Bass Headphones – Not
Only for Dance Music
Let's face it, most
headphones have terrible bass response. You can buy super bass
headphones as advertised on the packaging and get lukewarm bass
at best. Those of us who love bass want headphones that can
vibrate your face when playing. What kind of headphones do
that?
Many headsets that are designed for DJ use
have great bass. As we all know, professional disk jockeys want
serious bass just like their speaker systems produce.
When it comes to headphones, there are two
ways to serious bass, go large or go tiny. Surprisingly, tiny
earbud headphones can have terrific bass. The weird thing about
them is that nobody hears a thing and to you, the bass is
rattling your brain.
Really tiny earbud bass headphones work by doing two things.
The first thing they do is isolate external noises. The part of
the device that fits in your ear canal is made up of a special
cellular foam which is very sound absorbent and springy so it
molds precisely to the inside of your ear. This airtight seal
assures that the tiny vibrations produced by these earbuds is
heard by your ears as very loud sound. Because of the geometry
and proximity to your ear, not much movement is needed from the
diaphragm of the drivers to produce this loud
volume. As a result, the sound is not
distorted as it might be with traditional speakers. Please keep
in mind that since you also won't be able to hear yourself
speaking with these, you will most definitely be yelling if
someone asks you a question.
On the other side of the spectrum are the very large bass
headphones. These headphones take the opposite approach and go
large. Typically, they fit over the ears and seal out noise by
covering and isolating the whole ear. The diaphragms of these
headsets are very large. They produce heavy bass without even
breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, they are not subtle.
Wearing them to work is a but problematic, especially if you
are trying to fit in. They stick out like a sore thumb and are
also heavy so your ears might get a little tired after a while
because of the cups pressing on the side of your head all day
long.
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