Ears potentially broken, need help

T50’s or M50’s? I thought T50’s were supposed to be pretty good.

Well I would say that both really aren’t ideal for gaming in their stock config

Are M50x’s really all that moddable?

M50xs are apparently really neutral and really “in-your-face” (Zeos called them “fuck me with detail” headphones, lol). I don’t know… Closed and detailed and neutral? For monitoring? M50x may be just the best for you and your job…

Otherwise, Neumann NDH20s for 400$? Sennheiser hd280 pros (100$) for a change, but will they have less detail?

I have a similar proplem with hd 650. The clamp force i was able to solve by placing it on a speaker. When it comes to sound, I use schiit loki and put the 8khz band at full tilt. Only then hd 650 sounds great to me.

The 50x really need a pad change (angled seems to work best) to be somewhat suitable for gaming, because it needs to gain some soundstage, otherwise imo it’s too lacking for enjoying games. Not super good for competitive though.

The m50x’s really aren’t neutral, they are pretty much just in your face. Using a m50x for mixing would definitely not be ideal. It’s great for monitoring, but not neutral and natural enough for mixing/mastering

Nitpicking…

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-2/graph#295/2031

How is that really neutral? Subbass rolloff, bass hump, then a drop off, and look at that treble

Edit: look at a ndh 20 frequency response, besides the bass hump, the mid-range and treble are much more even and inline with the harman target for example. I would also argue that this isn’t truly neutral because of the bass hump, but that would be nitpicking

Edit 2: I would argue that a neutral mid-range is very important if you want to call something neutral, since something like a wide bass hump can be eq’d if needed, or a dip or spike in treble can be fixed as well, but mid-range can be hard to eq properly, since most music is in the midrange.
I would say that the m50x is somewhat neutral-ish, but if your going for neutrality, there are better options

Even then though they have little to no separation so a lot of sounds just blend in

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Agreed. They really were not designed with positional audio in mind

I already said it, 5db differences in a graph is basically ear canal differences anyway.
Also, place the headphones differently on your ears and you’ll have 5db differences.
Also, the mannequin and the microphones they use are not perfect either.
Also, it’s not even the harman curve, it’s their modified curve.
Also, the harman curve is basically a theory of what should sound neutral.
Consider every graphs you see with a 5db margin of error.
A 5db margin of error on a theory on a mannequin with microphones for us to verify the theory with our different ears and headphone placement.

Scroll through all their graphs. M50x are basically in the top 10 most neutral headphones in the world. You want better? Apparently, you’ll only be happy with DSP-corrected bluetooth crap like Bose QC35s. Because ONLY DSP corrected headphones in which they litterally copy-pasted the harman graph and pressed “enter” will make the line as flat as the line you want (oh, and they sound like crap, because the drivers weren’t meant to do that).

TL,DR: You worry way too much, just enjoy the music. :wink:

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I agree, they have a 6khz dip and a 15khz dip. But, that’s all.
Not talking about detail retrieval or (the absence of) instrument separation, etc.

Of course, there are a lot of variables that go into measurements, they are not the be all end all. There are many different types of measurements with different compensation curves and types of views that very from measurement to measurement. But, having a headphone that accuracy represents neutrality is very important for media production. You want something that is as close to uncolored as possible, and having something like that will improve the quality of your media. EQ is a really good way to correct those inconsistencies and make a headphone more suitable. Having a already close to neutral base can get you farther then something with anomalies in the frequency response. For example, if you compare the focal clear (I’d say pretty neutral and suitable for mixing) to the m50x, the focal is alot more neutral. And like you mention, graphs don’t tell detail retrieval, separation, spacial awareness, and soundstage and imaging. Simply put, the m50x is fine for music, but not natural enough for media production imo.

Edit: also is Bose really correcting for neutrality :thinking:

Edit 2: this is mostly concerning media production and creation if I forgot to say that

may be you should hold on to the headphone upgrade and replace your cpu cooler with an AIO water cooler and some low RPM case fans. :joy:

Or get a nice noctua cooler or be quite cooler both quieter and has more cooling potential than any aio

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If you work for Warner Bros., maybe you should get 1500$ Focal Clears. But for youtube videos or a home studio, meh. 200$ should buy your “endgame”, maybe Sonarworks for EQ if you believe it’s not enough.

I use sonarworks reference 4 when I have to do something where I need neutrality as well. My main gripe is just with the flaws of the m50x besides the frequency response that cause it, even when eq’d properly, to misrepresent what some audio would sound like. There are just too many flaws with the headphone for use outside of monitoring and casual listening imo. There are better options in the similar price range that do studio reference/mixing better then the m50x

Edit: I would say something like the DT880 (either 250 or 600 ohm) or the HD600/HD650 is a much better starting point for any mixing/mastering because of what you can do to eq them flatter, and still retain a better quality of sound for not a huge bump in price. Even something like the srh840 imo would be an upgrade over the m50x because of the potential you can get with accurate eq correction.

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I do have an AIO. It’s the GPU fan controller on the PCB that has shorted out. All three fans are running at maximum speed at all times. This issue will be fixed within the next two weeks, an entirely new list of parts are currently on their way.

Noctua products are ugly af, no thanks

xD