[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Quote:

 
Yeah! I was gonna ask this myself. I know orthos have moved from gem-found-in-a-trash-heap to diamond-encrusted-gotta-have-its and have lost their cheap thrill aspect, which is a shame, but I have most of the formerly-cheap stats myself, and most of 'em aren't cheap and haven't been for a long time. Which ones are still cheap thrills?

If those are mentioned in here, they won't stay cheap for many more seconds, now will they...
 

 

[nickchen]

Quote:

 
Yeah! I was gonna ask this myself. I know orthos have moved from gem-found-in-a-trash-heap to diamond-encrusted-gotta-have-its and have lost their cheap thrill aspect, which is a shame, but I have most of the formerly-cheap stats myself, and most of 'em aren't cheap and haven't been for a long time. Which ones are still cheap thrills?
 

Yes, its a shame, but it's at least partially something you can be proud of. And I swear, no Audeze and Hifiman w/o this thread and its fantastillion silent subscribers and collectors.
 

 

[wualta]

Nickchen, thanks for the kind words, but I'm guilty. Guilty as a sasquatch in a pudding factory.
 
Heck, I'm also guilty of helping make the cheap 'stats DAC had in mind not-so-cheap-no-more, at least here in the US. But hey, maybe if we talk 'em up enough, Beyer would make some more, huh? Huh? Okay, maybe not.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

Now that we are already on the topic of reusing old garbage, I had to get rid of the old ID1 colied cable. It was nothing wrong with it, except that it was broken. And, I need to connect it to speaker taps anyway (whenever I get some drivers that is...) I found three parts to be quite usable, the Y splitter fit nicely on the Mogami cable, and the blobs for the cable entry into the cups can be reused as well.
 

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

Are there actually any 'stats with anything resembling bass for a reasonable price?

Yes.  Stax SR-003s.  New for about $200-$250.  You asked for a 'stat with bass, you did not ask for a stock 'stat with bass that was comfortable or easy to set up in the ear. 

 

[EddieE]

What exactly is meant by "anything resembling bass"???
 
Every stat I've ever heard (admittedly few - ET1000, SR-303. SR-507, O2) has plenty of bass, in the last example way too much IMO.

 

[BoilermakerFan]

Quote:

What exactly is meant by "anything resembling bass"???
 
Every stat I've ever heard (admittedly few - ET1000, SR-303. SR-507, O2) has plenty of bass, in the last example way too much IMO.

I think it stems from the fact that many peeps first listening experiences with 'stats is through an energizer.  The Stax SRD6/SRD7s and even the Woo Wee have limited bandwidth which is an inherent trait do to the small size of the step-up transformers and their small cores, so the bass gets rolled off and the perception becomes that 'stats lack bass.  The Wee is better than all other energizers I've heard, but it is Pro bias only and it still rolled off bass compared to even an eXStatA SS DIY amp.  The main issue is that a pair of 450KHz bandwidth transformers cost as much or more than the entire new Woo Wee.  My SR-Lambdas need about +2/+3 Bass EQ when driven off my SRD-6 and Yamaha receiver that drives my orthos with authority at a neutral setting (+0) on the orthos.  But the Lambdas off a 350V rails eXStatA SS have the same or more bass than my orthos off the Yammie. 
 
The ESP/950s are an inexpensive setup used, but the amp is EXTREMELY sensitive to sources so it gets dogged pretty heavily for being a weak amp.  The 950s lacked bass on all of my sources except my Denon CDP which was a match made in heaven. 

 

[nickchen]

But Eddie, you are aware that you have an extreme affinity towards slim bass presentation?

  Moreover, the bass question is not just about amount, but also layering and structure. While some estats may have enough bass amount, most I've heared (almost the complete Stax & vintage Stax crowd) lacked severely in texture - a muddy deep bass humming in best case, with no impact energy worth mentioning. Even the O2 and the 4070 weren't more than acceptable in that field.
 
No big deal for Mahler, Genesis and Keith Jarret listeners, but...

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

What exactly is meant by "anything resembling bass"???
 
Every stat I've ever heard (admittedly few - ET1000, SR-303. SR-507, O2) has plenty of bass, in the last example way too much IMO.

I haven't really heard many 'stats either and I'm not even sure which ones I have heard because most Staxen look the same.  All except for one (which was vintage and running off an energizer and vintage receiver that may have had tone control enabled) were great through the mids and treble but didn't have enough bass for my tastes.
 
I'm not quite a basshead, but I definitely like more than most people consider neutral and I think "flat" is weak and un-natural on a headphone.  I think the LCD-2 has about the best FR balance I've ever heard (though its not quite my ideal) and I think I'd own one by now if I could justify spending that much money on an open headphone since my house is too loud to listen to an open 'phone for very long.
 
Of course this is all relative.  I could just as easily be saying they have too much treble...

 

[EddieE]

Quote:

But Eddie, you are aware that you have an extreme affinity towards slim bass presentation?

  Moreover, the bass question is not just about amount, but also layering and structure. While some estats may have enough bass amount, most I've heared (almost the complete Stax & vintage Stax crowd) lacked severely in texture - a muddy deep bass humming in best case, with no impact energy worth mentioning. Even the O2 and the 4070 weren't more than acceptable in that field.
 
No big deal for Mahler, Genesis and Keith Jarret listeners, but...
 

 
I'll admit that I do favour a more neutral (or mids-centric anyway) frequency response but regarding quality of bass I far prefer the textured, detailed and fast bass of the lambda Stax's to the average dynamic. Dynamics have the edge in terms of sheer movement of air but I found the SR-507 and now the SR-303 fitted with the 507s leather pads to have a lot of punch and extreme speed with their bass.
 
