[White Lotus]

FOSTEX:
 
APPROVED BY MOZART 

 

[SP Wild]

Why do audiophiles put 'soundstage' over all else?
 
My brother just visited me.  He had a mission, he wanted to sample all my headphones, he never has any interest in my headphones and has never sat down to compare them all.  Y'see, he had upgraded from a dumb phone to a smartphone recently...and decided to buy some earphones for it...having never bought an earphone with his own cash before, ever...he had purchased a pair of Sen CX300 II IEMs...and was curious about headphones and how his new smart phone accessory compared to the best.
 
After sampling them...what I thought he would like....HD650, LCD2 and D7000....as he made it clear to me bass lite was not on, he wondered what it was that got audiophiles.  I handed to him my K701s....now with real interest he listens and declares...."yeah....the treble does sound good.  Its good...it sounds good....but it feels not good".  He loved it and hated it at the same time.  He can hear more up top.  But he declared the music isnt there...its in the mids...where the HD650 and LCD2 brought out for him micro tunes he'd never heard before in familiar recordings.
 
Its the soundstage I told him that is what they love about hi fi and the k701s and LCD2s are the biggest ones in my collection can you hear it?  He looks at me and goes yeah its the most open sounding headphone but 'eh' was his response.  (oddly enough he rated the soundstage the same as me....LCD2 most open, K701, HD650 then D7000s which he felt were not open and the mids were shut in....but he loved that bass and was his second favorite overall to the LCD2s.
 
Nevertheless, he left my place just now....happily declaring himself a bass head.
 
I thought it was interesting...it was not beats that grew headphones....smartphones grew headphones and Beats capitalised.

 

[Claritas]

The iPod, which Apple started selling five and a half years before the iPhone, started it. Back then, portable audio buffs were replacing their stock earbuds with PX100 (also pretty bassy).

 

[Justin_Time]

   
Yet, there are so many people like bassy headphones, and there is no doubt; I believe majority of people are bassheads. Now the question is, why?

Because while we can only HEAR the sound in the rest of the frequency range, we can both HEAR and FEEL the bass--yep, caps for emphasis

 
 
That doubles the pleasure by any measure--that's my reptilian brain speaking.
 
J_T (Honorary member of BassHead Anonymous)
 
PS:  I am trying to kick this nasty habit, but that's hard, man!

 

[SP Wild]

I dont think headphones were able to explode the way they did with Ipod alone....Ipod and mp3 players don't come close to the pride of ownership and social stature of smart phones.  Not interested in MP3 players...will never buy one....like my brother....but too late, already has one.
 
So having said that....if you guys can't stand the predominance of people that want big bass...it won't change anytime soon and in headphones will get worse as averge joes jump on the technlogy bandwagon.
 
Y'all gotta get over it....a bass bump preference is absolutely ordinary and normal.  Its been the standard for most people as long as I care to remember.
 

 
Enjoy your music, that is all that matters.

 

[Claritas]

If a slight bass bump preference is common, isn't that compensating for the limitations of headphones compared with speakers--not something intrinsically desirable?

 

[castleofargh]

If a slight bass bump preference is common, isn't that compensating for the limitations of headphones compared with speakers--not something intrinsically desirable?

can't say for others, but for me it is very obvious. I never ever prefered boosted bass on relatively flat speakers(in fact depending on the room I often lowered bass a little), I do need a little bass boost on fullsize headphones, and I'm pretty much a basshead on IEMs.
also I've noticed that the more rolled off the sub bass on one headphone, the more I will exagerate the mid bass to get the "feeling" back(and of course it's never satisfying as that isn't what I really want).

 

[SP Wild]

I think people add up bass energies differently.  The HD650 and LCD2 has been divisive with which one made more bass....some seem to take on the bumped midbass over the LCD2 as more bass....I personally hear overall more bass energy in the LCD2....because the extra energy at midbass is far less than the energy foregone at subbass by the HD650.

 

[SP Wild]

If a slight bass bump preference is common, isn't that compensating for the limitations of headphones compared with speakers--not something intrinsically desirable?

 
I'm just going by what everyone did to their bass and treble controls in the car and at home.  Pretty much everyone I know.  Don't you think studios will take advantage of this?  Thus feeding the habit in a vicious cycle.

 

[Claritas]

I'm just going by what everyone did to their bass and treble controls in the car and at home.  Pretty much everyone I know.  Don't you think studios will take advantage of this?  Thus feeding the habit in a vicious cycle.

When I get in someone else's car, I usually find Sub +2, Bass +2, Treble +1, and they never seem to touch Balance or Fade -- in other words, a mess! People just want more of everything.

Supposedly, the Loudness War should compensate for road noise. (Hence, Lars Ulrich's quote about how great Death Magnetic sounds driving in his car with the windows down.) But even that doesn't seem to be enough, if the EQ configurations I'm seeing tell us anything.

 

[White Lotus]

I was told that FM radio has EQ on it already, to compensate for engine noise in cars. That's why it always sounds a bit mid-heavy.
 
Citation needed

 

[SP Wild]

I was told that FM radio has EQ on it already, to compensate for engine noise in cars. That's why it always sounds a bit mid-heavy.

Citation needed

You were told wrong. I noticed recently as well how good the mids can punch through a crap car stereo.

Two factors here. FM radio is limited to about 16khz or lower...digital radio sounds worse (FM analogue today sounds worse than pre digital radio...now they use the analogue signal from the digital compression and beam that instead). Any way, this has the effect of stripping all the ambient information up to...so it darkens the sound, but in the wrong way because the removal of ambient information leads to a flat 2 dimensional sound.

Secondly, the cabin is relatively easy to pressurise for good MIDs even from crappy small speakers.

Also a bass boost in car systems is generally recommended in order to mask tyre and engine noise.