Originally Posted by el_matt0
congrats on finding your way back to the sennheisers. although, from having personally owned several pairs of both hd600s and 650's, you really should try a newer pair of hd650s after some burn in. with a good amp, they have more potential than the hd600s do I feel like. at your point, without a great headphone amp, i fully agree with your sentiments in that the hd600 is probably a slightly better sounding headphone. however if you really like the sennheiser house sound, instead of looking to a woo, you should consider the various balanced headphone amp options out there. when balanced, the hd650s are absolutely jaw-dropping, they will take down MANY MANY nicer cans. easily comparable to my $1500 dollar edition 9s. balancing just seems to tighten them up that extra bit more, add a tiny bit more refinement, and i find it opens up the soundstage even a bit more (IF you can even imagine thats possible!
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I've shortly heard HD650 balanced but I'm not sure if that was a true balanced rig. They were connected to Lavry DA10 balanced outs. Didn't impress me at all. I had hard times finding any difference between Lavrys headphone out and the balanced outs. We had two identical pairs of HD650s on that comparison.
But I should try some higher end balanced rigs some day.
I considered going for a new pair of HD650s but it felt stupid to drop 100 euros to go from HD650 to HD650. Well I'm quite sure I'll go back to HD650 some day, for now it's HD600 for me. I like these very much.
And by the way, to me HD600/HD650 are very comparable with Ed9. Actually I like them both better than Ed9, even in a modest rig. Ed9 has most potential out of the Ultrasones I've heard but I still haven't been very excited about them. At the meet we had Ed9 driven by RudiStor RPX33 and the source was Rega Apollo CDP.
I don't find Ultrasones that special. Maybe their sound just isn't for me.
EDIT:
Thanks for the input sacd lover. I was quite sure you'd give some.
