertainment integration - but no one ever listens to me.

 

[TimS]

Just to clarify:

I'm not looking for boomy bass. I don't want exaggerated bass. If I wanted any of these I could just turn up the eq or use a winamp plugin or turn on this SRS WOW effect crap in media player. Well I love the sound of deep bass (basshead, ...maybe ?), but not boomy, undefined and muddy. I don't want that car stereo super subwoofer sound, hell no

I think I know how good bass sounds. I've heard quite some good speaker systems and I think the HD-600 sounds absolutely great down to the lowest 15-20Hz frequencies when listening to test tones etc.

Sorry, it's hard to make myself clear, sound just can hardly described by words especially if English is not your native language

I hate the sound I get when using that SRS plugin or when listening to the 30$ Phillips cans I have at work. I like the bass of my HD-600, I just would appreciate to hear it during normal music listening. I can guarantee you that the lower frequencies are simply not present during normal music listening. I don't want any BOOOOOOM, really The problem is that this bottom end seems to fade in as soon as I turn up my amp to unpleasently high volume levels, I don't want to do that to my poor ears just to get some bass.

I've heard now from many sources that Beyerdynamic has some nice bass in their cans. I'll probably have soon the chance to listen to some, thanks for the tip!.

Just to be *absolutely* sure:
http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/audig...player-oem.jpg
Where am I supposed to plug in my amp ?

Thanks for all your help !!

greetings,
Tim

 

[Eagle_Driver]

I'm sorry, TimS, but a lot of the heavier music had been recorded, mixed and/or mastered with no low bass at all whatsoever and severely overboosted mid- and upper-bass. And your HD 580 really reproduces that bass - or lack thereof - with 'rude' precision.

 

[TimS]

Eagle_Driver: Hmmmm, I work in the computer game industry and I know that this has been done with quite some computer games to compensate for people's 20$ SB cards and 20$ multimedia speakers. These systems will just clip and plop when you throw bass at them.

btw, did I mention that I get really great and (to my ears) nearly perfect bass when watching DVDs ? The bass of the gun sounds during that big shooting scene in Heat is just perfect, or the effects in Episode 1 and Event Horizon just have earth shaking bass. If I could just 50% of that bass level when someone plays his guitar/bass or a basedrum kicks in I would be totally happy

greetings,
Tim