Sennheiser HD 600 Appreciation Thread - Page 155

just wanted to say I am an new convert to the HD600.  I came from the HE400 which was not comfortable for me

to wear and I quickly developed tinnitus, I really prefer the presentation of the HD600 which may not be the concensus

on here.  I was nervous about not having a dedicated headphone amp for them and hooked them up on my Fisher

500C and they sound great, they sound great on my old Marantz 2275 as well.  These are my favorite headphones to

date and I like the bass.  The only downfall at all is that my ears seem to get hot in these but it's not a dealbreaker.

I guess people also like the idea that their setup can still be improved upon, that stuff can still be made to sound even better.

Kind of like with computer games such as Diablo2, where your character becomes uninteresting once you have all the best gear and reached a high level.

Right, we get bored and want new toys. that's part of being an audiophile I suppose. The point was made about 'expectation bias' because a lot of money is spent on things that don't actually 'sound even better', but only seem to sound better because we're tricking ourselves. Our brain is manufacturing the improvement in sound(imagining an improvement where there is no measurable difference). In actuality, with some upgrades(cables, interconnects, etc) there's no improvement at all, at least if you believe in carefully controlled double blind tests....tests where no one can tell the difference between a stock cable and an expensive aftermarket one. 

Right, we get bored and want new toys. that's part of being an audiophile I suppose. The point was made about 'expectation bias' because a lot of money is spent on things that don't actually 'sound even better', but only seem to sound better because we're tricking ourselves. Our brain is manufacturing the improvement in sound(imagining an improvement where there is no measurable difference). In actuality, with some upgrades(cables, interconnects, etc) there's no improvement at all, at least if you believe in carefully controlled double blind tests....tests where no one can tell the difference between a stock cable and an expensive aftermarket one. 

While I'm skeptical of a noticeable improvement that aftermarket cables might offer... I also wonder how much of an improvement different amps offer. I'm running my HD 600s off of a Fiio E9 (and E10 DAC), and am considering getting an O2 (and ODAC). Would this upgrade be in the 5% improvement category (which my ears would likely not notice), or are we talking night and day improvements here?

While I'm skeptical of a noticeable improvement that aftermarket cables might offer... I also wonder how much of an improvement different amps offer. I'm running my HD 600s off of a Fiio E9 (and E10 DAC), and am considering getting an O2 (and ODAC). Would this upgrade be in the 5% improvement category (which my ears would likely not notice), or are we talking night and day improvements here?

In your case I think the DAC would make more of an improvement than the amp, though I have no experience with either the e10 or the ODAC....just going by reviews, which can be hyped. Look forward to what others will say about the two DAC's in question, since I've been considering the e10 for casual listening out of a netbook with a crappy soundcard

Are we to assume you are using 600s?

Ya, I mentioned that a few posts back.

Many here say that the E9 is the bare minimum required to amp the HD 600's, yet that pairing sounds good to me.

But I've never heard them out of a better amp, and am wondering if an O2 will be significantly better.... like $150 better (or $300 with the ODAC)

e9/e7 combo works great for me... but I haven't heard my HD600s with any better amp/dac.  I know the O2 won't sound $150 better than the e7/e9 though, better sure maybe but not $150 better.

While I'm skeptical of a noticeable improvement that aftermarket cables might offer... I also wonder how much of an improvement different amps offer. I'm running my HD 600s off of a Fiio E9 (and E10 DAC), and am considering getting an O2 (and ODAC). Would this upgrade be in the 5% improvement category (which my ears would likely not notice), or are we talking night and day improvements here?

For the record, I don't have experience with aftermarket cables aside from using the HD650 cable on my HD600, which has made no noticeable difference for me so far (just got it a few days ago).

I doubt that everyone who has made the 'snake oil' argument has zero experience with recabling.

I think the reason why a lot of us feel very skeptical about the potential improvements of recabling is because of exactly the kind of language you've used here. You claim that recabling never makes more than a 5% difference (which a lot of the people here would probably never be able to notice) and yet you claim that you HATE the HD600 with Canare cables. No offense man, you've obviously contributed a whole lot to this community over the years, but I can't take you seriously because of how often you use such extreme language. You apparently hate the HD600 when a Canare cable changes it just 5%. You hate the DJ100 when unamped even though everyone else says amping doesn't effect it. You think the HD580 is way better than the HD600 even though everyone else says they sound virtually identical (probably the only difference being very small manufacturing variances which exist even within the exact same headphone model). I just don't know man.... either your ears are way more sensitive than anyone else's or you're using way too extreme of language to explain what are actually very miniscule differences that most people would never notice or base their headphone judgements on.