I recently bought a pair of DT700 Pro X thinking they would be a substantial improvement over my 2008 ATH-M40fs but I was kind of disappointed. They sound like crap to my ears without EQ (boomy, underwater, muffled). Then I came back to my old pair, also thought they sounded like crap without EQ (harsh, absent bass). I took the time to EQ the DT 700, then took some more time to EQ again the M40fs, and the DT 700 is not much of an improvement, not for the price paid. They sound decently good with an EQ, have a little bit better imaging, separation, soundstage, comfort etc. but I expected better stock sound for the price.
Maybe my expectations are unrealistic and I should up my budget a bit and get closer to real hifi instead of staying in the mid-fi class?
No.
Some headphones benefit from EQ more then others, but not all of them need it to sound good, most are just fine without EQ
No plenty of headphones sound awesome stock. But eq is useful for making them sound better especially since everyone hears differently
Personally no. I had a few headphones that sounds amazing out the box and never needed tuning
That being said. The new headphones coming out with their own personal EQs are quite marvelous and do make the headphones work better, but a lot of times these headphones with proprietary EQs usually sound muffled and tinny out the box. So EQs is a must to make them sound correctly.
Your ears will automatically eq, takes time.
Nah. Most are fine once you get used to it, but most of the time your preference will be different than the stock tuning. Personally I like the hifiman tuning but ill still EQ
What are you plugging the DT700 Pro X into? If the headphone amp has a high output impedance, you will hear exactly what you have described, a boomy bass boost.
The headphone jack of my Steinberg UR22 USB audio interface
Just copied from Google: A common rule of thumb is that the output impedance should not exceed 1/8th of the nominal impedance of the headphones. So, for 300 Ohm headphones, you’d want no more than 37.5 Ohms output impedance; for 16 Ohm headphones, no more than 2.
OMG! I just tried the DT 700 Pro X in the headphone jack of a laptop and they sound completely different. No boomy bass boost.
I went on a journey and found out the tuning I like the most is the default Airpods Pro (1st gen) I even prefer them to the second-gen when I tried my friend pair.