[Dubstep Girl]

Quote:

Yea, HD650's drivers are definitely capable of producing a lot of bass, definitely more than HD25-1, it just that they're very neutral cans, they won't boost bass in music. They will reproduce as much bass as the song has, but they're definitely able to produce crazy bass with songs that have artificially boosted bass.  And difference is, HD25's have a very in your head bass, while HD650's have a big bass, more similar to the type of bass that big floorstanding speakers produce.
 
By the way, I see you have Woo Audio 6 now?  Did you notice a lot of difference between it and pro-ject amp?   I'm planning to buy a better amp in future for my HD650's just to see what they can do when they're working at full potential, if its worth it.

yeah hd 650 has more of that big clean bass you get from an expensive reason vs. that punchy in your head bass. the hd 650s are just more refined and go deeper too i believe.
 
as far as the amp, at first, i didn't notice as much of a difference as i'd expect. the pro-ject amp is very very good for the money and i personally think its underrated. upon burn in however, there was a big difference, there was more detail, imaging, and more dynamics to the hd 650s. while the proj-ect amp offers 80% of the woo wa6 in terms of performance and overall quality, the wa6 is still on another level. it makes the hd 650s slightly warmer, but also alot smoother and more enjoyable to listen to while maintaining really good dynamics. 
 
so if 20-25% improvement sounds reasonable, go for it, you'll love it. but if you're happy with the pro-ject and feel that spending 1100$ on the wa6se is a bit too much, just stick with it for now and get a good dac or something instead. when i got my dac, my project amp suddenly sounded way better because the soundcard i used while also being decent, does not compare to a 500+$ DAC

 

[derbigpr]

Quote:

yeah hd 650 has more of that big clean bass you get from an expensive reason vs. that punchy in your head bass. the hd 650s are just more refined and go deeper too i believe.
 
as far as the amp, at first, i didn't notice as much of a difference as i'd expect. the pro-ject amp is very very good for the money and i personally think its underrated. upon burn in however, there was a big difference, there was more detail, imaging, and more dynamics to the hd 650s. while the proj-ect amp offers 80% of the woo wa6 in terms of performance and overall quality, the wa6 is still on another level. it makes the hd 650s slightly warmer, but also alot smoother and more enjoyable to listen to while maintaining really good dynamics. 
 
so if 20-25% improvement sounds reasonable, go for it, you'll love it. but if you're happy with the pro-ject and feel that spending 1100$ on the wa6se is a bit too much, just stick with it for now and get a good dac or something instead. when i got my dac, my project amp suddenly sounded way better because the soundcard i used while also being decent, does not compare to a 500+$ DAC

 
I kinda feel like Pro-ject is redundant for me.  I don't feel any difference in sound between plugging headphones into it or plugging headphones directly into my Asus xonar d2x sound card. It does get slighlty louder out of the amp, but straight from d2x its more than loud enough. As for sound quality, if anything, I think sound coming directly out of the sound card is better, definitely more detailed and bigger.   That's why I though Pro-ject might not be such a good amp.   I'm definitely not going for Woo Audio 6 if I'll go for a new amp, I just wanted to hear whether its worth going for such a high class amp. 
If I ever do upgrade, its either gonna be the new Asus Xonar Essence One (which has a DAC comparable to much more expensive DAC's in terms of sound quality,  and a headphone amp comparable to something like Burson Audio HA-160) and is gonna cost around 700 dollars,  or Asus Xonar STX + Musical Fidelity M1HPA amp.
 
 

 

[jigsawPB]

to aaronnt1 
 simply for the sake of interest: you try RME headphone output with HD650? How they interplay?

 

[aaronnt1]

@jigsaw
 
they work perfectly together. There is more than enough power from the RME to drive the HD650's, so I already returned my Fiio E9 amp which was unnecessary (you can set the DSP settings to 0 DB and then increase the volume in TotalMix for even more volume if you ever need it!). The RME and the HD650's make a great combination!

 

[aleki]

I had the same problem with a pair I picked up from a member last december. On my first listen, I immediately noticed it sounded a little "trebbly" and not warm at all (although there was little impact). I decided to take it apart and look over everything. It wasnt until I started piecing everything back together that I noticed the tweeter assembly(the powered part, not the silk material) went much further in than before I pulled it out.
Listening to them again, I immediately found correlation to the "dark sound" everyone raves about; simply awsome.
I feel what may have caused them to slide away from the housing was when I first inserted the cable terminals incorrectly (letters facing in), I had to apply a bit of force before realizing I was installing the cable the wrong way.

 

[Dubstep Girl]

Quote:

 
I kinda feel like Pro-ject is redundant for me.  I don't feel any difference in sound between plugging headphones into it or plugging headphones directly into my Asus xonar d2x sound card. It does get slighlty louder out of the amp, but straight from d2x its more than loud enough. As for sound quality, if anything, I think sound coming directly out of the sound card is better, definitely more detailed and bigger.   That's why I though Pro-ject might not be such a good amp.   I'm definitely not going for Woo Audio 6 if I'll go for a new amp, I just wanted to hear whether its worth going for such a high class amp. 
If I ever do upgrade, its either gonna be the new Asus Xonar Essence One (which has a DAC comparable to much more expensive DAC's in terms of sound quality,  and a headphone amp comparable to something like Burson Audio HA-160) and is gonna cost around 700 dollars,  or Asus Xonar STX + Musical Fidelity M1HPA amp.
 
