Appeals to authority aren't valid if you're not appealing to an actual professional in the field (cf. below).
They're a fallacy full stop if you're trying to construct an argument anyway.
It's also a bit tiresome when it comprises the large majority of your interventions on this forum.
It's not just a hypothesis.
It is as long as "punchy" doesn't have an operational definition. What you're proposing is an explanation why the Utopia would have a higher bass response below 20Hz than the HD800, not an explanation why one would be "punchier" than the other.
There seems to be some misunderstanding and conflation of the terms 'fully open front volume' and 'fully open headphone' by some in this thread. Yes, the Utopia and HD800 are both fully open headphones i.e. they have 'open' front and back volumes. But this does not mean they both have equally, 'fully' (i.e. no obstruction to pressure/airflow escape to the environment) open front volumes. Some open front volumes are more open than others. Their front volumes are both damped, but this won't be to the same degree, and this damping affects bass extension (including at 10 Hz and below, and no this is not talking only about static pressure as some would have you believe).
You're the one who brought up the question of static pressure ad nauseam, not me.
Now let's take a look at the frequency responses of the Utopia and HD800 post Oratory's EQs.
The Utopia clearly has less of a drop-off at 10 Hz. So, the reason the Utopia has more bass punch than the HD800 even when they're both EQed to the 'same' response? They're not EQed to the same response. Not below 20 Hz, down to 10 Hz, and highly likely not below that.
Indeed, but the difference above 20Hz is likely to exceed by a very large amount in terms of magnitude and bandwidth the respective differences in the 10-20Hz band.
I don't really understand why you're bringing up the post-EQ result as the residual difference in the 10-20Hz band will then be for the most part a product of the EQ design, not the headphones.
But anyway, this is the sort of difference you're agonising over :
Now the real problem is that once someone picks their own headphones and EQ them to a target following presets, they'll encounter a more significant issue. I don't have a pair of Utopia and HD800 on hands but this is six open dynamics EQed to the same target according to Oratory's presets, measured a few weeks ago with in-ear microphones, showing the difference between the Clear MG compensated to a flat line and the others :
Post EQ, the Clear MG has a superb response in the 10-20Hz indeed (albeit nothing to write home about compared to some other headphones I've tested in this way, if "punch" is related to response below 20Hz, you should look elsewhere). But is it that important given the residual difference either sample variation, coupling issues, or a combination of both, introduced
above 20Hz ? Would you sincerely tell us that the differences in the 10-20Hz band, which audibility is... debatable, particularly with music as a signal, is as important as the one above, where the audibility of differences of a bandwidth and magnitude as shown above is demonstrated ?
When I wrote in
This post that "the likelihood that a pair of HD800S and Utopia are reaching a reasonably close FR on your head once EQed to the same target is quite high below a few kHz, and not so much above.", my own definition of "reasonably close" is the graph above, ie at best a 3-4dB broadband residual difference below a few hundred Hz if normalised at 500Hz, and given these headphones' design, that's as good as it's going to get without involving active headphones with a feedback mechanism. And that's without even considering the residual differences above 1kHz, which, and this is just me, often play an important part in how I'll perceive a pair of headphones' bass response.
There's a much simpler way anyway to assess whether or not frequencies below 20Hz are responsible with these headphones for any perceptual difference : why not directly compare whether or not you can actually hear a difference by comparing a full band response with one with a careful designed high-pass or peak filter ? Even better, since you like to harass people in such a way, why not prove to us that you can successfully pass an A/B test ?
We wouldn't have these fruitless interventions on your part if you wasted less of your time being a keyboard warrior and actually tested for yourself your own hypotheses.