> Not everyone wants flat sound like an audio engineer.
That's what equalizers are for. The point of your speakers/headphones being as flat as possible isn't because it's the inherently best experience for everyone, it's because it's the most flexible experience. You can take a good set of flat headphone and ram the bass through the roof - it'll still sound great. You can't really do the reverse. You can try to equalize a bass-heavy headphone into something more neutral, but the result is worse overall, and a lot more finicky as a user.
yeah, no, I disagree - I have a pair of Sony's XM2 headphones and even when I set the "bass boost" to +10 they are still not as nice to listen to as my beats studio are. Yeah the beats suck for a lot of other music types, but for some they are still my favourite headphones, and I'd pick them over other brands any day.
Bass is like sugar. Lots of it produces a quick addiction to their consumer, but that doesn't mean they are good. Beats produce loud but muddy basses. Good bass will be more subtle, but at the same time clearer. Try a Sennheiser if you can, especially one over ear with cable. It's too bad right now most of the known brands produce poor quality. My wife was completely amazed when she heard her favourite track through good headphones, she heard new instruments and other things she'd never noticed before. But also be aware that better gear might sound worse when you use it to play bad records, because it will expose the bad quality more clearly.
That's what equalizers are for. The point of your speakers/headphones being as flat as possible isn't because it's the inherently best experience for everyone, it's because it's the most flexible experience. You can take a good set of flat headphone and ram the bass through the roof - it'll still sound great. You can't really do the reverse. You can try to equalize a bass-heavy headphone into something more neutral, but the result is worse overall, and a lot more finicky as a user.