For those who are planning on getting Sennheiser HD598, DONT - Page 5

Your Muisc Streamer has a headphone jack?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by brendon 

I dont think one needs to spend so much on an amp for such headphones. Rather one should get a nice DAC which can also doubles up as an amp. I tried my friends Denon D5000 directly from my Music Streamer II and I preferred that sound to the sound from my MS II -> Audio GD Compass amp.

 

The Music Streamer II IMO is a very good DAC and its very cheap to boot. IMO it can drive cans like the HD650 pretty good.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Satellite_6 

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeorgeGoodman 

The E7 will not give you enough power to really show you what these cans can do. It will probably get you halfway there. For a portable amp, you would have to spend $200 or a little more to get the power needed to push these phones to their potential. You can get the Fiio E7 and E9 for $200, and you have a very powerful home amp, a DAC, and an OK  portable amp. The E7 and E9 will also make your other phones wound even better. 

 

Some phones really need an amp, and this is one of them. They sound like crap until you get some good power from a home amp like the E9 or even an old receiver, like RexAeterna mentioned above. A bonus with the receiver is that you get bass and treble knobs, multiple inputs and outputs, speaker outputs, and a built in phono preamp if you ever want a turntable. You can get a decent one for $50 off of craigslist usually.

 

Try some real power out, and tell us what you think.

 

Sound pressure level (SPL)	112 dB
Impedance	50 Ω

 

 

No amp needed here. . . :-/

Not true. A misconception is that headphones that are low impedance and high sensitivity do not need an amp, but that is only true for some phones. Lower impedance means more current is needed to drive the phone, and the tiny amps in portable players are not up to this task. Loudness also does not mean good sound quality. A phone can be loud but it may have problems with bass, soundstage, tone, or other areas if it doesn't have enough power.

Based on my experience with the HD598 so far, I'm thinking a hybrid amp (tube only in gain stage due to hd598's low impedance) would be a good match for the HD598. To keep things in proportion I went with one of those el cheapo Chinese Indeed G2's on Ebay for a little over 50$ incl. shipping. Will report back on the result. Now I understand the 'sorry for your wallet' joke, the non-stop review flurry of nice equipment here lures one into buying something just that little bit better but this time I resisted .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bacci 

Based on my experience with the HD598 so far, I'm thinking a hybrid amp (tube only in gain stage due to hd598's low impedance) would be a good match for the HD598. To keep things in proportion I went with one of those el cheapo Chinese Indeed G2's on Ebay for a little over 50$ incl. shipping. Will report back on the result. Now I understand the 'sorry for your wallet' joke, the non-stop review flurry of nice equipment here lures one into buying something just that little bit better but this time I resisted .

But it is fun and fairly wholesome, and you can usually sell the stuff you don't want in the for sale forum. I have just had a look at my head-fi situation and realized I need to spend more time with music instead of gear, if you know what I mean. Tell me what you think when you get the cheapie tube amp. I am all for budget gems.

LOL ouch... No one says it but they think it. I can enjoy a few good artists such as those in Nujabes comps or Epik High though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

2. Just stop listening to hip hop music.  It's not really music anyway.  Real people don't listen to that stuff which is only appreciated by the underclass. 

1. Black people created hip hop music.  At first they didn't even acknowledge it was music.  Now it is one of the most popular genres in the world.

2. Black people created jazz.  At the time, they didn't acknowledge it was music.

3. Black people created the blues.  The 1-4-5 chord progression was taken and commercialized for a different audience:  for them, by them.

4. When punk rock was created, they said it wasn't music.

5. When the major scale was invented:  what we know as Do-Re-Mi-Fa.... they said that it was music fit for animals and not fit for God.

Who are they?  Well, they aren't white people if that was your assumption having seen just 1 to 3.  Rather, It's the myopia of a privileged minority that likes to define what they think is music and what is not music.  To place that which is worthy within the "in-group" and exclude that which is not worthy as the "out-group."  That motivation can be driven by race, class, gender, religion, whatever.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind016 

LOL ouch... No one says it but they think it. I can enjoy a few good artists such as those in Nujabes comps or Epik High though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

2. Just stop listening to hip hop music.  It's not really music anyway.  Real people don't listen to that stuff which is only appreciated by the underclass. 

