[RPGWiZaRD]

I had to raise the windows vol slider by aprox 20~25% (setting "30-31" on XB700 vs "25" on XB500 on the windows 7 volume slider) to get same perceived output decibel levels. XB700 is by no means any really demanding headphone either but I did notice it sounds not optimally ampless as you had to drive it a bit louder (in this case 30+ on windows vol slider and it was a very obvious difference when listening for example at 33 compared to 28 already) to get nice quality output in my ears which is usually sign of amp requirement. Volume-wise XB700 is ofc just fine and quite easily driven but it needs amping for improving sound quality while XB500 is pretty much near full potential ampless.

 

[dailysmoker]

well that is weird cause when connected to my Z-2300 which is amped it sounds way less in everything specially the bass is outstanding on the x-fi how is that possible cause it aint got an amp and it's better by miles the volume can go much louder on pc but the bass is just not there when connected to the z-2300 very weird.......

 

[jronan2]

When I got my M50's which was my first pair of credible headphones, I used the Z-2300 to power them up on my iMac. I thought it was amazing how they sounded through the headphone jack, noticably better than out of a regular ipod. Then i got the fiio e7/e9 a little while after that and realized the z-2300 was really an improvement at all. But the Z2300 IMO is one the best bang for your buck computer speaker rigs you can have.
 

 

[legcramp]

Quote:

well that is weird cause when connected to my Z-2300 which is amped it sounds way less in everything specially the bass is outstanding on the x-fi how is that possible cause it aint got an amp and it's better by miles the volume can go much louder on pc but the bass is just not there when connected to the z-2300 very weird.......

The headphone jack on the z-2300 is a piece of crap, along with the rest of the headphone jack on their line of products including the higher end z-5500 as you found out.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I only had the X-530 set and yes the headphone jack on them were horrible compared to my soundcard. Even had some static noise.

 

[dailysmoker]

yes the Z-2300 rocks and pumps out a whole lot of bass, love it but with a headphone attached to it it's not that good so will get an external amp for better sound....

 

[Smuul]

Can the XB500's play as loud as XB700's, until the sound gets distorted?

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

Can the XB500's play as loud as XB700's, until the sound gets distorted?

You'll damage your hearing before it starts distorting. Why are wondering? Playing loud with these headphones isn't a smart thing to do because they push air around like no other headphones.
 

 

[Smuul]

 
Quote:

You'll damage your hearing before it starts distorting. Why are wondering? Playing loud with these headphones isn't a smart thing to do because they push air around like no other headphones.
 

Very good, I like to listen very loud music ;D, but I know where do I have to limit myself. Just wondering if they are playing loud enough. My Skullcrushers were so quiet and they had the worst quality I had ever heard, until I crushed them myself because of the dissappointment I had -.- Even my Panasonics which cost 35€ were much much better quality headphones.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

Very good, I like to listen very loud music ;D, but I know where do I have to limit myself. Just wondering if they are playing loud enough. My Skullcrushers were so quiet and they had the worst quality I had ever heard, until I crushed them myself because of the dissappointment I had -.- Even my Panasonics which cost 35€ were much much better quality headphones.

The XB500 are extremely easy driven, even more so than XB700 in fact, they also pack more bass quantity than XB700 but XB700 are no slouch either it just doesn't have a lot of mid/upper bass but possibly slightly more deep bass than XB500. Now the Skullcrushers have an insane peak at the midbass range somewhere but they roll off very soon below 100Hz it's ridiculous and not to say the overall soundquality is very poor lol. I think you'd really like XB500 especially for 40~45€ or so EUR which I'm able to find them for in my country. But please do yourself a favor and don't blast your ears with loud music, you might regret it later on, with XB500 you don't have to play music that loud to feel the bass if that's your thing...
 

 

[Katun]

Well, shopping around again, I couldn't help but purchase the XB700.
 
Expect my "XB700 vs XB500 | Comparison & Review" in good time.

 

[Smuul]

Quote:

The XB500 are extremely easy driven, even more so than XB700 in fact, they also pack more bass quantity than XB700 but XB700 are no slouch either it just doesn't have a lot of mid/upper bass but possibly slightly more deep bass than XB500. Now the Skullcrushers have an insane peak at the midbass range somewhere but they roll off very soon below 100Hz it's ridiculous and not to say the overall soundquality is very poor lol. I think you'd really like XB500 especially for 40~45€ or so EUR which I'm able to find them for in my country. But please do yourself a favor and don't blast your ears with loud music, you might regret it later on, with XB500 you don't have to play music that loud to feel the bass if that's your thing...
 

I had problems with finding headphones which can do as loud voice as I need to, but reading your reply, seems like they can .
 
