[nastynice]

Got a set of hd238 which sound damn nice, but one thing I noticed recently (only when I plug it into my Onkyo reciever) is when that deep sexy bass hits hard the vocals get distorted, kinda sound like dude is singing with a fan in front of his face.  Whats that all about?  Do I just gotta break the headphones in more?  Do I got a defective pair of hd238?
 
I've played them for probably like 20-25 hrs off my laptop, but only like an hour or so off my onkyo receiver.  Do I have to break em in using the onkyo?  Onkyo sets the bass off, it never hit that hard when playing off my computer...

 

[nastynice]

bump
 
anyone with 238s experiencing this?? now that i'm home and listen to music thru my reciever instead of straight from my laptop, this ish is mad annoying.

 

[nastynice]

anyone? anywhere?

 

[nastynice]

weekday bump. 
 

 

[kmhaynes]

Your Onkyo receiver is giving the Senns a good bit of power, and it sounds like maybe your bass is just turned up too much.  You might have floor/shelf speakers that don't have as much bass, but it is too much for those headphones, and you might need to turn it down some.  
 
Also with the full power, the Senns are probably exhibiting their own sound signature, which for many Senn models is boomy, exaggerated bass (IMO).  They may sound more controlled, less boomy with a less-powered mp3 player.

 

[wyki]

I have a couple of pairs of Sennheisers (not the HD 238) and an Onkyo receiver/ amplifier.  First, Onkyo has a very good headphone output, enough so my 300 ohm impedance Sennheisers sound full though not distorted.   But it may well be that the amp is a bit much for HD 238s (32 ohm impedance), which are designed to sound nice on portables unamped.  The good news, as kmhaynes implied in his post, is that your Onkyo probably has adjustable settings for bass and treble, and you can turn the bass to a minimum.  If it's like my model, you can do this only using the remote; see the manual.  Also, if your receiver has a function called "acoustic presence," you may want to turn that off when using the HD 238.  
 
Later on, if you want a headphone for your Onkyo, you can pick up a used pair of HD 580s on Ebay for not too much; they will sound great.  
 
PS: I have not tried the Onkyo with more recent and expensive audiophile headphones such as the AKG 701/2 or Beyerdynamic DT 880/ 600 ohm; my guess is that these models need a good dedicated headphone amplifier or possibly, as a substitute, headphone output on an old audiophile integrated amp with lots of power.  But that's at the opposite end of the spectrum from the HD 238.  You are having the problem of an amp overwhelming for the headphones.

 

[nastynice]

thanks for the replies, yea I guess the amp is just too much.  That sucks, cuz man that bass sounds SWEEET unfortunately it also makes the vocals sound messed up.  Thats wierd cuz I got another pair of 32ohm headphones, beyerdynamic dt235, and they sound perfect when running thru the onkyo.  I guess the senn's are just more bass heavy
 
Think I might ruin these headphones by driving em that hard?