[MaZa]

Quote:

Also since when the hell was metal bass-heavy? Metal needs speed and precision; as long as you can capture the drums and the extension of frequency you don't need the fat bass that the UM2 provides.

AMEN!

Strong kick in bass is a very good thing. But the moment it turns to fat, its very non-metal. Actually it does harm to metal as a music. There is a lot of intense stuff going on the low regions, tightness and speed is a must.


My d-JAYS have been pleasing for metal, but lack of bass kick isnt good. Midrange is great though. Highs get a lot better with proper amplification, but bass stays lean.

 

[ChaseD13]

metal is not a bassy genre X3. speed and precision is more like it. ety is known for speed, so you probably cant go wrong there (same with the altec lansings)

 

[krmathis]

+1 for the Westone UM2.
Its far from perfect. But at least it have a quite punchy bass, which would be a good match for Metal music.

 

[holland]

Metal is bass heavy. It's bass heavy and depending on the sub-genre speed + precision is added to it. With the exception of solos and vocals most of the rhythms are deep with bass tracking the guitar to deepen the effect further. There are even bands that use 8-string guitars with extra basses.

The music itself has a pronounced emphasis on the lower mid to bass regions. If you add the death grunts there's even more emphasis (vs. the King Diamond type of false-setto singing). As Maza said, there's *alot* of stuff going on down there. You need precision speakers/headphones/IEM to hear it all. You need wide dynamic range. You need wide spectrum representation, and you need good PRaT. That is because it all happens at once.

If it's just speed, there's punk for that.

As for IEM, I have an im716. It's OK for that, but I don't have any other IEMs to compare. You really need an amp if you're going to use ETY ER4S or IM716 to listen to anything. I can't stress how important that is. For IM716 you have to use HD mode, the bass mode is just bleh, muddy. With fast stuff like extreme death metal or technical death metal it'll just blur into a wall of pppppp.

The flatter representation is perfectly fine for metal, and preferred, but I wish there were more extension. There's a drop in the lower freq with the IM716 (and probably the ER4S by logical extension) that is noticeable. The high freq is good, but I wish there were a tad bit less as it can be slightly overpowering. That's a problem with the armature drivers, from what I've read on these forums. Perhaps the Westone 3 will change that, but I'm not a natural IEM user, so I won't pay $500 to find out and shelve it for a year.

Just a sample, here's an extreme death metal band, Hate Eternal which I seem to keep going back to every 6 months or so. The former drummer is just so awesome...so, I'll plug them.

If your headphones can make out every single detail of the drum work, then that's good. Behold Judas, IMO, is a good representation of what you need. Clear cymbal representation, but not overpowering. Speed and accuracy and presence for the kicks.

Behold Judas
I, Monarch

The IM716 is weak in this area. It's unbalanced relative to the other parts of the drum work. The high freq is good, but the lower spectrums of the drum work is overpowered by it. It also sounds compressed. These mp3 tracks aren't the greatest, but fortunately I listen to the FLAC versions since I have the album.

 

[MaZa]

Quote:

Metal is bass heavy. It's bass heavy and depending on the sub-genre speed + precision is added to it. With the exception of solos and vocals most of the rhythms are deep with bass tracking the guitar to deepen the effect further. There are even bands that use 8-string guitars with extra basses. The music itself has a pronounced emphasis on the lower mid to bass regions. If you add the death grunts there's even more emphasis (vs. the King Diamond type of false-setto singing). As Maza said, there's *alot* of stuff going on down there. You need precision speakers/headphones/IEM to hear it all. You need wide dynamic range. You need wide spectrum representation, and you need good PRaT. That is because it all happens at once.

Precisely. Most metal genres already have strong foundation in bass, while its not the main frontline instrument. (though there are albums that are basslean, but you can blame the mixer in that, unless its intentional a'la black metal subgenre) Adding headphone thats too bass heavy and bloated produces nothing but mud and noise.


Behold Judas is excellent stress-test for metal headphones which I have linked here before few times. That song has tons on riffs, patterns and stuff layered, from cymbals to guitar. Truly intense!

 

[maladjustdeath]

The problem with using Behold Judas is the unnoticeable bass guitar in this song (at least on unamped sr-80). Drums and guitar are fine though.
This sound reminds me of 90's Scott Burns productions (infamous for "eliminating" Steve Digiorgio bass lines from Death - Human album).
Ideally additional benchmark songs should be added - maybe SYL for multiple layered channel, some Doom (My dying bride Katatonia/Draconian) for bass. But this depends on personal taste (I'm a basshead, and would sacrifice guitars for that).

 

[ChaseD13]

i would like to clarify my comments regarding bass-

i said not bass heavy, not bassless. metal requires fast clear bass. for instance, sennheiser does not work well imo (though they are bassy phones, because they are too slow from my experience).

grados tend to have quicker bass, and though it isn't as present, it also isn't muddy, and it works well for metal (sr225s im talking about).

Ety is known for its fast signature, and though its bass isn't the deepest or hardest hitting, you also know that there wont be any muddiness to its sound, which is what can really ruin a good heavy song. you will also be able to pick out all the stuff that's going on in the song, which is great for this genre (where with slow phones, the music just sounds like a wall of sound hitting you).

 

[Jeff Guidry]

I like my recently acquired super.fi 5 pro's for metal precisely because of their big bass. The low end of a guitar that provides the *crunch* and *chug* of metal requires a headphone that provides sufficient low end to provide an involving experience. Simply because a headphone has lots of bass does not by definition mean that it is slow, nor is a bass lean headphone necessarily fast. I can hear all the details on my super.fi that I do on my ER6i's, but the super.fi's larger bass provides an emotional attatchement to the performance that the Ety's cannot and will not ever provide.

Ety's are great at what they do, but for metal, I find them deeply boring.

 

[ChaseD13]

you arent making a good comparison with the sf5ps and the ety6is. the sf5ps should be compared to the er4p (price range).

would you hear all the same details with the superfi 3 as the er6i? probably not.

i had superfi5s and they were decent for metal. better than shure e4cs. their staging actually was pretty good; it helped separate the instruments fairly well.

 

[Sonata Arctica]

Aah, should've came back here sooner.

I have a budget of 200 and less. I listen to death metal bands such as Cryptopsy and Carcass, power metal bands such as Sonata Arctica (cough), HIZAKI grace project, and Galneryus, and black metal: Stormlord and Sigh.

So basically music with a lot of guitar solos and really bass kick heavy.

 

[stevo937]

Super.fi 5 Pro's? I don't know about using those for metal. I had them and had to turn the bass down on my ipod because the bass was overpowering through the Super.fi's with some of the bands I listen to.

 

[3X0]

I'd say the ER4 is about four times as detailed as the Super.Fi 5 Pro, on rough estimate.

But I think the SF5 Pro does dynamics well, which is also quite important in metal. I do feel the ER4 is the more controlled of the two, however.

 

[mrdeadfolx]

UM2 for sure. They ARE a bass-heavy IEM, but the bass is also very accurate and controlled, so a bassline chugging along wont get blurred into fast double-bass, it will stay seperate and defined.

 

[Sonata Arctica]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrdeadfolx /img/forum/go_quote.gif UM2 for sure. They ARE a bass-heavy IEM, but the bass is also very accurate and controlled, so a bassline chugging along wont get blurred into fast double-bass, it will stay seperate and defined.

http://www.earphonesolutions.com/um2dudrineaw.html

$300, ouch

 

[3X0]

Yes, the UM2 represents a terrible value. Don't bother if they're out of your price range; you're not missing out on a lot.