Wanted to ask also, does the FiiO E5 improve the sound quality of XB500's, or if it doesn't(atleast they shouldn't make it worse), how much does it improve loudness? I want to use those with my phone . I just don't think they can play loud enough while connected to mobilephone without amplifying them.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Honestly I thought E5 together with XB500 perhaps made it sound only worse, the problem is that XB500 is already a very warm sounding headphone, meaning the upper-bass to lower-mids range is emphasized and highs are a bit veiled or rolled off which makes them somewhat "muffled" sounding even completely untouched without any EQing at all. Then FiiO E5 with bass boost enabled makes it even more warmer from the already perhaps slightly too warm/smooth sound so you loose details, especially from the midrange, vocals and such sounds more masked/muffled etc. Ofc it may heavily depend on what source you're using, I can only speak for a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS soundcard but I doubt the differences would be that drastic as the fact that XB500 is a very warm sounding headphone by default won't change and therefore won't fit well with E5 in particular. Now if you absolutely crave more bass then EQing works better than using E5. Now with bass boost disabled it didn't sound all that great IMO either, it then also removes a significant amount of bass and doesn't really add so much improvement to sound quality it would be worth it in my ears. With XB700 it provides tiny bit improvement with the bass boost enabled because XB700 isn't quite as warm sounding as XB500 and it's more demanding headphone but volume-wise the XB500 even ampless can keep up very well with XB700 + E5. XB500 is significantly louder than even my other cheap headphones which I always concidered perhaps as easy driven as can be, such as the AKG K 518 DJ which is specced impedance: 32 ohm and Sensitivity of even 115dB, well even XB500 goes louder than it at same volume setting.
 
Well if you really need louder then get a more neutral sounding amp but it'll cost you a bit more though or a better device (source). What's your source exactly? Sounds like you don't have the best possible source to drive your headphones, remember if crap source = crap output, no matter what headphone you have. The first thing that'll take its toll with a weak source is the bass, this can be easily noticed for example with crappy Realtek onboard sound for instance, when some big bassbeats kicks in, the other frequencies will be muted as the bass sucks up all power it can get as low frequencies require more power.

 

[Smuul]

While listening music from my PC through Z-5500, I don't think I should need any amp. Just through a mobilephone it is too quiet. Haven't tried so big headphones with any mobile actually, but I think that way. Then I just shouldn't listen through a mobile to music ;D. But can you recommend any good soundcards for XB500?

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Be aware Logitech speaker headphone out sounds really really bad (I've only got a Logitech X-530 set personally but yea on this one it's really bad too). It's been confirmed by several people and even onboard sound sounded better sometimes (probably not for bassheavy playback in mind) but as far as overall sound quality goes. Well I know what CHEAP option would be perfect for you cuz then we'd literally have the same setup and I could send my settings I've tweaked for like a half year+ for optimal result and this option is godlike for bassheads like me, few people know exactly how great it sounds like when you use an Audigy 2 ZS or similar Audigy card together with kX Audio 3rd party drivers which take the cards to a whole new level compared to using Creative's own drivers, there's improvement especially in soundstage and BASS! You can literally get non-distorted 12 - 15" subwoofer kind of bass output if desired, which so far I haven't found possible with any other solution, what it means in practice is that you can like use up to 3 EQs at same time and boost the sliders to the top and it won't sound distorted but it will obviously sound silly as hell like standing next-door to a club as you would barely hear anything besides bass and I could make it so loud that I'd probably hear the headphones outside my house, not joking, I'm actually somewhat scared of even thinking that thought, probably will sound distorted like hell at such volumes but heh, I sure feel tempted to try that sometimes whenever my current XB500 breaks or something. The reason is you can use like I told you those 3 EQs at same time for starters and boost them all to the max and get like +36 boost to all frequencies and then there's multiple volume sliders that sorta adds on top to each other that boosts themselves whereas usual sound card drivers only provide one slider which is linked to the windows volume slider. In this case you have separate sliders that work independently. Typically this kind of solution would lead to distortion of some kind but somehow these drivers manage to do it with very little distortion however you config it, the only times I do notice distortion is when I set Windows 7's own vol slider too high and boost the bass on EQ by a larger amount. Keeping Windows 7 vol slider a bit lower and raising kX Audio driver's vol sliders will fix that issue completely though. 
 
Only catch is that the Audigy cards are so old by now you'd have to buy it 2nd hand but I quickly found one here on this forum for example by putting up a "WTB: Audigy 2 ZS" thread in the sales section. Based on condition you could get them for like 10~20 EUR or so probably, I bought a backup Audigy 2 ZS card for me in case my current one would die, don't plan on changing soundcard anytime soon.
 
You'd also do me a favor if you'd end up getting a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy card because I've personally wanted to get some opinions of fellow XB500 + Audigy card w/ kX Audio drivers users but been unsuccessful to find any so far. The drivers are huge part of the reason I like these XB500 so much. They play so well together and they have the best EQ by far I've ever used and XB500 benefits a lot by EQing so. Some people spend 1000+ EUR  on their equipment and still not completely satisfied, I've spent like 43 EUR on the headphones and 15 EUR on the soundcard and feel like I'm in heaven.