[bcasey25raptor]

mids are recessed what is meant. i am at a loss at this
 
muddy bass. i am curious on this to
 
and what makes recessed mids bad for rock. i am really curious as to why. i am still practically a noob.
 
thanks for your time.

 

[joelpearce]

Every pair of headphones is more or less responsive at different frequency levels:
 
 
sub-bass-------------------bass------------------------mids----------------------------------treble
 
 
If the mids are recessed, it means that there isn't as much volume and power at the midrange, and gets overpowered by bass and treble (usually what we call a midbass hump, which is intentionally created to give the sound more oomph).  Why is this bad for rock?  Rock is driven by vocals and guitar, both of which exist in the midrange.  Often, electronica emphasizes bass beats and treble noise instead.
 
I recommend you do a search for a program called sinegen.  It creates a sine wave at frequencies, and you can hear where a pair of headphones is quieter or louder.  It's a good way to get a feel for the overall response curve of your headphones.
 
Muddy bass means it is hard to distinguish individual notes in the low end.  You can hear that there is bass, but it's an indistinct mass of bass, much like you find in most car subwoofers.  If a pair of headphones has well-defined bass, you can hear individual notes.

 

[WhiteCrow]

Its like..... Imagine if you will three large blocks of color, Red=Highs Green=Mids Blue=Bass.
Now, Recessed mids would be like the red and blue being in front of and covering the green a bit. same with highs being recessed, but green and blue are covering it a bit. On the flip side an aggressive headphone like a Grado the Green and red would be on top of the blue. also slow muddy bass....Listen to slayer*even if you don't like them* with the beats, then with something like the D2000, HFI-580, M50 and you will see what it means, just kind of un-energetic and bass that just kind of happens and keeps happening despite the fact that the bass ended a second ago and it just kind of muddles the rest of the sound.

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

Every pair of headphones is more or less responsive at different frequency levels:
 
 
sub-bass-------------------bass------------------------mids----------------------------------treble
 
 
If the mids are recessed, it means that there isn't as much volume and power at the midrange, and gets overpowered by bass and treble (usually what we call a midbass hump, which is intentionally created to give the sound more oomph).  Why is this bad for rock?  Rock is driven by vocals and guitar, both of which exist in the midrange.  Often, electronica emphasizes bass beats and treble noise instead.
 
I recommend you do a search for a program called sinegen.  It creates a sine wave at frequencies, and you can hear where a pair of headphones is quieter or louder.  It's a good way to get a feel for the overall response curve of your headphones.
 
Muddy bass means it is hard to distinguish individual notes in the low end.  You can hear that there is bass, but it's an indistinct mass of bass, much like you find in most car subwoofers.  If a pair of headphones has well-defined bass, you can hear individual notes.

how do you use the program properly?

 

[joelpearce]

Just press the power button and then drag the slider on the left and listen to dips and peaks in perceived volume.  Also, turn your volume down a little before you start.

 

[2enty3]

Recessed mids are kind of obvious when you hear it, especially if your a rock/metal fan. Overall it just feels like a large part of the song is missing. I couldn't rock out the same way with my A700's as i do with my K240's.
 
I think of Muddy bass as simply, undefined bass. you know it's there, but it's undefined, it has no note, no detail.

 

[ardgedee]

Recessed generally means that part of the sound spectrum is quieter than the others. So a recessed midrange means that the highs and lows are pronounced. Some equipment has rolled-off highs, which means that the higher a note is, the quieter it'll be.
 
You can kind of extrapolate what some other terms mean from that. Most music has most of its information in the midrange - it covers the range of most of our speaking and singing voices, is where most lead instruments are played, and is in general the most important part of the frequency range for an audio system to get right if we're going to be happy to listen to music on it.
 
Muddy simply means unclear. The best demonstration of muddy bass is to hear somebody's kicker-enabled car loudly playing hip-hop. You can only hear undifferentiated booms and buzzes, and can't tell what note is being played or how, even though you're obviously hearing some very powerful low notes of some kind. If the bass wasn't muddy, you'd be able to tell what the note is, identify the attack, sustain and decay, and possibly know what kind of instrument created it.
 

 

[thornygravy]

 
Quote:

I think of Muddy bass as simply, undefined bass. you know it's there, but it's undefined, it has no note, no detail.

This.
 
It's like the source of bass from the guitars/bass and the bass drum(s) are indeterminable.

 

[sonitus mirus]

I don't feel that recessed mids are necessarily a bad attribute, it really depends on your preferences.  Genres such as Rock and Metal are difficult to use when attempting to determine which headphones might appeal to someone.  The songs and artists are far too diverse to rely on a particular sound signature that could be used to find a reliable reference point.  I have a pair of Denon AH-D5000s and Audio-Technica M50s, which most would consider to be lacking a bit in the mids; however, I enjoy listening to almost every "rock" song from the 50's to present over how they sound on a pair of Grado's, which typically offer much stronger mids.

