I know I can try another headphone, no worries there. I am hoping and still expecting to very much enjoy the Z7, certainly after a little adjusting for the modest bass bloat (it doesn’t take much bloom to sound unbalanced for any headphone). These forums are an important place for researching purchases, and it is a responsibility to post as accurate an impression of a headphone as you can do. To my ears, the Z7 do suffer from bass bloat and some associated loss of detail. I can’t pretend I don’t hear that simply because I purchased the headphone, I call it as I hear it.
When I make a purchasing decision for anything I research here in the forums I appreciate hearing about the good the bad and the ugly. I knew full well to expect the bass issues I’m describing, but I happily purchased the Z7 anyway because despite this, it still is a very nice headphone, but I won’t say that bass is it’s strong suit, that would be a lie as I hear the Z7.
I’m not suggesting it is bad sounding bass, just a missed opportunity where it could have been great. I would really like to know who signed off on the design and why they felt the compromise was needed. I am also aware that what I perceive as a negative may for somebody else be either not that important or even a positive attribute. As I said, I did find the Z7 performed better with less bass centric music so perhaps for me this isn’t my go to electronica headphone (which I was hoping for I’ll be honest).
All of this said, I remain confident that some learning and some gentle parametric EQ cutting will greatly improve the Z7s performance in the bass department. I will also acclimate to the new sound signature and very likely start to enjoy it quite a bit, I actually already do.