Sony MDR-XB700 Extra Bass—should I encode MP3 at higher rate to match?, [was “SONY MDR[…] and Ripping method”] Options

[zentopia7]

Hi, I'm planning on purchasing a pair of MDR-XB700 Extra Bass Headphones soon: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5948...ass_Stereo.html or http://bhpho.to/JlW021

And my question is, is the quality of this model enough that I should be ripping my lame mp3's (VBR) at a higher rate? I tend to rip almost everything at V2 ~192 VBR lame 3.99.5 at the moment, I realize I'd need to do an ABX test (is that the right acronym?) but I just was curious of people's experience with these headphones and also if music that doesn't have a lot of bass to the music would sound decent too (like Classical for example)

I was also thinking of getting Sony V6 headphones too

Currently I use Sennheiser HD429's but I wanted some new cans with more bass...

Thanks for any input in advance

[stephan_g]

Looks like XB700s shouldn't be as high-free as XB300s:

They sure are having a lot of bass though, while the rest of the spectrum isn't looking too refined. Consumer cans...