 

[Riku540]

Quote:

a recessed midrange means that the highs and lows are pronounced.

I have a problem with this, as it's a common misinformed statement. If the mids stay where they are, and the highs and lows are pronounced, then the mids are not reaccessed. They are neutral. Recessed means to withdraw, which means recessed mids suggests that the midrange is lower than neutral volume.
 
So a neutral headphone should be:
 
Highs: 5
Mids: 5
Lows: 5
 
Pronounced treble and bass would be:
 
Highs: 7
Mids: 5
Lows: 7
 
 
Which makes recessed mids:
 
Highs: 5
Mids: 3
Lows: 5
 
If a headphone were to have pronounced treble and bass... AND recessed mids:
 
Highs: 7
Mids: 3
Lows: 7
 
It would sound like there's a big hole in the music... vocals would be difficult to hear and almost impossible to make out the lyrics. Yes I realize technically the 2nd and 3rd example could be the same in different proportions, but there's still a difference between how the sound is either emphasized or held back.
 
It's either one or the other, not both.
 
The reason why I bother to bring up "the glass is half full" vs "the glass is half empty" is because sometimes people's statements can give people the wrong impression of headphones. For example, the DT 880 is a bass neutral headphone, but many claim that it "lacks" bass. This is not true, because what is the DT 880 being compared to? the DT 770 and 990? Bass heavy headphones? Compare the DT 880's with the AD700, and there's no possible way that the DT 880's can "lack" bass by any stretch of the definition.
 
All I'm saying is, neutral is the bar in which proportions should be measured.

 

[Argyris]

I always love how I'll hear that headphones can be dominated by either treble or bass and still have recessed mids. Kind of like the DT880. Recessed would indicate that it's between something--since the DT880 is usually described as somewhat bright and bass light, the midrange would be recessed between the treble and...nothing?
 
I think part of it stems from the upper overtones being emphasized in bright-leaning headphones. The same overtones are emphasized in headphones with true midrange recession (i.e. V- or U-shaped response), so the midrange on both a mids-recessed and a bright headphone might sound similar (excepting possible bass bleed in the former case). Keeping with the Beyers, I can see how a DT770 or (especially) a DT990 might be said to have recessed midrange. The DT880...not so much. Many people don't like a cold or analytical sound (usually a consequence of boosted treble), so they perceive a lack of body as "recession." I think a more accurate way of putting it would be to say that the upper overtones are caught by the treble. Only once an attendant bump in the bass is added will there be true recession.
 
(Note: I'm not offering the above as some sort of "defense" of my headphone, but rather as a simple illustration of my point.)
 
The other comments have got the muddy bass definition down: basically, it's a lack of definition between different notes, as well as a general lack of control or texture.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

So a neutral headphone should be:
 
Highs: 5
Mids: 5
Lows: 5
 

 
A neutral headphone would also be:
Highs: 2
Mids: 2
Lows: 2
 
Just use your volume knob to increase the volume it you want it all "5"s
 
Or the same if the highs, mids and lows were all 8
Just use your volume knob to lower the volume back to what you consider a 5
 
Being recessed or pronounced is all relative scale.  Not an absolute.

 

[Riku540]

... Hence the second half of my post, if you read it. Quoting me on a partial post out of context proves nothing. Argyris hits the nail on the head.

 

[Ham Sandwich]

Quote:

... Hence the second half of my post, if you read it. Quoting me on a partial post out of context proves nothing.

I read your entire post, including the second part.  Your premise misses the concept that being recessed or pronounced in the frequency response is relative.  Look at how HeadRoom presents their frequency response graphs.  All of the graphs are adjusted so that 1000 Hz is at the 0 dB level.  All of the graphs are relative to having 1000 Hz at 0 dB.  There is a reason why they do that.
 
Adjust all of your comparisons so that the mids are always "5".  Instead of "high 5, mid 3, low 5" you would have "high 7, mid 5, low 7".  In a relative context they are exactly the same.

 

[Riku540]

Take Argyris' example. If a headphone is bright, and bass light, how can the mids be recessed? Put the highs at 6 and the lows and 4... the mids have nowhere to go. If the mids go to 4 then the bass isn't light, it's neutral and has very emphasized treble. Graphs do not tell the whole story, and neither do impressions. Impressions given with the wrong descriptions can and often will steer people who would probably otherwise enjoy the headphone, due to poor description and misinformation.
 
I'm pretty sure at some point in time... I've seen just about every headphone and IEM except for maybe Grado's, to have the "recessed mids" label.