 

 
theres a difference. as you upgrade your whole system, use higher bit rate songs, get better stuff, you will notice it more.
 
 

 

[Dubstep Girl]

plus pro-ject isn't bad, but its not good either. its lower mid-fi.
 
 
wa6 is upper mid-fi
 
wa6se is entry level hi-fi
 
wa22 is hi-fi
 
wa5 is elite audiophile quality hi-fi.

 

[atothex]

I don't love the wa5. It's more like a good combo unit than a true totl elite thing. The WES, on the other hand, is like the only viable commercial alternative to the BHSE that I know of.

 

[kjoh]

I had the hd650's paired with a darkvoice/le figaro amp at the time I owned them. I also felt that amping never made a huge difference for these particular headphones. In fact, I almost found the recable made a bigger difference to me.

 
Having also heard the hd25-1 ii, I definitely thought they had more bass impact, but the bass didn't extend as far as the hd650's or sound near as accurate.  I would almost say that if you found the hd25-1's neutral, then you might find the hd650's a bit... boring maybe?
 
This actually turned out to be the reason for selling my hd650's. The sound was just a bit too neutral for me.  I needed my music to sound more aggressive; more alive!  From there I steered over to the grado crowd and was quite happy with the results.  For portables though I was satisfied with the overall balance of the hd25-1 ii's.  Would've kept them if the clamping wasn't so tight

 
 

 

[AlfredWong]

I sold my FiiO E7/9 sometimes ago, after getting some really powerful and quality DAC/Amp. From my experience the FiiO cannot drive the HD650 to the fullest, simply the power (yes, not just voltage or impedance) wasn't enough to push the bass out. You also need a very long time to run in the HD650, play it when you are out to work for the day with heavy bass songs and see the difference after a month. Being a reference class headphone, the HD650 is extremely sensitive headphone, it would magically reveal the weakness of your system and magically thinning your wallet to upgrade them accordingly like a curse.

 

[aaronnt1]

@Kjoh, thanks for your useful post.
 
@AlfredWong, my experience with the Fiio 9 was the opposite, the power dial was turned only halfway on low gain and that was plenty power for the HD650's. Any more and the loudness would have been way too much. The Fiio had enough power to drive far higher impedance headphones. What I liked about the Fiio E9 was it didn't colour the sound at all, the sound is exactly the same through only my RME soundcard as it wis through the Fiio. Still I returned it as I didn't need that extra power as the RME is more than enough.

 

[AlfredWong]

Loudness is only a part of the concern, you also need a stable and continuous flow of current (or let's say, power) to bring out the bass and sound stage. You will immediately notice headphones requiring less power (considering P=IV, a very common overlook is regarding Power as a constant for all headphones to work properly) sounding "better" than the HD650. It's actually very power hungry indeed! And do you notice the hiss when turning the knob? That's another issue showing the limit of entry level props. Try opening the E9 up and compare the material and component used in more luxury stuff, you will know that they cost that much for a reason than to simply rip you off.
 
E9 is also using OPA2134 as far as I recall, being a very average op amp it doesn't color or bring out things much.

 

[TMRaven]

Quote:

E9 is also using OPA2134 as far as I recall, being a very average op amp it doesn't color or bring out things much.

Isn't not coloring a good thing?

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Loudness is only a part of the concern, you also need a stable and continuous flow of current (or let's say, power) to bring out the bass and sound stage. You will immediately notice headphones requiring less power (considering P=IV, a very common overlook is regarding Power as a constant for all headphones to work properly) sounding "better" than the HD650. It's actually very power hungry indeed! And do you notice the hiss when turning the knob? That's another issue showing the limit of entry level props. Try opening the E9 up and compare the material and component used in more luxury stuff, you will know that they cost that much for a reason than to simply rip you off.
 
E9 is also using OPA2134 as far as I recall, being a very average op amp it doesn't color or bring out things much.

Current, voltage, and power are directly related. They have everything to do with volume, and nothing to do with bass coloration and sound stage. The HD650, by the way, needs very little current and power thanks to its 300 ohm impedance and fairly high sensitivity. What it needs is voltage.
 
I can walk through a couple calculations if you like, to show you how much current and power it actually needs to reach high volume (I like to use 110 dB for that).

 

[K_19]

I've noticed that HD650 lacks the deepest bottom-end extension but it's something I only noticed after listening to headphones such as HD800 and LCD-2's regularly. The HD650's definitely have meatier midbass but I do notice it's lack of extension in the other end now. Still delivers quality bass overall though I feel when amped well.
 
Never thought of HD650 as a particularly bass-centric headphones though. IMO their main magic is in the ultra smooth midrange.