You’ve bought a pair of headphones. Now you’re wondering how to adjust the bass on headphones to meet your particular preferences. It’s a common story. Sound quality is somewhat relative. Headphones don’t always deliver the sound quality we want. Maybe you’re getting muddy bass resonance. Or you just want that big thudding bass sound people love. Bass quality impacted in a number of ways. How do you adjust the bass output on your headphones effectively? We’ll give you a could of options.
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Adjust EQ in Sound Settings of Source Device
Making modifications via EQ settings is an easy way to tweak sound performance. In this case, we’re talking about the EQ on your actual source or playback devices. If you are streaming Spotify music app on your iPhone or Android via Bluetooth, your phone is the source device. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing music through Bluetooth or a headphone jack. The phone is the source device either way. Source devices often have an EQ or equalizer feature where you can adjust the frequency of your device’s sound. This is accomplished by reducing or increasing the volume across different frequencies. Cutting or reducing the volume of certain frequencies can greatly alter the sound of your favorite music. Here are your options for achieving this via the equalizer in your device’s sound settings.
EQ Presets
Your first impulse might be to open sound settings and increase the bass frequencies. This will boost the bass in your music, but adjusting frequencies is more art than science. Enabling an EQ preset might be the quickest route to better bass. What is an EQ preset? EQ presets are predetermined equalizer settings based on certain situations or genres of music. If you open the sound control panel and see options like Jazz, Podcast, and Bass Booster then you are looking at preset options.
Presets aren’t always perfect solutions. They’ll likely work better than quickly making manual adjustments if you have no experience. Presets will enhance bass, mid-range, or treble settings based on their intended purpose. For example, a podcast preset will increase the mid-range frequencies to enhance the clarity of dialog and voices. Bass Booster will (you guessed it) increase bass by upping the volume of lower frequencies. The changes aren’t that simple though. A Bass Boost preset will likely have adjustments made across the entire frequency spectrum. Why? Simply jacking up all the lower frequencies to +10 will bass boost headphones. It will also sound bad and unnatural. Presets are a shortcut to achieving the effect you want, while still providing a quality listening experience. Want to manually adjust EQ for a bass boost? No problem.
Manually Adjusting Bass via EQ
To manually EQ your source device, initial tweaks should focus on lower frequencies to manually boost the bass. To complete this you’ll need a good understanding of how where lower bass frequencies land on the audio spectrum. The audio spectrum is the range of audible frequencies that humans can hear. That range is 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Hz is a unit used to measure frequency. Difference frequency bands produce varying types of sound. The two to focus on within this sound window are Sub-bass and Bass.
Sub Bass
The lowest range portion of the audio spectrum is sub-bass. The range of sub-bass is 20 – 60 Hz. This is the range most people associate with booming bass. Sub-bass can make the ear pads on your headphones shake. Subwoofers are well regarded for producing quality sub-bass. It’s also a frequency smaller headphones and speakers will struggle with by the nature of physics. Larger drivers will be needed to produce impactful sub-bass.
Increasing the sub-bass range too much can result in an overly warm and impactful sound signature. It can also make bass feel muddy making. This makes clear sound and vocal clarity difficult. Especially in low impedance headphones. High impedance headphones are generally better at this. Cutting the sub-bass frequency band can result in sound that is too shrill or thin. If you’ve ever listened to music through a phone or tiny Bluetooth speaker, you’re familiar with this. Too much reduction of sub-bass can even make songs that aren’t bass-heavy sound odd.
It’s important to note that lower-quality audio files will struggle with EQ generally. This is especially the case in this frequency range. The same goes for low-quality headphones. Playing music directly from a phone can result in high-quality audio. Just don’t expect the same results for highly compressed audio from Youtube.
Bass
60 to 250 Hz represents the bass range. A lot of popular music these days uses bass notes within this range. It can still produce a boomy effect, but not in the same way that sub-bass can. Sub-bass can be difficult to hear at lower volumes. An increase in the bass range can be more impactful at regular listening levels. It can result in better bass response in addition to a more dynamic sound signature.
Another great thing about this range is that it can accentuate other frequencies well. Notes from guitars and pianos have added warmth to the bass range. That’s why tweaking EQs isn’t always straightforward. A snare or a trumpet can have notes that cover multiple frequency bands. Adjusting the bass will result in changes to the way audio affects multiple components of the sound. That includes voices and instruments.
How to Start with Manual EQ Adjustment
We suggest starting gradually with any manual EQ changes. To increase the bass, start by asking yourself if the sub-bass or thudding bass you’re looking for. If it is, consider that you may have headphones that don’t produce impactful bass. The Skullcandy Crusher Evos are an extreme example of this. Larger, over-the-head headphones typically handle sub-bass much better. Still want to try it? Try a small 1-2 dB boost in the sub-bass range.
For the 60 – 250 Hz bass range, I would also start with a small increase first. But also pay attention to other frequencies and how they are impacted. After a slight change, are you satisfied with the resulting sound signature? Does it work for all the audio you listen to? Are the vocals muffled? Vocals, horns, and harmonic sound waves live in higher frequency ranges. Too much bass will overpower and detract from these notes. If that’s the case, consider additional tweaking.
It’s important to note that the lower mid-range (250 to 500 Hz) has some bass below 300 Hz. Too much can harm and also muddy up instrumentation. As previously stated, EQ is more of an art than a science. It’s definitely fine to experiment constantly. If you are obsessive about audio like me, you can create your own preset EQ settings. Different headphones also carry sound signatures. The same EQ that works for the Bose 700 will not work on the Sony WF-XB700. It can sound drastically different. The same differences can apply to genres of music if you listen to music critically.
How To Adjust Bass on Headphones via App
Many good, quality headphones can also pair with specialized apps for your preferred mobile device. Check the Apple or Google Play Store for your manufacturer’s headphones. Two of my favorite apps are the Sony Headphones app and Anker’s Soundcore app. Both have a ton of options including EQ customization plus presets for their popular ANC headphones. With certain headphones, I’ve had better success with EQ through the app versus my phone. Your mileage may vary. Sony in particular has a popular Clear Bass setting. It’s separate from the manual EQ and can be more effective. You can set Clear Bass from 0-10 and it provides a nice bass boost without mudding sound.
Adjust Bass with On-board Headphone Controls
Lastly, one of my favorite options! I love this option as someone who loves bass and listening to music critically. Some of the best bass headphones have onboard control specifically to adjust bass. The best example is the Skull Candy Crusher Line with the Skullcandy Crusher Evo being my favorite. The bass on the Crusher Evo fits the label of extreme, but there is an onboard slider that adjusts haptic bass on the fly. This is booming, subwoofer-like bass at the max. You can also turn it down on the fly when a bass-heavy EQ isn’t needed. It also handles this very well with good sound quality. Some bass-heavy headphones overpower other frequencies to the extreme. Booming bass does not have to mean muddy sound and muffled vocals.
Another example would be the Sony XB950N. Those headphones along with others in Sony’s Extra Bass line had a dedicated boost button. Despite questionable build quality, the XB950N headphones were one of my favorites. They had a bass-boosted sound signature by default. Pressing the bass boost button increased the low end even more. This is much more convenient than pulling a phone and going to the sound settings. Especially during a workout. The big bass sound doesn’t have to be a hassle. Hopefully, more companies implement similar options going forward.
Keith Collins has been writing for over 15 years for various publications. He’s a lover of music, home theater, and excellent sound quality. His fondness for technology in addition to his non-stop curiosity fuels his writing ventures.