Now ur just blabbering LOL  Music falls into traditional and non-traditional. Non-traditional tends to emphasize skill and creativity. Traditional music would include things like Asian Gamelan. Anybody can play Gamelan and it's still respected. No elitist group there.

Your way of thinking of music is a bit old fashioned Romantic era lol Music is about connecting people with similar beliefs nowadays.
 

Whatever the opinions, I still don't consider stuff like Justin Bieber to be real music. Skill and creativity? Barely. Just another repetitive pop-structure. Traditional? Um... no.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

1. Black people created hip hop music.  At first they didn't even acknowledge it was music.  Now it is one of the most popular genres in the world.

2. Black people created jazz.  At the time, they didn't acknowledge it was music.

3. Black people created the blues.  The 1-4-5 chord progression was taken and commercialized for a different audience:  for them, by them.

4. When punk rock was created, they said it wasn't music.

5. When the major scale was invented:  what we know as Do-Re-Mi-Fa.... they said that it was music fit for animals and not fit for God.

 

Who are they?  Well, they aren't white people if that was your assumption having seen just 1 to 3.  Rather, It's the myopia of a privileged minority that likes to define what they think is music and what is not music.  To place that which is worthy within the "in-group" and exclude that which is not worthy as the "out-group."  That motivation can be driven by race, class, gender, religion, whatever.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind016 

LOL ouch... No one says it but they think it. I can enjoy a few good artists such as those in Nujabes comps or Epik High though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

2. Just stop listening to hip hop music.  It's not really music anyway.  Real people don't listen to that stuff which is only appreciated by the underclass. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bacci 

Based on my experience with the HD598 so far, I'm thinking a hybrid amp (tube only in gain stage due to hd598's low impedance) would be a good match for the HD598. To keep things in proportion I went with one of those el cheapo Chinese Indeed G2's on Ebay for a little over 50$ incl. shipping. Will report back on the result. Now I understand the 'sorry for your wallet' joke, the non-stop review flurry of nice equipment here lures one into buying something just that little bit better but this time I resisted .

And bought something just a little bit worse....

No, sorry, just kidding. Actually I think we're all interested in what these cheap Chinese amps sound like; there's too little info about them here as everyone's buying Lehmann and Burson. It's relatively easy to spend big money and get good sound, but to spend peanuts and get it is somewhat more difficult.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

1. Black people created hip hop music.  At first they didn't even acknowledge it was music.  Now it is one of the most popular genres in the world.

2. Black people created jazz.  At the time, they didn't acknowledge it was music.

3. Black people created the blues.  The 1-4-5 chord progression was taken and commercialized for a different audience:  for them, by them.

4. When punk rock was created, they said it wasn't music.

5. When the major scale was invented:  what we know as Do-Re-Mi-Fa.... they said that it was music fit for animals and not fit for God.

 

Who are they?  Well, they aren't white people if that was your assumption having seen just 1 to 3.  Rather, It's the myopia of a privileged minority that likes to define what they think is music and what is not music.  To place that which is worthy within the "in-group" and exclude that which is not worthy as the "out-group."  That motivation can be driven by race, class, gender, religion, whatever.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wind016 

LOL ouch... No one says it but they think it. I can enjoy a few good artists such as those in Nujabes comps or Epik High though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

2. Just stop listening to hip hop music.  It's not really music anyway.  Real people don't listen to that stuff which is only appreciated by the underclass. 

Lol this guy is something else.

MP3's may have some trouble drivin these 'phones its kinda the same with my hd 558's

the sound is also highly dependent on ur source the source really affects the sound of the bass,

on songs more bass heavy like "Disturbia" and "Dynamite" my 'phones show perfect and detailed bass

give it a try on something like a laptop (something like a macbook, good sound card) before you continue ur critisism

Quote:

Originally Posted by GeorgeGoodman 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bacci 

Based on my experience with the HD598 so far, I'm thinking a hybrid amp (tube only in gain stage due to hd598's low impedance) would be a good match for the HD598. To keep things in proportion I went with one of those el cheapo Chinese Indeed G2's on Ebay for a little over 50$ incl. shipping. Will report back on the result. Now I understand the 'sorry for your wallet' joke, the non-stop review flurry of nice equipment here lures one into buying something just that little bit better but this time I resisted .

