Sennheiser HD595 Appreciation Thread - Page 33

More "openness" I suppose. Better treble. More forward. I hate using lame audiophile jargon.

Wow!

Really! That recabling mod looks really nice.
In the end you didn-t have to solder cables, did you?
How much did it cost to you? Because i´m thinking of recabling my 595s in order to shorten the cable to 1.5 meters and to change the plug from 1/4 to 1/8, so that it fits the soundcard line out,the amp and also various mp3s, wich unfortunately don't have a 1/4 plug


Also another question. If with the new mod the cable gets too short and i need to lenghen it, would the quality sound drop if there is another interconnect cable in the middle? (using the same kind of cable that was used on the headphones)

Well, what it cost me wouldn't be the same as what it cost you, ask soloz2. 1.5 meters may be a bit short, I think 2 meters would be better. Yeah, it would probably not hurt to make an extension cable.

Which cable is that the canare? If it is then I have a bit of a noob question. I heard that it's thicker than the standard cable. How did you increase the size of the earcup hole?

I think i'm gonna do a crazy thing.. i hope i won't break my 595s
The thing is that i'll shorten & re-terminate the cable. I hope it will end in a 1/8 male jack instead the 1/4 that uses actually.
As i've seen in those forums, How-to: Change your headphone's minijack! (now w/videos) - abi>>forums
It looks almost easy. Of course i'll use another cables to test and when the process is smooth, i'll go for it. Wish me luck!

Yarr! *shakes fist in jealousy of the better-known headphones one level above*

Apart from that, I have a question regarding colonelkernel8's 595s, possibly all 595s. My HD-555 has velvety padding covers; yours looks like it's pleather. Is this a mod you did yourself, or are all 595s like that? What is generally considered to be better (I seem to prefer the velvet)?

Mine are the pleather. On the earpieces themselves its the velvety stuff.

I bought the HD595s about 3 weeks ago, then went and bought the LD MKIII and shortly after added the TC7510 as a DAC (using TOSLINK from Chaintech AV710).

I think the phones sound great with anything acoustic but anything "rockish" or heavy and I feel like the bass are very lacking and the mids/highs too harsh, it's almost unpleasant to the ear. It's also lacking a lot of punch, and at high volume it's just not very good. I am using FLAC files.

My question is should I expect these to improve after 100 hrs of using it? Do I have to resort to EQ changes to help? Could my setup have an issue somewhere?

edit: Changing the MKIII's setting to high impedance really helped. It just goes to show how burning-in really changes the sound because when I had tried that setting initially it really wasn't too good.

I'm currently trying out some brand new HD595 headphones - I regularly use the HD555. I have to say that if I did not know which headphone was the more expensive one, I would have picked the HD555. I can't find one area in which the HD595 even approaches the sound quality of my HD555, but then again I think these HD595s don't have a lot of hours on them. That said, there will have to be an enormous improvement in terms of reduced graininess, improved transparency and the sound will need to open up hugely for them to sound as good as my HD555, let alone sound better than them.

I am nevertheless going to burn them in for about 5 days without being tempted to listen to them. I do recall my HD555 improved substantially after prolonged burn-in, and these HD595 will need to do at least the same (and then some I fear).

If they don't come good, look out for a near-new bargain in the ""for sale" section LOL

595's are amazing. Never personally owned a pair, but one time they were on clearance at my work place for $25 open boxed (never used) I regret not picking them up to this day.

Even when I first tried these HD595 that I got today, I could sense they would evolve into a noticeably better headphone than the HD555 for popular, rock and jazz music. Where they really need to work hard to overhaul the HD555 is in classical. They aren't reproducing orchestral instruments with the textural accurary that the HD555 does. Anyway, I will see if they can overcome this issue after a week or two continuous use.

hmm, i do get the feeling that the 555s were better and felt more organic than my 595s when hooked up directly to the ipod but the 555s don't scale up as well as the more neutrally balanced 595s. Using my headfive amp, the 555s are noticeably grainier.

Yes, I had felt the HD555 could tend to grain, but I've acually noticed the HD595 seems to be just as prone. That's after trying it on about 5 different headphone jacks, including my "best" which is a Cute Beyond with twin AD797 op amps (sounds best with either my twin AD797 or single OPA2227).

Nevertheless I couldn't resist giving them a hear this morning and I am happy to report there is a huge difference between now and 20 hours ago. I can see how neutrality is big strength of this headphone compared to the more recalcitrant HD555 and it does not have the midrange boxiness or mudiness that the HD555 has. These things actually make the music sound like it is 1 or 2 dB softer for the same volume setting than the HD555, even though they supposedly have exactly the same impedance curve and sensitivity. But I want to turn the volume control clockwise a few more degrees than I do the HD555.

What I do notice in favour of the HD555 (at the moment), is a better 3D soundstage (it has more front to back depth and more blackness around the instruments) and it renders acoustic string and woodwind sounds better. Then again, I would not have used the words "better" yesterday - yesterday there wasn't even any contest.

So back to the burning in. I recall first getting my HD555 and wanting to return it because it sounded so bad the first couple of days, but then it turned into a very, very nice headphone. So the question I need to answer for myself, is whether a couple of hundred more hours burn in are going to improve the soundstaging and make violins and oboes sound a bit more realistic. At this point, it's those last three things which still have me slightly prefering the HD555, but it's much closer than yesterday.

I am really hoping the HD595 will pull ahead for me, since I appreciate the better attention to build quality and the lack of midrange colouration.

Sadly it's not going well for the HD595s. They now have about 30 hours burn in and my experience is that changes from here on are going to be more subtle than for the first day or so.

I guess I am going to be one of the very few people who very much prefer the HD555. Swapping between them and the orchestral imaging is excellent with the HD555 - additionally it has accurate timbre and lots of air (or "blackness") around the individual performers.

Going from the HD555 to the HD595 is like going from wearing a nice sports show to an uncomfortable hard leather shoe (musically speaking). The supposedly more open sound is actually translating in my case to synthetic sounding orchestral instruments, a very compressed 3D soundstage (mainly front to back depth is much smaller than the HD555) and - interestingly - it's the HD555 that sounds much more unforced and more open - not the HD595 as I would have expected.

These HD595s are good for popular / electronic music, but seemingly very poor for classical. I suspect that unless there is a major turnaround, there will be a nice bargain up on eBay in the next few days. At least I now appreciate the HD555 alot more than I did before.

It took at least 3 weeks for my 595s (with 8 hrs a day of usage) to really reach their "full maturity". Some days it just didn't sound great, while others it would sound very good, I think giving it even more time might help.