I did find the O2 bass a bit cloying, treacle thick and over done though.
 
It will be interesting to see how my beloved SR-303 sound when I go back to them - I've listened to nothing but your YamaLux HP-1s since I got them back and have adjusted to the much more V-shaped sound of them.
Loving them more and more every day man! 

 

[ardgedee]

Bass is something we sense physically; Good bass from a live performance or stereo is something you feel in your chest and legs as much as hear in your ears. It doesn't have to be overwhelmingly loud for this to be true, either.
 
People who like their gut-punching bass aren't always happy with taut, well-balanced bass on headphones, because it lacks the physicality they associate with their favorite music, whether it's club electronica, or rock, or even what you can get from sitting in a good seat at an orchestral performance. You can get some of the effect back on headphones by exaggerating the bass, because if it makes your head rattle a little, the physicality is back even if it's affecting a different part of the body than usual, but it's at the penalty of making the bass louder than the other instruments.
 
Headphones are (in broad terms) more detailed than speaker systems, and planars are more detailed than dynamics, so planar phones reproduce certain aspects of a performance that are harder to retrieve through speakers. But the speakers can give the bass more visceral presence, and (in broad terms) replicate the acoustic space better than headphones. Those are the compromises.
 
I like the HE-6 and its bass is wonderful, but I don't get the pleasurable sense of bass from them I get from the relatively cheap, old bookshelf speakers I use as nearfield monitors. The HE-6 has more extension - they go audibly lower - but the speakers are more rockin', even without having to go loud.

 

[DefectiveAudioComponent]

I've got the old Wharfedale isodynamic up and running here. The headset really does lack coloration. It's not quite stock. The coiled cable is replaced by Mogami mini quad, and the pads and headband foam has new pleather. It's running from the speaker taps of an old Rotel RX402 receiver (40W).
 
I noticed that there are the infamous bass-cancellation vents on them. Guess what they do...
 
I like the stock damping pads. They are as thick as what Peerless used later, but much much less dense. I think the ID1 is actually quite lightly dampened despite the thickness of the felt.
 
One of my speakers has also developed a RATTLE. If I wanted rattle I would have gone Grado. Now, to bother, or not to bother about fixing that....
 
By the way, HUGE THANKS to Don and Kabeer for the help in fixing this set

 

[EddieE]

By live performance you mean amplified and played through speakers in a venue. Electric instruments and amplified acoustic instruments are as subject to poor sound reproduction as home listening is and, 99% of the time, just like with 99% of cheap stereos, the bass is horribly overdone.
 
I have found it extremely rare, and precious when I do, when I go to a gig where some talentless hack of a sound engineer has not hugely boosted the bass and midbass levels to the point where you can't hear anything else. That's not music. Not to me. I have wasted so much money in my life paying to go to gigs only to have the music completely slaughtered by some moron sound engineer who thinks people want to be punched in the face by bass and hear none of the rest of the composition at all with any clarity.
 
If you want a judgement of whether bass is overdone or not - an acoustic instrument is the way to tell. If you play a guitar, or listen to a violin or a drum kit in a room - you know what they are supposed to sound like. The double bass played in a concert hall does not wrench your gut or punch your ears - it's only with amplified performances where you get that. 

 

[maverickronin]

Quote:

By live performance you mean amplified and played through speakers in a venue. Electric instruments and amplified acoustic instruments are as subject to poor sound reproduction as home listening is and, 99% of the time, just like with 99% of cheap stereos, the bass is horribly overdone.
 
I have found it extremely rare, and precious when I do, when I go to a gig where some talentless hack of a sound engineer has not hugely boosted the bass and midbass levels to the point where you can't hear anything else. That's not music. Not to me. I have wasted so much money in my life paying to go to gigs only to have the music completely slaughtered by some moron sound engineer who thinks people want to be punched in the face by bass and hear none of the rest of the composition at all with any clarity.
 
If you want a judgement of whether bass is overdone or not - an acoustic instrument is the way to tell. If you play a guitar, or listen to a violin or a drum kit in a room - you know what they are supposed to sound like. The double bass played in a concert hall does not wrench your gut or punch your ears - it's only with amplified performances where you get that. 

I want both!  That's usually pretty hard to do with single driver headphones though.  You can just add arbitrary amounts of subwoofers to speaker rigs if you've got a decent crossover setup.  I'd be doing that myself if not for the fact that roommates and neighbors wouldn't appreciate it.
 
Pretty much all the music I listen to is amplified or synthesized anyway acoustic instruments aren't my top priority but the stuff I like usually turns out to do well with those anyway.
 
Besides personal tastes there are other factors that influence what sort of frequency balance you prefer.  For example I like to listen as softly as I can.  The equal loudness contours dictate rather large boosts to the deep bass and lesser boosts to the midbass and treble if I want it to sound "natural".  On top of that, I have a particular sensitivity to treble and usually prefer it at a lower level than "neutral" of "flat".
 
In the end though, that's just my preference.  Its no better or worse than anyone else's.

 

[ardgedee]

Quote:

By live performance you mean amplified and played through speakers in a venue. Electric instruments and amplified acoustic instruments are as subject to poor sound reproduction as home listening is and, 99% of the time, just like with 99% of cheap stereos, the bass is horribly overdone.

I've witnessed impromptu bluegrass jam sessions - literally in a hallway - where the guitar and bull fiddle can be felt as much as heard. It's a powerful sensation. Especially if the musicians are any good.
 
I agree that soundboard mixing is frequently unbalanced - especially when you're not in a club or auditorium's sweet spot - but the sound doesn't have to be thick and unbalanced for the bass to have palpability and presence regardless of media.