[SilverEars]

I'll just talk about the 600. It has great bass in terms of speed, timely decay, timbre. On a beefy SS amp (like my Ragnarok 1): Output is already going down at 80 Hz, well down at 55, and basically invisible at 32 Hz. That's not great bass all the way around - by definition. Now I put damping in almost every can I have including the 600 because I detest rattling and poor Q in the bass, so I am very conservative compared to most here in what I consider a proper amount of bass. But hold on:

Its well known that if you hear a piece of music on a speaker/headphone with very capable bass, that when you hear it on a table radio or ear buds with much less bass later, your brain sort of fills it in. Also if you listen to classical and jazz that are well recorded, you won't miss much under 40 Hz, because there isn't much there. So? Wait.

OTOH the BH Crack w/ Speedball (transformerless tube amp) somehow magically fills in the 30 Hz to 60 Hz range without making a sloppy mess of the bass from 60-250 on the HD-600. I measured it as well as my Rag and sure enough the Rag which is a beast for planar cans and speakers from 4 - 60 ohms, isn't pushing much current for the 300-600 Hz cans. The BHCS was so impressive to me that I bought the kit and am still buying up select pieces before I start the build.

Add on:

As for the 800 and 800S - the price of the new units increase expectations for what bass should be experienced. Even fans usually list this as the #1 issue - that or the annoying bits in the treble. The 800S absolutely will not play EDM music well. It doesn't handle low register piano or lots of organ music either. The 800S seems like it has a touch more bass, but that's because Senn increased the amount of 2nd order harmonic. The 800 is cleaner. I have NOT heard either one on a tubed amp that would do them justice - so I have to leave that as a possible answer like the 600 has.

I have the opposite opinion on the HD800S for EDM. They do EDM really well due to the lean nature and speed. For EDM, I find HD800 type responses do really well due to the less weight in the mids. That causes perception of speed.

Biggest factor would be what amp people are driving the HD800S out of. Most solid-states causes further upper-mids reduction and too lean of bass with too much treble emphasis. And this includes the priciest solid-states out there.

 

[Fegefeuer]

I like the HD 800 as well for EDM, the headstaging and high technical prowess give the impression of some big supermodern elegant club. While ultimate levels roll off after 30Hz the bass is pretty good and clean before that imo.

 

[SilverEars]

I like the HD 800 as well for EDM, the headstaging and high technical prowess give the impression of some big supermodern elegant club. While ultimate levels roll off after 30Hz the bass is pretty good and clean before that imo.

To make better sense of this, Fostex dynamic drivers headphones are the opposite in some ways. The response are warmer and rises as you are going toward the subs. That kinds of response causes bass delay, so the bass is perceived slow. You get great rumble with the subs that works well with slow genre like hip-hop, but not speedy enough for EDM.

 

[gimmeheadroom]

Well, a few people can't tell the difference between the K5 pro and an Atom so it's supposed to be good (and powerful), but I assume the HD600 then needs heaps of power to wake up.

I thìnk so. The 600s scale amazingly well, a lot of Sennheisers are that way. You almost can't throw too much amp at them.

 

[bagwell359]

Oops, I like EDM on the 800S, but, I was talking more of the bass heads that like over the top banging. I'll omit the cans I'm thinking of to avoid arguments.

 

[kman1211]

I have the opposite opinion on the HD800S for EDM. They do EDM really well due to the lean nature and speed. For EDM, I find HD800 type responses do really well due to the less weight in the mids. That causes perception of speed.

Biggest factor would be what amp people are driving the HD800S out of. Most solid-states causes further upper-mids reduction and too lean of bass with too much treble emphasis. And this includes the priciest solid-states out there.

I mostly agree, as someone who listens to a lot of edm I personally find a tight punchy bass and good speed is what makes for nice edm experience, don't necessarily find leaner mids a necessity, I would actually prefer full-bodied mids as well but not many headphones have super quick decay and full-bodied mids. But a quick decay is vital for a lot of EDM imho.

 

[SilverEars]

I mostly agree, as someone who listens to a lot of edm I personally find a tight punchy bass and good speed is what makes for nice edm experience, don't necessarily find leaner mids a necessity, I would actually prefer full-bodied mids as well but not many headphones have super quick decay and full-bodied mids. But a quick decay is vital for a lot of EDM imho.

