Quote:
The HD650, while good, glazes over everything with a "haze". There is a lot of midbass with not much sub-bass. The treble is really rolled off and sounds very withdrawn and ill defined. Headphone is not as detailed as the HD600 as Sennheiser chose to tune this headphone to be more enjoyable, from what I've come to understand. The midrange is quite nice and is lush but it sounds a bit "too" lush to me and the sound is somewhat smeared. The soundstage is average at best and is pretty small in comparison tot he DT880.
I think the HD600 is a vastly better headphone. It has more treble, more detail, better bass response (not more bass, but more balanced and extended), The mids are pretty resolving with a nice toasty flavor to them. The headphone all around is more of what I'd like to define as "reference". Superb detail, excellent balance, and not that hard to amp at all.
The "haze" you describe, some will say veil, haze, smear, muddy, whatever, is, as Matrixnobu said below, all about synergy. Sennheisers (the whole line really) are insanely picky about what you pair it with. I have heard what you describe. I have heard what you described as "congested" in another post below, I know it well. However that is not all HD650 is capable of, and whole worlds do open up when you pair it with gear it likes. I have heard the same about HD800. The greatest strength of Senn products is that they have a lot of unused potential that can always be unlocked further. Their greatest weakness is that if you don't want to play signal-chain-roulette to dial in their sound, they can be a PITA to get the right sound out of them.
In the right setup, they are remarkably detailed. The detail retrieval is above that of my HE-400 (planars), which, while lacking in a few areas behind HE-500, detail retrieval and transient response has not been reported among them. HD650 is approaching, or slightly beyond the point of surreal detail greater than that of listening to live performance. HE-400 is more in the live performance zone, partly due to the huge resonance chamber of the cup. More detail than that would, for me, usually be undesirable since it would sound unlike reality.
They do roll off bass and treble as part of their signature, I find it desirable in most cases, especially the treble, but I can understand where it's not for everyone.
Quote:
Good to know. I was thinking of getting a bifrost and valhalla. But I might go for the Lyr then. And get the Mullard tubes.
Thanks for the feedback!
Hard to go wrong with Lyr. If for no other reason the tube rolling options that open up. Not that Valhalla hasn't been well liked for HD650 too, but with Valhalla you're locked into the "tubey sound" with the warm tubes (that have some extended highs unlike other OTL tube amps.) But you can't tweak it with those tubes. Lyr is a bit more punchy with the SS side, it's very dynamic (which HD650 benefits from since it's not as dynamic as others on its own), and as I've learned, tube rolling is a great advantage. The stock GE's are really decent, I was happy with them. Very happy. I only looked to switching because no matter how many GE's I swapped I'd have to keep changing them to get one that didn't have a periodic faint whine in them. Some people wouldn't mind, but it drove me nuts. I didn't realize just how significant tube changes are until I put it in and the sound quality jumped again rather substantially. Rolling is its own expensive hobby, you can get cheap tubes for $20-30 a pair, mid-range tubes for $50-100 a pair, and then you get into the exotics from there. I don't like the idea of buying the really pricy ones since there's no way of knowing how long vintage stuff lasts. You could buy a $300 set of tubes and they break in 3 months, or they could last 5 years. I paid $75 or so for the lightly used Mullards (pair). There are better ones out there, and there are probably decent Czech tubes (Tesla) for cheaper, or so it is said. Different brands have different sound signatures, etc. There is of course new production stuff that's much cheaper and more reliable, but conventional wisdom says the vintage stuff sounds better.... There's a whole thread on Lyr tube rolling in the dedicated amps forum, it's an interesting community I just recently started participating in. Those folks roll the expensive stuff constantly....I'm more interested in sticking with what's good. The tubes affect the detail, extension, soundstage etc.
Regardless of the tubes, the idea is, I doubt you'll regret going with Lyr for 650
Quote:
Eh I found both 600 and 650 to roll off equally as much.
You know, the more you compare them the more I'm convinced the HD650's you heard were HD600 drivers
All your descriptions seem inverted to me, and the rolloff is the icing
Quote:
And when I meant haze, and this is for everyone, I do not mean a veil. They just sound slurred and fuzzy. The transients are there but lack that edge or pop I have gotten used to from the DT880 and T1. The HD600 has this edge as I call it which makes transients stand out more. With the HD650 they transients sound slurred and smeared. The lack of treble energy on this headphone also hurts the transients and detail.
The HD650's soundstage is smaller than the HD600, presumably to make the listening experience more personal. Who knows exactly why. I also found the imaging to be pretty meh at best. Many here know I hate the HD650 for how muffled it sounds. It's a sound signature that I can not bring myself to enjoy..
Well, compared to Beyer which has emphasized transients, perhaps not, but HD650 has quite poppy (without being sharp/grainy) transients compared to say, planars. The lack of treble energy hurts the
perception of detail, not the actual detail.
But that last statement is the key. You dislike the sound signature. That's understandable, it's a unique sound signature that those who love it love it, those who don't, don't. The same is true of Beyer. It has many strong fans like yourself, but other folks greatly dislike it for its accented treble and see the "edge" of transients as being too sharp.
spiderking31: You now have a taste of the good old days of HD650 vs. DT880 vs. K701: The war between fans of the three flagships. And as you can see, all three are popular and have fans rooted strongly for one flavor or another still today
For me, I can get into the Sennheiser sound and the AKG flat-neutral sound, but I could never get into what I perceive as overly bright Beyer sound. But the idea is, all three have equally loyal fan bases and all three perform, technologically, at the same level, each with different strengths and different weaknesses. While the "war' has always been for which one was "best", in hindsight now that newer more expensive flagships are out and folks are warring over those the same way, it's ever more obvious the old three are equal level.
Quote:
I don't think the hd650's have a haze....I personally think the soundstage is huge, and extremely detailed....and these are the most impressive headphones I've ever heard...and I own the hd595's, and also owned others....best headphones ever....only if properly amped, and used with after market cables...
If you've got a big soundstage and lots of detail, you've probably struck good synergy out of the gates with your amp/dac which is a great break. And a nice cable
Glad you're enjoying them!
Quote:
Acoustic music often sounded a bit congested on the HD-650.
I actually think the HD-650 does female vocals better than the HD-600 though.
Was that with the Micro? I know you are a big fan of the Micro, but I'd
strongly suggest trying something else with HD650. I don't know if your newer Micro changed much since my old one, but "congested" is the single most descriptive word I can think of with that combination, and it made me think I disliked HD650 after a while, until I discovered other amps, namely my Denon AVR which by accident I realized sounded much better, and away it went from there. HD650 positively does not sound congested in all setups. And since you're a cable DIY guy, I'm sure you tried other cables with it so that's not the issue. You and TMRaven seem to have similar HD650 experiences which seem very different from mine. In your case I know you're using at least half of my old setup I disliked with it, so I can possibly explain part of it. Did you ever get that Lyr?
Though even in perfect order the HD650
is very different from K702. You're a Q701 fan, and disliked K702, so I'm not sure where that puts you in line with HD650.
Quote:
Honestly, their soundstages are so similar, I don't really think the comparison is worthy of consideration for buyers. They both are great headphones that do little wrong and so much right.
+1!
