Today we're joined by Jakub Charkiewicz of TheAudioStuff.com, where he reviews headphones and builds free tools for testing audio, for a special guest article on headphone treble measurements and EQ.
Play the same track on a good pair of speakers and then on headphones, and the bass rarely matches. The speakers seem to fill the room and hit you in the chest. The headphones may reach deeper, yet somehow feel thinner. Neither is lying to you. They deliver bass in completely different ways, and once you understand how, it's much easier to get the bass you want from a headset.
Speakers: bass you hear and feel
Bass notes have long wavelengths. A 50 Hz note is nearly seven meters (about 22 feet) from one pressure peak to the next, longer than most rooms. So in a room, bass doesn't travel cleanly from the speaker to your ear. It bounces between the walls, floor and ceiling and builds into room modes (https://theaudiostuff.com/glossary/room-mode/ ), which make some notes boom and others almost disappear, depending on where you sit.
At high volume, speaker bass also reaches you through your body. You feel a kick drum in your chest and through the floor as much as you hear it, and that physical sensation is a big part of why speaker bass feels so powerful.
Headphones: bass delivered straight to the eardrum
Closed headphones, sealed headsets and in-ear monitors work differently. The driver and your ear form a small, sealed space, and the driver pressurizes that space directly. Because the space is so small, a sealed headphone can reproduce very deep bass with very little effort, often deeper than most speakers can manage.
What headphones can't do is shake your body. There's no room adding boom, which makes headphone bass cleaner and more even, but also less physical. Open-back headphones leak air by design, so they tend to give up some of that deepest bass in exchange for a more open, natural sound.
The seal is everything
The biggest single factor in how much bass you hear from headphones is how well they seal. Glasses arms, hair, worn-out pads or the wrong size of ear tip let air escape, and the bass leaks out with it. Measurements of the same headphone on many different people show large bass differences from one head to the next, mostly down to fit. That's one reason two people can describe the same headset in completely different ways.
You can check your own seal in under a minute. Play a low tone, around 40 or 50 Hz, at a low volume from a free online tone generator (https://theaudiostuff.com/tools/signal-generator/ ). Then gently press the earcups against your head, or push your earbuds in a little further. If the bass swells noticeably, your seal is leaking. Try different pads or ear tips, adjust your glasses, or reposition the headset until pressing makes little difference.
Find out how low your headphones really go
The same tone generator can show you where your headphones run out of bass. Start a slow sweep at 20 Hz at a low volume and listen for the point where the bass fades in, or play steady tones at 20, 30 and 40 Hz. Sealed headphones and well-fitted earbuds often reach surprisingly low. Open-back models usually fade earlier. Either way, it's a useful reference before you reach for an EQ.
Small fit changes that help
- Earbuds and IEMs: Try a size up or down from the tips that came pre-fitted. Foam tips often seal better than silicone, and the right tip can transform the bass.
- Over-ear headsets: Leatherette pads usually seal better than velour or fabric, which feel cooler but let more air through. Worn, flattened pads lose their seal, and replacing them is cheap.
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Glasses: Thin, straight arms break the seal far less than thick ones, and some pads are designed with glasses in mind.
Why headphones need a little extra bass to sound right
Here's the twist. A headphone tuned perfectly flat at the eardrum usually sounds thin next to good speakers, partly because a room adds bass of its own and partly because you lose the physical sensation. Research at Harman found that listeners, on average, preferred headphones with a modest bass shelf, a gentle lift of a few decibels in the low bass, because it makes headphones sound more like good speakers in a room. That research shaped many of today's headphone tunings.
For games and voice, more bass isn't always better
Plenty of gaming headsets ship with a big bass boost, because explosions feel impressive. The catch is that too much upper bass can mask the midrange, which is where footsteps, reloads and your teammates' voices live. For competitive play, a flatter and cleaner tuning often makes those cues easier to pick out.
The same goes for monitoring your own voice on a stream or a call. Heavy bass makes your voice sound muddy in your ears and makes it harder to judge how your mic actually sounds.
Closing the gap with EQ
- Use a shelf, not a spike. A gentle low shelf of 3 to 6 dB below about 100 Hz adds weight without the boominess of a narrow boost at one frequency.
- Lower the preamp by the amount you boost, so the extra bass doesn't push the signal into clipping and distortion.
- Try it before you commit. This free online equalizer (https://theaudiostuff.com/
tools/eq-simulator/ ) lets you hear changes instantly, includes a Harman-style starting point, and exports presets for Equalizer APO, Wavelet and other EQ apps. - Don't chase the chest thump with volume. Headphones can't give you the physical feeling of a subwoofer, and turning them up to make up for it pushes your listening level into territory that can harm your hearing.
Example of a Harmon Curve style bass boost
Speaker bass and headphone bass will never be identical, and that's fine. Speakers give you the room and the physical punch. Headphones give you depth, control and the same sound wherever you are. Get the seal right, add a touch of shelf if you need it, and a headset can deliver bass that's both satisfying and clean.