But it is fun and fairly wholesome, and you can usually sell the stuff you don't want in the for sale forum. I have just had a look at my head-fi situation and realized I need to spend more time with music instead of gear, if you know what I mean. Tell me what you think when you get the cheapie tube amp. I am all for budget gems.

PLEASE, PLEASE let me know how this amp works out for you. I'm in the same boat as you with my 598s. I've really gotten myself into old-skool jungle within the past year which I've been listening to basically on car stereos and a shitty Plantronics headset. I finally wanted some worthy of the music, so I got the 598s. I'm on a Creative SB X-Fi, so it's a pretty good sound card but I was a little underwhelmed when I first plugged them in. They've actually broken in a little and sound much better over the past 24 hours but they do lack bass. They just seems to have trouble with the deep, rolling low-end sub bass of jungle, and death metal as well seems to lack the growling deepness I got with my Senn earbuds. The highs however are pretty nicely punchy, and Beethoven in particular sounds very good.  At times I keep having to adjust the bass/treble settings on my soundcard to either boost the bass or turn it down to stop the crackle, so I think I really need some sort of DAC/amp/whatever to get these to sound right.

I was in fact thinking of getting that very same Indeed G2 amp, which will be nice too when I get a turntable since it'll just hook right into a selectable feed from the computer. It's good I found this thread since I was thinking of making a new one asking about amps, dacs and pre-amps, which one or combination would be best to round of the 598's sound. So again, please let me know how that amp works out for you.

If you need more bass then you'll probably want a new pair of headphones. I had the HD595s for a good 2 years and with several different amps/sources they never really had great depth or punch.

What would you recommend bass-wise with in $2-300 range? I don't really mind buying a $100 amp to go with it. I'm really debating whether or not to send these back... hmmm.

This has to be my least favorite thread ever and is kind of misleading. No offense, but it reminds me of a two star K702 review on Amazon and the person was driving it from a Macbook Pro.

It really has nothing to do me loving the HD-598. It's basically wrong to post a "review" when a headphone is not properly driven. I imagine there are dozens of people now avoiding these headphones because of this thread.

There is absolutely no way a tiny Sansa can drive the HD-598 well. I don't exactly think Sennheiser designed it for MP3 players. My Ipod Touch can drive it quite well and it sounds good, but I need to max out the volume.

Lack of bass is usually a symptom of a headphone not being properly driven. With a desktop amp or my Airhead there is way more than enough bass for nearly everyone but bassheads.

Even the HD-555 sounds bad out of a Sansa. I've tried this combination and I'd never use it. I know the HD-598 doesn't need a powerful amp, but I think it need at the very least a player that can drive larger headphones.

I think you should try an amp first before judging them and suggesting people to not buy them.

Right now it's probably one of the best under $200 headphones there is to my ears and i've tried dozens. I'm not a huge fan of Sennheiser stuff, but I actually prefer this over the HD-600 and even the K601 and K702. If that wasn't bad enough, for gaming I prefer them to my ATH-AD2000. No, the HD-598 isn't better than the ATH-AD2000 for gaming, but it's more comfortable. I think people who like the AD2000 or K601's mids might love the HD-598. The mids feel slightly forward, but not as much as say the AD2000. About the same as my DJ100. DJ100 and HD-598 are my two favorites under $200 right now. HD-598 does a few things better than the DJ100, but the DJ100 has more detail, but slightly better imaging and the sound is a tad more clear. I think if people heard the HD-598 they'll find it doesn't have the typical laid-back Sennheiser sound, but pretty close. It doesn't have the detail of my K702, but makes music a bit more fun to listen to. Definitely more detail than the K601 though. It's really just too bad more people haven't tried this headphone yet. Of course the $250 price tag doesn't help. I hope they come down in price soon. I got mine for $170 and it was worth it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sugarkang 

2. Just stop listening to hip hop music.  It's not really music anyway.  Real people don't listen to that stuff which is only appreciated by the underclass.

That might be one of the most ignorant things I have ever heard or seen anyone say. I really hope you were joking/trolling/making fun of people who actually think that.