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are headphones like HD650/k701 designed with High End systems in mind?

post #1 of 130
3/29/10 at 12:29am
Thread Starter 
I've been thinking lately about how people often say that the HD650, K701, etc weren't designed with ipods or computer sources in mind, and the general opinion is that to show their full potential, you need the very best source and amp. From my experience, this is true, one of the best setups i've ever heard was a HD650 balanced with a high end singlepower amp and some kind of fancy source. They were so dynamic, rich, detailed, fast, etc.

And everytime someone complains about the K701 bass/treble, everyone jumps on them and says that it's their fault for not having 2000 dollars worth of equipment to use it with, and that it's a waste to even own if you have portable amps, because the bass is weak and the treble unchecked (I haven't experienced amps fixing this myself, but I'll leave that to the )

We generally blame the listener for not having good enough equipment to bring this potential out of the phones. But sometimes I think that if they need such specific, expensive gear to shine, it must be a design flaw. Because I can't imagine sennheiser/akg developing the phones around these systems. I wonder what percentage of HD650 owners even have a dedicated heaphone amp? And most people here feel that even portable are not good enough.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this equipment really taking these phones far beyond what they were designed to sound like? And if most here dislike the way they sound out of the more common source/amp, doesn't that mean the fault lies with AKG/Sennheiser/etc for designing a headphone that can't perform properly with the vast majority of their customer's equipment?

Just a thought, maybe it's bonkers
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post #2 of 130
3/29/10 at 12:35am
These two phones sound best with some amplification but you do not definitely require one costing upwards of $10,000.
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post #3 of 130
3/29/10 at 12:47am
I'd have to disagree. Porsche doesn't design it's sports cars to be run on regular low octane gas and standard road tires? Are they flawed because they aren't consumer grade? Hardly. High performance equpiment should be designed to work best when properly tooled. I have no problem with that and accept it as part of the package.
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post #4 of 130
3/29/10 at 12:58am
I think my K701's sounded "good" with an iPod and a Fiio E5, which is enough for many people out there (not here on Head-fi). Now they sound fantastic with my Woo WA6se. More $$$ = better sound. IMHO, the product isn't flawed as long as it sounds "good" with low end gear, and is scalable with better gear... gives credibility to the term "you get what you pay for".
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post #5 of 130
3/29/10 at 1:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by baka1969 View Post
I'd have to disagree. Porsche doesn't design it's sports cars to be run on regular low octane gas and standard road tires? Are they flawed because they aren't consumer grade? Hardly. High performance equpiment should be designed to work best when properly tooled. I have no problem with that and accept it as part of the package.
That's why I used HD650 instead of HD800 in the thread. The HD800 works for the porche analogy, but I'm not sure the HD650 does. High octane gas, and nice tires are much more common than the amp/source systems we're talking about, and it's much more clear when you buy the car, that that's what you need. The HD650 I believe is advertised as being digital (ipod) ready is it not? to be fair though, the design team and marketing team are seperate.

And 10k was just a number could be too high/too low. I don't really know how much the killer systems cost, I've never bothered to ask or remember, when I'm listening to them I'm too busy staring into space
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post #6 of 130
3/29/10 at 1:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by baka1969 View Post
I'd have to disagree. Porsche doesn't design it's sports cars to be run on regular low octane gas and standard road tires? Are they flawed because they aren't consumer grade? Hardly. High performance equpiment should be designed to work best when properly tooled. I have no problem with that and accept it as part of the package.
Not the best analogy because high octane gas is not that much more expensive than low octane and the stock tires on a porsche are n-rated tires. Replacement tires also don't cost more than the car itself.
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post #7 of 130
3/29/10 at 1:38am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhythmdevils View Post
That's why I used HD650 instead of HD800 in the thread. The HD800 works for the porche analogy, but the HD650 doesn't really IMO. I believe they even advertise them as being digital ready and such. But the marketing team is clearly not connected to the design team.

