[irvikissa]

Hi, new to the forum.
 
I bought a pair of ATH-M50 headphones a couple of days ago after doing a lot of research and reading reviews. They seemed like good headphones, but now I don't know anymore. Even my 20 $ wireless headphones sound better and have a richer sound quality (to my ears). I don't have a clue WHY these are good headphones, because, to me, they sound awful. I don't know if there's a manufacture fault or if my ears are faulty.
 
I'm not using these for mixing or studio work. Just plain music listening through my computer. I love all kinds of music, from psychedelic rock to extreme metal and from pop to classical. I don't have any complaints when it comes to bands such as the early Pink Floyd (The Piper at the Gates of Dawn) or The Beatles. The soundstage is fantastic and I can hear every instrument clearly. But when I listen to bands like Slayer, Sodom or anything that has a dominating bass sound, the sound goes flat. The bass sucks!
 
After "burning in" the headphones, nothing has really changed. And now I'm trying to go through "bass tests" and such from Youtube. Like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH_sUK7hJxE. I can't hear ANYTHING from 00:00 to 01:30, and after that I hear something, but I have to turn the volume way up to a hearing loss level (for normal listening). When the video gets to the point where it starts the "full frequency test" the sound stops at 12000 Hz althrough the phones are marketed to have a 30 Hz to 28 kHz range. What the hell?
 
Is there something I can do to make my listening experience more joyable? Or are these faulty phones?

 

[SoSpecial]

Your testing bass on youtube?
 
No no no! Your doing it wrong.
 
Go download Strapping Young Lad - Love?
 
Get it as an FLAC and crank it up , if the bass sounds weak to you then your headphones are either weak in that area or your amp isn't providing enough power for it.
 
P.S. 360 resolution on youtube = 64kbps which is some of the lowest quality of sound you can listen to. Basically the equivalent of 10bit audio.

 

[irvikissa]

Am I doing it wrong if I just plugged the headphones to my soundcard using a 3.5 mm plug? Are these too high quality phones for such a primitive system?

 

[SoSpecial]

They'd do fine on your sound card but like I edited in the youtube quality sucks, and without an amp your just not gonna get the same fleshed out bass and vibrant highs.
 
What sound card are you coming from?

 

[irvikissa]

I have a Realtek AC97 sound card, 16-bit 96kHz 65535 channels.
 
I downloaded Love by Strapping Young Lad, and to be honest, I can't really single out the bass. The song sounds really flat and even the bass drums have a "hitting the floor with a spoon" sound.

 

[SoSpecial]

Quote:

I have a Realtek AC97 sound card, 16-bit 96kHz 65535 channels.
 
I downloaded Love by Strapping Young Lad, and to be honest, I can't really single out the bass. The song sounds really flat and even the bass drums have a "hitting the floor with a spoon" sound.

The Bass is so overbearing on that song it drowns out my Mids and highs, it could be that your not listening for the right things. The bass on that song is heavy and they lay it on for extended periods of time. Right around 0:10 there is a huge drop of bass and if that's not hitting your ear hard then something in your set up isn't right.
 
 
Bass drops:
0:10 and periodically after that for a while
 
0:50 and periodically after that for a while
 
1:20 Huge drop as hard as the first
 
1:31 another big one here
 
1:41
 
1:51
 
2:54 is a good example cause it cuts out the Mids and the Highs alltogether not the heaviest though
 
4:20 Noteable due to it will show you how well your bass response is.
 
That's a few of them, I can feel my can shaking when I play this song honestly.

 

[TabooPc]

That youtube test is horrible, My Hd650s amped can't hear about 14k on that test. I can hear 20k+ Ive used a high quality tone generator. 0-1:30 Had no sound either, My headphones shake my ears at 30hz on a tone generator.
 
Lots of audiophile headphones are described as lacking bass because people are so used to low quality headphones with massive bass. 
 
Give your headphones 24 hours of listening without eq, listen to some bass heavy songs- Will you get subs in your ears? No. Good headphones are meant to accurately represent tones. But taking time to start appreciating a clean bass will do you wonders.
 
If on the other hand, if you actually DO NOT hear bass at all, you may have a defect.
 
Listen to treble only for a minute, is there improvement from your old cheap headphones?
My girlfriend can't hear the difference between ipod heaphones and my amped grados. (While she can hear improvement in the HD650s)
 
Make sure your really listening!
 
Good Luck!

 

[SoSpecial]

"Hitting the Spoon with a wooden spoon" isn't a bass sound, sounds like your focusing on a different sound then the bass. Wooden spoon+floor = mid frequency, or that's what you should here when you hear that.

 

[kwkarth]

The M50 is a good sounding can.  If you hear no bass then there's something wrong with your setup, maybe the cans themselves.  Did you buy them local?  If so, return to the dealer and check them out in the store.
 
Buy them off the web?  If so, do you have any other headphones that do sound good in your system?  If, so, what?

 

[jonhapimp]

youtube=problem
you might need higher quality music

 

[shane55]

GIGO - garbage in - garbage out.
Source file is critical (youtube=fail), source component (laptop / soundcard) is critical. All these are part of a chain that ends in your brain. Your ears are also part of that chain. The weakest link will become evident when you have revealing cans.
 
The M50's are stellar. They are revealing of lousy sources, so it could be that.
It could be your laptop setup.
Probably not your ears... but you never know. Some days my sinuses/ears are a bit stuffed up and all sound goes south.
 
And... could be the cans. Find a good source file (uncompressed / .wav or HQ lame, FLAC, etc.), good source components / amp, and give them a real test.
 
One thing the M50's are not... weak on bass.
Good luck. 
 
shane

 

[TheWuss]

if the sound "goes flat" when listening to recently produced and mastered metal, i suspect you are hearing the detrimental effects of brickwalling and compression.
 
the m50 is just giving you back what you play through them as best it can.  as others have stated, you shouldn't expect every album you own to magically sound better...
 
if pink floyd sounds great, and sodom sounds like garbage, doesn't that make you wonder?
 
perhaps you should re-title the thread "DO my ATH-M50 headphones sound like garbage?" 

 

 

[shane55]

Quote:

perhaps you should re-title the thread "DO my ATH-M50 headphones sound like garbage?" 

 

And the answer would be...
No, but some of your source files do.

 

 

[DGarces89]

Strapping Young Lad's "Love" may not be the best mastered song ever, but the dynamics are there.
And if he's referencing old school Slayer, then there's a problem somewhere, although their newest CD was pretty brickwalled.
 
OP, might want to check a .flac rip, or play it from the CD itself. If you hear the bass on Pink Floyd and that stuff, I think you just have a decent encode of those, but a crappy encode of your modern metal.

 
Quote:

if the sound "goes flat" when listening to recently produced and mastered metal, i suspect you are hearing the detrimental effects of brickwalling and compression.
 
the m50 is just giving you back what you play through them as best it can.  as others have stated, you shouldn't expect every album you own to magically sound better...
 
if pink floyd sounds great, and sodom sounds like garbage, doesn't that make you wonder?
 
perhaps you should re-title the thread "DO my ATH-M50 headphones sound like garbage?" 

 

 

[jack95]

how long have you burned them in for?