Hi everybody. I've been quite inactive lately. My headphone rig has seen very little of use after a speaker bug bit me about a year ago. After that I mainly concentrated on building a perfect speaker rig for my use. Well now it's done and I don't feel any need to upgrade any parts on the speaker rig.
We had a small headphone meet last weekend here at Helsinki. Many very nice rigs, including some nice HD650 rigs. Well there was HD650 ran through WooAudio 6 (with pretty much all the upgrades) and the source was some modded sound card + FLAC files. I must say that I have never heard HD650 sounding that good. My own rig was way behind the performance of Woo6 + HD650 combo. It had dynamic, powerful and most importantly, very clear and detailed sound. Very nice indeed.
We were also about to make a little comparison between APuresound V3 and Enigma Audio The Oracle. But we made a very interesting discovery which pretty much ruined the possibility for this comparison. My HD650 sounded totally different than the other pair. Mine is bought on 07/2006 and the other pair was about two months old. Mine sounded much heavier and warmer. The bass wasn't as snappy and fast and it had weaker treble energy. This difference was not caused by cables or any mods. Both of us had the same mods on our headphones and we switched the cables but still they sounded totally different. Very weird indeed. My pair has that black cover around the element and the newer model had white cover. The difference was very obvious and easy to hear.
Anyways, this bothered me very much after the meet. I decided I have to change my headphones or the amp. But I can't afford maxed out Woo6 atm. so I decided to test some new headphones I haven't heard properly before. I picked up HD600 and K601 for test.
K601 was nothing special to my ears. Very much like K701. The sound was somewhat thin for my taste. Mids were hiding somewhere and bass was too weak. They did sound very clear and detailed though. Not for me anyways.
But the HD600, me likes A LOT. If I should put it simply, they are HD650 with less bass (talking about bass amount, not deepness or punchiness) and more treble energy. To my ears the sound of HD600 was in better balance than HD650's. I tried to audition them critically with my test tracks, but I kept on finding myself listening through albums with them. I just fell into the music. After that I knew that because I can't go for Woo6 ATM, I must go for HD600 because it works very well on my current rig. And here we are, today I bought them for quite a good price and now I'm burning them in. Almost ten hours behind already. I know these need much much more. I'm going to keep my Enigma Audio cable with them.
I'm not quite sure why my HD650s sounded so different compared to a newer pair. I must do some comparison with newer pair later.
AD2000 would also interest me but I'm on a tight budget now so that must wait.
Well there you have it, from mighty HD650 to mighty HD600.
We had a small headphone meet last weekend here at Helsinki. Many very nice rigs, including some nice HD650 rigs. Well there was HD650 ran through WooAudio 6 (with pretty much all the upgrades) and the source was some modded sound card + FLAC files. I must say that I have never heard HD650 sounding that good. My own rig was way behind the performance of Woo6 + HD650 combo. It had dynamic, powerful and most importantly, very clear and detailed sound. Very nice indeed.
We were also about to make a little comparison between APuresound V3 and Enigma Audio The Oracle. But we made a very interesting discovery which pretty much ruined the possibility for this comparison. My HD650 sounded totally different than the other pair. Mine is bought on 07/2006 and the other pair was about two months old. Mine sounded much heavier and warmer. The bass wasn't as snappy and fast and it had weaker treble energy. This difference was not caused by cables or any mods. Both of us had the same mods on our headphones and we switched the cables but still they sounded totally different. Very weird indeed. My pair has that black cover around the element and the newer model had white cover. The difference was very obvious and easy to hear.
Anyways, this bothered me very much after the meet. I decided I have to change my headphones or the amp. But I can't afford maxed out Woo6 atm. so I decided to test some new headphones I haven't heard properly before. I picked up HD600 and K601 for test.
K601 was nothing special to my ears. Very much like K701. The sound was somewhat thin for my taste. Mids were hiding somewhere and bass was too weak. They did sound very clear and detailed though. Not for me anyways.
But the HD600, me likes A LOT. If I should put it simply, they are HD650 with less bass (talking about bass amount, not deepness or punchiness) and more treble energy. To my ears the sound of HD600 was in better balance than HD650's. I tried to audition them critically with my test tracks, but I kept on finding myself listening through albums with them. I just fell into the music. After that I knew that because I can't go for Woo6 ATM, I must go for HD600 because it works very well on my current rig. And here we are, today I bought them for quite a good price and now I'm burning them in. Almost ten hours behind already. I know these need much much more. I'm going to keep my Enigma Audio cable with them.
I'm not quite sure why my HD650s sounded so different compared to a newer pair. I must do some comparison with newer pair later.
AD2000 would also interest me but I'm on a tight budget now so that must wait.
Well there you have it, from mighty HD650 to mighty HD600.