When it comes to electronic, I've always had issues with speed of the bass with most dynamic drivers. When it came to bass speed, planar just does better with electronic stuff I feel, but tend to have less natural timbre for natural instruments than dynamic IMO. I remember the first time I played EDM with HEKV1, that was eye opening. The imaging was just so interesting with layers and depth of different electronic sounds, and the speed, so fast even with the subs! I think EDM requires airy sound response, 800 does that as well as the HEK series, but I find that 800 doesn't do depth and layering of sounds like HEK series, but sounds are in one elliptical plane (although stage is vertically most elliptical you can probably get, the widest) that is stetched far outward that people find the stage to be huge.. So far, these two headphones I found to be the headphones for electronic. 800 needs the right amp however.

Even the iems I've been listening to lately got to me to realize what type of response works best with EDM. It wasn't really the balanced response. I see it as analytical with no emphasis on subs. Sub boost seems to cause some sound delay. However, how fast subs depends on the type of driver I believe. Dynamic driver will likely be slower than electrostatic or BA based.

 

[SilverEars]

I like modern deep house. Some of my current stuff I listen to are Alan Walker, Lost frequencies, Jonas Blue, and R3HAB. This isn't the same house music from the 80's, music has changed. Lately, I've been enjoying Lost frequencies. Electronic isn't just limited to these guys, these guys are modern day composers, but are interestingly called DJs (not the kind we are used to thinking that scratches records, etc..). These guys have instrumental experience, it's just they chose to mix with electronic sounds. They are really producers than DJs in a sense because they work with singers in composing melodies for them. These are just a subset, electronic dance. Electronic is so vast and variations are limitless just like any other genre, but sounds can be created from scratch, so variations are much more vast than regular instruments.

 

[mobbaddict]

When it comes to electronic, I've always had issues with speed of the bass with most dynamic drivers. When it came to bass speed, planar just does better with electronic stuff I feel, but tend to have less natural timbre for natural instruments than dynamic IMO. I remember the first time I played EDM with HEKV1, that was eye opening. The imaging was just so interesting with layers and depth of different electronic sounds, and the speed, so fast even with the subs! I think EDM requires airy sound response, 800 does that as well as the HEK series, but I find that 800 doesn't do depth and layering of sounds like HEK series, but sounds are in one elliptical plane (although stage is vertically most elliptical you can probably get, the widest) that is stetched far outward that people find the stage to be huge.. So far, these two headphones I found to be the headphones for electronic. 800 needs the right amp however.

Even the iems I've been listening to lately got to me to realize what type of response works best with EDM. It wasn't really the balanced response. I see it as analytical with no emphasis on subs. Sub boost seems to cause some sound delay. However, how fast subs depends on the type of driver I believe. Dynamic driver will likely be slower than electrostatic or BA based.

Planars, electrostats and balanced armatures definitely shine with electronic music IMO. Even though BA don't necessirily the same level of detail as high end electrostats and planars, they share similar qualities in terms of speed and effortlessness. I believe this is the key for this type of music, regardless of the sound signature.

 

[SilverEars]

Planars, electrostats and balanced armatures definitely shine with electronic music IMO. Even though BA don't necessirily the same level of detail as high end electrostats and planars, they share similar qualities in terms of speed and effortlessness. I believe this is the key for this type of music, regardless of the sound signature.

I think when it comes to dynamic drivers, it's the amping that counts the most to get it to sound effortless, whereas planars are more or less consistent from various amping. Perhaps it's that dynamic driver voice coil has something to do with it, with the impedance hump, not so sure. When there is an impedance hump, there is some phase that comes along with it. Certain planars like HIfimans do not have this voice coil hump since it's thin diaphragm based with traces on the diaphragm. Same goes for electrostats, and the bass sounds fast and effortless, but the weight and impact is lacking. Maybe there is a trade-off when it comes to impact and speed. I think Hifiman kind planars shares similarities to electrostats. You can get greater bass impact with planars with the magnets, but electrostats with the charged thin diaphragm surface require strong voltage, and thus they usually do not have good impact or weight to bass, but definately fast due to the light diaphragm, you notice it in the dynamics of the sound.

I think sound signature has something to do with perception of speed as well. I've experienced iems that you can change the signature with filters, and a particular filter would sound speedier than another.

