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silverstone

Sennheiser Cheats

Pros: Comfort
Cons: build quality, drivers, etc.
Review on:

Sennheiser HD 595 Headphones

Audio Quality
Comfort
Design
Value
silverstone’s Rating
Community Rating:
(20 reviews)

 

My trust in Sennheiser is gone

 

For more detailed review on the sound itself there is alot of other really good reviews..this review focus on value for money.

 

Short said... Don't buy

 

 

 

Been a fan of sennheiser for many years...my trust is now completely gone!!!
I own 4 pairs of sennheiser, HD650, 595 and two pairs of in-ear... always use my HD650 at home and the in-ears when im on the move. 

A few years back i spend money on a pair of hd 595's to use on the move but never really used them because the in-ears is easier to carry with me.
I put my 595's in the 650 casing where they have been for two years since i dont use them. The 595's are as new... the cord has the same folds as when i brought them... even the new smell is still there.
The other day i decided to give them a try...and so i did.
I noticed a faulty resonance in the left driver so i opened them and found to my surprice that the driver was not in "shape" so i carefully corrected the driver. It turns out that it was not the cause of the problem... the driver was simply defect. 

Since the 595's was as new i decided to search for a new driver for them... and hopefully free of charge from sennheiser since i never used the headphones (even the 24 months warrenty is over i would expect sennheiser to deliver free of charge as good costumer service since this clearly is defect caused before it was packed)
I searched the internet for a spare driver and found posts from people with same problem. 
Also found out that my Sennheiser 595 headphone holds same driver as hd555!!! only difference is that sennheiser adds a piece of foam in 555 to block some of the frequency. So if you remove the piece of foam on the 555 you get a pair of 595. 
On top of that i find the build quality og 555 to be better than 595. I allways had the belive that the money spend extra on 595 was put in the drivers... not true!!! Sennheiser cheats.

This link clearly shows the driver is the same:
http://mikebeauchamp.com/misc/sennheiser-hd-555-to-hd-595-mod/

Been told that the price for the 595 driver is higher even its the same driver as 555!? which means that sennheiser is selling the same driver at two different prices.

Have always recomended Sennheiser to my friends etc. but that is now in the past. MY TRUST IN SENNHEISER IS COMPLETELY GONE.

To correct...Sennheiser now sells the 555/595 driver at same price....57$ each!!!!! that's 114$ for a pair of  spare drivers (without shipping)!!! 

Comment 

Comments (14)

dleblanc343 1/14/12 at 5:42am
I'm not much of a Sennheiser fan anymore, partly for their money milking tactics. However, I find their higher end stuff to be very good... Not necessarily worth the money, but I enjoy my IE8's, HD600's/650's and wish to one day get the HD800's. There's a very nice balance of build quality, comfort and sound that not much companies can match. And being the #1 headphone company for audiophiles, they feel they can make you pay a premium on their products.
Luckily I don't have to pay much for Sennheiser if I want one of their products
Sweden 1/14/12 at 8:25am
How can you give the comfiest headphones ever made a 3,5 stars in comfort?
I can't take this review seriously.
silverstone 1/14/12 at 8:39am
Sweden i can only expect (without lookin') that you own a pair?
A 5 star rating is meant for angels blowing angeldust on my ears... not gonna happen.
4,5 is for the most comfortable headphones on the market...what ever they may be.
4 is for the headphones more comfortable than 595...which im sure there is
HD 595 is comfortable...very. therefore 3,5
Typhoon859 1/14/12 at 10:10am
Well, to be honest, I'm glad this was pointed out. And that is in fact frustrating and would make anybody angry (including me), but this issue is something that would only effect the value category. Because of frequent technical problems that these have which you've discovered, design would also be affected.
Since you couldn't actually hear what they sound like, you couldn't actually make a unbiased review and/or ratings. This would belong as a forum post.
But anyway, I found the sound to be gimmicky so without all this nonsense that they've done, I'd still say they were cheating.
BlackbeardBen 1/14/12 at 12:23pm
To copy my post from the HD 700 thread:

You pays your money, you takes your choice...
You do realize you're paying for better quality control with the HD 595, right? The drivers are binned, with the better batches going to the HD 595 and the HD 555 getting the poorer batches. That means the better drivers are going in the more expensive headphone.
For kicks, let's go ahead and list the other manufacturers that use the same driver(s) in multiple headphones...
Sennheiser
Beyerdynamic
AKG
Grado
Denon
Fostex
Koss
Etymotic
Ultrasone (someone confirmed them as an example)
And those are just the companies that I can list off the top of my head. I don't know any specific models that use the same drivers for Sony, Ultrasone, Audio-Technica, Shure, Monster, etc., but I would be very surprised if none of them used the same drivers in at least a few different headphones.

This is standard engineering for ANY company. I am a design engineer for a company that makes emergency water pumps. We have over a dozen different centrifugal pumps in three different lines - double that if you count the CD4MCu stainless versions - and there are only four bearing housings for all of those pumps. We may move it down to three bearing housings in the future, to further reduce the number of parts we have design and manufacture. It saves money, plain and simple. Industrial economies would not be possible, period, without this sort of efficient engineering and manufacturing.
Towert7 1/14/12 at 12:31pm
Silverstone, your review came across as a winy teen and your english needs work.
silverstone 1/14/12 at 12:39pm
"You do realize you're paying for better quality control with the HD 595, right? The drivers are binned, with the better batches going to the HD 595 and the HD 555 getting the poorer batches. That means the better drivers are going in the more expensive headphone."
Are you sure of this? because i honestly do not belive so. Not with these made in china ones. the packaging and sparepart drivers surely indicates that there is no difference between 555 and 595 drives.
http://store.digitalriver.com/store/sennheis/da_DK/pd/productID.169247800
link above showes + all old pics with sparepart shows same on package.
silverstone 1/14/12 at 2:15pm
towert7 you sound like a 595 owner? ...im sorry for your "loss" ...accept your bad bargin and ignore that the brand you belived in some way cheated you.
GigaFi 1/14/12 at 5:58pm
You know, if you actually used the headphones when you got them and found the defect, Sennheiser would have replaced it for you. To ask for a replacement after the warranty period is over just because "i've never really used it" is not a good reason nor is it grounds to bash Senn.
The only common QC problem I see with the 5x5 series is cracking headbands but I believe they've already have that under control.
Since you own multiple pairs of headphones from Sennheiser without problems, clearly, they are not "cheats."
Sweden 1/14/12 at 6:22pm
Well no. I have not tried any headphone that have better long time comfort than my old HD-555, and I have tried maybe 50 headphones including many of the other headphones that are praised for their world class comfort. If not even the theoretically comfiest headphones on the market can score a maximum score something is really not right with the scoring system you seems to aply. Du måste skämta.
DaBomb77766 1/15/12 at 12:20am
Just so you know, a 5/5 for comfort on a review should mean it's either the best you've ever used or the best that's on the market right now. Not what's theoretically the best. Because that will probably never exist.
Astrozombie 1/15/12 at 12:25am
Always got the feeling Sennheiser was the most overrated brand around here but never wanted to say anything...........
Typhoon859 1/15/12 at 3:06am
Very overrated, I'd definitely say that...
ksizemore18 3/16/12 at 9:22pm
lol, I've got the 555's and went and removed the padding to "up" them to the 595's. It's to cause the "breath" for the driver to be choked. I definitely noticed the difference, but just because of this I'm not gonna go crying to my mom. The 595's and 555's are still great headphones...
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