And 10k was just a number could be too high/too low. I don't really know how much the killer systems cost, I've never bothered to ask or remember, when I'm listening to them I'm too busy staring into space
Hi, I actually picked Porsche because, unlike Ferrari, it's accessible to the upper middle class. I see Porsches as more the HD650/K701 than the HD800. And sure the $10k might be arbitrary, but I understand your point. The HD650 and the 70x are not standard consumer grade headphones. They're designed and marketed as audiophile (high performance) headphones. As such they need high performance gear to sound their best. Again, to me, I accept that as part of the deal. if others are happy with them sounding good but not the best they can, that's ok. I just want to try and get the highest performance I can out of them. I have no problem if they were designed to need better stuff to get that from them.
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post #8 of 130
3/29/10 at 1:53am
Quote:
Originally Posted by demoNMaCHiN3 View Post
Not the best analogy because high octane gas is not that much more expensive than low octane and the stock tires on a porsche are n-rated tires. Replacement tires also don't cost more than the car itself.
Maybe so with the petro. The difference between the tires you would get in say a family sedan and the N-rated tires used on the Porsche are many times the price however. If we were to use a Harley as another example, one can easily spend close to the original cost of the motorcycle improving it's performance, although not a requirement. What I'm saying is I don't believe it to be flawed to spend money on an amp and related equipment to get some headphones to sound their best. To me, it's all part of a single system. So what if the amp, or DAC, or other sources are more than the headphone? They all work together to make the music we all love sound it's best. Headphones aren't the only example in audio either. Buy a $3000 turntable, and you could easily spend that on a phono preamp and don't forget the mono blocks.
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post #9 of 130
3/29/10 at 2:02am
10K is absurd! You can get a very good new amp for around $500 and up. Some sound cards under $500 will do the trick too, the Apogee Duet is one example. The next one up would be the Mini DAC, which would be fully balanced.
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post #10 of 130
3/29/10 at 2:09am
Thread Starter 
Whatever your version of the cost to make these headphones perform well. your favorite, the phonitor, costs more than 500.
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post #11 of 130
3/29/10 at 2:15am
Just a quickie.

I suspect that quality oriented companies like AKG, Senn, Beyer, Grado, Stax etc. just design cans that are as good as they can make them for the price, and leave what you hook them to up to you.

I think a better source (especially) or amp will result in better sound with any good quality headphone.

Kevin
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post #12 of 130
3/29/10 at 2:17am
Weren't the highest tier headphones originally marketed to mastering technicians and the like, people with access to and a use for high-end professional equipment? And personal headphone audio of the 70s and 80s seems to have existed for the consumer who owned a quality beef-beef receiver of old. It wasn't until the advent of PCDPs, DAPs and computer audio that the low/mid-fi headphone market really blossomed.

I don't think the professional tier of headphones was ever intended for low-end gear, or portable amps (a new phenomenon), though manufacturers are certainly willing to market them to anyone willing to buy, especially since a serious headphone audiophile market has emerged. The amps we're seeing today are a solution for the headphone enthusiast who wants to listen at a reference level but doesn't have access to professional equipment. I think many of the early headphone amps were built around Sennheisers (they sound like it, anyway).

Only recently did the low-end head-amp market really take off, probably in large part because the Internets tell you that you need a headphone amp but you balk at the idea of paying more than the headphones themselves for a "secondary" component. Since high-end headphones existed first, I don't see any disconnect in their not sounding ideal with these low-end and portable amps.

When the K701 owners with $350 invested in source/amp scoff at me when I say it gets much better at $2000, it gives me some serious perspective when others say that it gets much better at $10,000. I have no reason not to believe it's probably true.
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post #13 of 130
3/29/10 at 2:49am
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhythmdevils View Post
clearly you missed the point. Whatever your version of the cost to make these headphones perform well. your favorite, the phonitor, costs more than 500.
Let's see, a used Auditor (which has the same specs as a Phonitor) is around $600, an Apogee Duet ($350 used), or MyteK Stereo 96 DAC ($600 used) you're still around $1100. So, how exactly do you get to spending $10,000 on a system?
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post #14 of 130
3/29/10 at 3:39am
There's no correlation between source/amp prices and headphone prices.

Headphones can be knocked off relatively inexpensively. Transformers and other quality parts can cost quite a bit more just for the raw materials. The labor need for an amp is higher than a pair of headphones, too.

So comparing on price alone leads you to a lot of false assumptions. Even a pair of high end output transformers cost a lot more than a pair of headphones.

Sources - especially vinyl - can often cost quite a bit more than headphones.

It's best to drop price as a qualifier of quality. There are a number of sources that are simply tarted up consumer models. Also, $1,000 into parts for a DIY amp can obliterate most commercial models costing a lot more.

Instead, focus on the performance of a piece of gear. Price is meaningless - it is an artifical number set by the manufacturer in hopes of raking in cash. Price tells you nothing about how something performs.
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post #15 of 130
3/29/10 at 3:50am
interesting thread. although I didn't catch the answer to the topic question yet. are the HD600/650/701 designed with a "high-end",high quality system in mind?
let's leave the money thing aside, some who said that the money is not reflecting the quality perhaps right, but it also depends. I am sure there are a 10k systems that also performs like 10k.
I think that the actual question here is not about the money, but are those headphones designed with a high level system in mind? because it seems that they are.
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