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I totally agree with you on that. With well recorded classical music, the HD600's have ungodly bass.

Oops, I forgot to mention some alternatives. What was I thinking?

Any of my Beyers can best the Sens in the bass-ment. The DT931, DT831, and DT880 would all be great cans for your application. The DT831 is particularly nice for movies because it is a closed design.

I have had no luck restoring what the Sens are lacking with cables, amps, or other subtle tweaks. Only deliberate wrenching with an equalizer woke them up. I am hopeful that Sennheiser will resolve some of these issues with their impending improved model (HD-650). Time will tell.


gerG

The HD600 does not have much of a bass slam.

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It does have bass slam! Again you just got to drive it with good equipment but once you do you'll have the best headphone setup available IMO.

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Isn't the 831 widely regarded as one of the bass-lightest cans around? Now the 770, that's where the bass is at.

Anyway, I've heard the HD580 on a decent amp, and the bass was hardly anemic, but I don't know about the Grados.

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IIRC the audible spectrum is 20KHz-20Hz in most of the cases, most of the equipments nowadays don't even go down to 20Hz, amps or CDplayers, etc...a lot of them even have subsonic filters coupled in the circuit, with or without switches, to eliminate the subsonic spectrum of freqs, that means that there should be nothing under 20Hz, of course there are freq and sound below 20Hz, but the main purpose of the subwoofers IS NOT to reproduce below 20Hz, they are intended to reproduce up to 20Hz, even some of the more expensive ones, don't even go that low....

i think the name implies that they reproduce the range below woofers. which don't really seem to exist anymore.

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As you said yourself, you don't "feel" the bass that much.
I also find it quite slow. This and the overall distant and veiled sound makes it poor for fast rock music.

The best bass slam I ever heard from my HD-600 was when using a Yamaha CA-400 integrated amplifier. There is something wonderous about the bass of this vintage series of Yamaha gear.

You can check out opinions on the Yamaha CA series amps on the other boards and get concurrence on the fact that among the vintage integrated amps, in the area of bass reproduction, the Yamahas outdid all other brands. Not sure if the later Yamaha amps or receivers had it too. That said, the CA-400 did not have the best midrange and I eventually sold the amp.

My current line up of amps/receivers that work well with the HD-600 and provide very good bass slam include:

Fisher 400 (all tube receiver)
(Great bass extension and slam. Great midrange, detail, and ambience too. You have to spend 2X or 3X the price to get a headphone amplifier that sounds as good or better than the Fisher when used with the HD-600 or the AKG K-1000 headphones)

Dynaco SCA-35 (all tube integrated amplifier)
(Best bass and overall best results with this small integrated amp when using made in U.S.A. RCA brand 6BQ5 output tubes)

Marantz 1060 (solid state, integrated amplifier)
Marantz 1070 (solid state, direct coupled integrated amplifier)
(The 1060 has great resolution, excellent ambience recovery, and plenty of bass slam, but does not extend quite as deep into the bass as the 1070. The 1070 offers extended bass and smoother overall listening.)

I can see why some people don't find the HD 600 to be an adequate transducer for «fast rock music»: its treble indeed is somewhat underrepresented. But I can't find the bass to be anemic -- it's quite the opposite: rather opulent, this in the same degree with both of my amps. Also it isn't «slow» at all -- it's just not excessive, but it's rather precise and flat. It even goes very deep with my unit, which has been intensively broken in (I do think this makes a difference to breaking in by simply using it). In turn to my ears the typical Grado bass is slow, boomy and blurred, although admittedly cleaner.

HD600s are unbelievably sensitive to the recording, the source/interconnects, the amp, and especially the cable.

I'd do the following:
1. Burn the HD600 in for 200 hours minimum and re-evaluate (play music at slightly louder than normal volume constantly).

2. Replace the cable on your HD600. A cable replacement by cardas audio will roughly double the fidelity of the HD600 on your setup.

3. Patiently wait for that gilmore. Once again, the HD600 is notorious for craving lots of power.

If all goes well, sennheiser's top dynamic phones should produce an unbeatable bottom end.

[edit]
If you are looking for artificial coloration or over-emphasized bass, the HD600 will not deliver. It imho reproduces bass in a proper tonal sense; i.e. it does not overpower other frequency regions like for example the DT770.

Cheers,
Geek

200?

damn...

mkmelt,

What you said is very very true indeed. On dance/trance music, the drum kick is usually 60-70hz. This is rather shallow and explains why less expensive equipment suffices for techno most of the time (not im my case). Classical music is a different story. The string bass extends quite low, sub-40hz, and timpani rolls can drop much below even that.

With a cardas cable, great amp and CDP, HD600s are unbeatable for classical music unless you like being one of the players, in which case I'd say DT880s or RS-1 would be superior.

Sovkiller,

The bass on CD3000s sounds plasticky and colored, and pure sine waves actuall change tone as they drop in frequency.

GerG and JaZZ,

I actually think that HD600s have if anything a slightly recessed midrange, and perfectly neutral bass and treble (i.e., the treble is flat, everything below about 200hz is flat, but the midrange is just a tad below the highs and lows). This is what lends the HD600 its "laid-back" effect, at least in my opinion. I don't hear "veiled" midrange, I just hear a distancing.

For some reason the HD600 has perfect mids, bass, and treble on audiophile recordings. . . I wonder why

Perhaps the reason why I believe the HD600 to have such clean treble is because I'm using a solid state amp, the MOH(R). Any thoughts? Would tubed amps create a different tonal balance with HD600s?

Cheers,
Geek

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Oh, Yeah.....right!!!!

With the Cardas cable it is in fact a little bit better in that dept, (and coloured and fake in the rest, to the point that I prefer the stock cable, this is only IMO of course, the majority will prefer the cardas to death) but IME and IMO (not so extensive) it needs to stop rolling the low freq about one or two octaves before of what in fact it begins to do it, to do what the CD3000 is able to do in the setups I have heard both.......Even on an speaker amp jack calibrated at 0 ohms impedance, that BTW, would favored the Senns, designed to be heard out of a 0 ohms jack.....IMO what one can is able to do, is there, and even with or without the preference of the listener, it is a fact, in the few setups I have tried both, the CD3000 goes a lot lower than the HD600, very good bass and controlled, nothing fake or boomy or coloured....IMO and IME of course, I know that a lot of other members will disagree and who knows maybe in another better setups, it will sound a little better, but I doubt it will give you the bass extension of the CD3000 or the DT770....

Thanks everyone for the comments.
I’ll take the advice of burning in longer and waiting for my new Gilmore amp and maybe a new cable. But to add another comment, last night, I spent about 2 hours listening to classical music with the 600 as background music while doing some homework. Unlike the Grado, which I find uncomfortable on my ears after 20 minutes, the 600 was very comfortable throughout the two hours session. I also thought the 600 sound was much smoother than the Grado which I find more pleasing over extended listening session. Even though, it was for background music, I constantly find myself stopping at what I am doing to pay more attention to the music because it sounded so good through the 600.