Re: [LAU] headphones

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 2:54 PM, Florin Andrei <florin@email-addr-hidden> wrote:
> Mark Knecht wrote:
>>
>> for bass practice the 7506's are going to work out great, but they
>> aren't the perfect set of headphones. Surprise - none will be perfect
>
> Previously I was speaking in general. But on the particular topic of
> listening to bass, I would appreciate some more insight, since I'm not a
> bass player.
> So, if you're practising bass guitar, do you want your headphones to
> emphasize bass, or do you want them to be flat?

In my mind you want the response flat to a bit emphasized in the bass
region. There are really two things operating here:

1) Fletcher-Munson tends to drop the bass if you're not listening loudly.

2) Most people have never used a sound pressure meter to determine
what volume to listen safely.

3) Even if they have it's difficult when using headphones without
special equipment.

4) Over time folks tend to listen at lower levels if they are going to
protect their hearing.

5) All of that adds up to less bass when listening

6) To practice bass get a headphone with some extra emphasis in the
bass areas, keep the volume down and enjoy.

>
> A lot of the phones mentioned here are flat, or even a bit light on the
> bass side. Most of the Sennheiser, the AKG K 240, to some degree the
> Grado - all these are pretty flat, they don't emphasize anything, or not
> in the bass range at least.
>
> I only know of one phone that is very accurate and has a pretty full
> bass - the Beyerdynamic DT 880, but at $320 it's beyond the price range
> mentioned by the OP.
>
> So, do you want the bass over-emphasized when practising it?
>
> (OTOH, if the phone is accurate, even if it has a thin bass, I guess it
> can be corrected in the preamp. But again, I'm not a bass player.)
>

That's a possibility also.

Please note that for the record I don't know what headphones are
accurate. I own AKG's, Sony's & Sennheiser's. I've never owned Grade
or Beyer Dynamics but would like to get a set on day. Comparatively
the Sony's have more bass so it seems a good match for his task. I
think lots of rock bass players (Squire, McCartney, Rutherford, Lake)
sound good in these headphones whereas the other headphones they don't
stand out as much.

- Mark

> --
> Florin Andrei
>
> http://florin.myip.org/
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Received on Fri Jul 18 04:15:03 2008