 

[mobbaddict]

I think when it comes to dynamic drivers, it's the amping that counts the most to get it to sound effortless, whereas planars are more or less consistent from various amping. Perhaps it's that dynamic driver voice coil has something to do with it, with the impedance hump, not so sure. When there is an impedance hump, there is some phase that comes along with it. Certain planars like HIfimans do not have this voice coil hump since it's thin diaphragm based with traces on the diaphragm. Same goes for electrostats, and the bass sounds fast and effortless, but the weight and impact is lacking. Maybe there is a trade-off when it comes to impact and speed. I think Hifiman kind planars shares similarities to electrostats. You can get greater bass impact with planars with the magnets, but electrostats with the charged thin diaphragm surface require strong voltage, and thus they usually do not have good impact or weight to bass, but definately fast due to the light diaphragm, you notice it in the dynamics of the sound.

I think sound signature has something to do with perception of speed as well. I've experienced iems that you can change the signature with filters, and a particular filter would sound speedier than another.

Yes I also think sound signature can impact perception of speed, the exact same way a forward treble impacts perception of detail. The same logic applies. If you hear less bass relatively to the rest of the spectrum, it will become less noticeable how slow this bass is But it's an artificial way to improve speed at the expense of balance accuracy.

 

[ToTo Man]

This is the PEQ preset made by oratory1990. "Peaking" is just the analog bell filter in UAPP. "Preamp Gain" is called Output Level I think.

Those EQ settings look very strange to me. A -5dB cut above 13kHz is a sure way to make the HD600 sound rolled and lifeless of any air IMO!

 

[ToTo Man]

For low frequencies - say under 30 Hz, 600 isn't the can. In fact it starts to fade at 80 Hz in terms of volume, but the tone, damping (Q) remain good to about 55 Hz on my Rag 1, but on the BHC Speedball it goes down almost flat to under 35 Hz.

Do you have measurements that shows BHC+Speedball extends the HD600 flat to 35Hz or is it just your subjective impression? I'm struggling to understand how a high output impedance amp can extend sub-bass without also elevating the frequencies around the dynamic headphone driver's Fs, which in the case of the HD600 would result in bloated bass at 100Hz. Or do you then use EQ to flatten the hump at Fs?

 

[ToTo Man]

This observation is correct. If you drive HD600 with the amp like that, it will reveal a slight mechanical resonances in the midbass section. A consequence of a mechanical boost is a fast roll-off of the low bass. Faster than it were without mechanical boost. A published measurements are made using high quality amps where mechanical resonances are well dumped, so you see a slow roll-off in the low bass section. My FiiO E12A has a low bass bost switch, when enabled it shows what these headphones are capable of. Audio GD R2R11 has no bass boost, but I don't need that for HD600. A bass is deep, goes low and is 100% coherent with music.

When you say "mechanical boost" do you mean high output impedance from the amplifier causing elevated and slower midbass response around the driver's resonant frequency (Fs)? This is correct, but the part you wrote about high output impedance causing earlier sub-bass roll-off is only part-correct. The roll-off is only faster because the level at Fs is boosted due to high output impedance. By the time you get below 20Hz, both curves are at the same level:

https://diyaudioheaven.files.wordpress.com/2018/05/120-ohm-tonal-bal.png
https://diyaudioheaven.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/hd600-120-ohm.png
https://diyaudioheaven.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/hd650-new-pads-0-ohm-vs-120-ohm.png

 

[bagwell359]

Do you have measurements that shows BHC+Speedball extends the HD600 flat to 35Hz or is it just your subjective impression? I'm struggling to understand how a high output impedance amp can extend sub-bass without also elevating the frequencies around the dynamic headphone driver's Fs, which in the case of the HD600 would result in bloated bass at 100Hz. Or do you then use EQ to flatten the hump at Fs?

I have a number of test CD's and I ran them on the 600 on bass under 100 Hz once I noticed this issue. No measurements from that session but I did buy a mic w/ software I hope to employ after I build my Crack w/ speedball.

Basically I believe the Rag 1 doesn't put out much current to that load, and its especially notable in the lower bass, plus tubes have a way of fattening up bass (but it wasn't obvious if so) - but the 600 is very quick and has close to an ideal "Q" - if I may borrow that speaker term, so it's possible a bit fatter from the tubes and a bit skinnier from the Rag.

I do know this much - overall the 600 sounded much better (subjectively) on the BHC w/ S than it does in my Rag 1.

I went w/o using EQ during those sessions - FYI.