dknightd
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2002
- Posts
- 656
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- 11
As a good head-fi'er I'm here to give you my impressions of my latest can upgrade.
Some background might be useful. A couple of years ago I came to this site looking for information on upgrading from my very old Senn 430 cans. Based on what I'd auditioned locally, I knew I liked the Senn 580/600 sound signature, but they were more than I wanted to spend back then since I didn't expect I'd use headphones much (I really prefer speakers). I didn't like the grato cans, and there wasn't really much else I liked locally that fit my $100 budget. I ended up buying Philips HP890 from Meier Audio. Right off the bat I liked the HP890. They had good frequency response. Bass was deep, if somewhat loose. Mids and treble were good (though sometimes the treble could get fatiguing). There were no obvious problems with peaks or dips in frequency response, and, they had exceptional imaging and staging. After a week of burn in the strengths remained, and the weaknesses became less evident. I was happy. Two years later they seemed to sound even better, and, they fit me like a pair of used jeans. But I found myself wanting more. As my speakers continued to improve (I've been working on refining basically the same design for 20 some odd years and have it pretty well tuned to what I like), and I found myself listening to headphones more and more, it was time to get the headphones back up to speaker levels.
I bought a Senn 650 from Todd (the vinyl junkie - see link at the top of the page) for $329 for my wife to give me for Chistmas
. Mostly I use headphones from an M-Audio Audiophile firewire, being fed from iTunes on a Mac. I mostly listen to reggae, classic rock, jam bands, blues, folk, jazz (and some occasional classical). The bass on the hd650 is just as deep as the 890, but it is *much* tighter. The mids and treble on the 650 are smoother and more detailed than the 890. There is no hint of the treble courseness that the 890 occasionally exhibit. I hear details with the 650 that were not apparent with the 890 (if I go back and listen I can find them with the 890, but they are not as obvious). Separation of instruments is much better in the 650. One problem with the 890 was that when bass lines got complicated, and had several instruments contributing, it was sometimes difficult to sort them out. Reggae also has lots of small percussion instrument parts - the hd650 let each bang of sticks, or tink of bell, come through clearly. One thing I don't like about the 650 is having a cord to each ear. They don't yet have that "old shoe" comfort factor my 890 did - they are comfortable, and I'm sure I'll get used to the different feel, and the extra cord (one thing about having a single cord is it is very easy to tell which side goes where on your head). The 650 are very revealing. Good recordings sound great, poor recordings sound like crap. With the hp890 good recordings are just good, and poor ones are just poor. With the 650 good is better, and worse is worse.
Other observations - the difference between 890 and 650 is small at low volumes, but becomes more evident as I turn it up. Also, I find myself listening at lower volume settings with the 650, I guess I can hear the detail I want at lower volumes than before - this is a good thing.
As I said, I mostly use headphones from my computer. The M-Audio is mid-fi at best (when I want to listen seriously I still put on a Cd or LP and listen to my main stereo). I have the M-audio device connected to my speaker stereo, but it doesn't match my other sources (I'm not sure if this is due to the DAC, or the line out op-amps, used in the M-audio). I'm not (yet) using a dedicated headphone amp - I'm using the one built into the maudio. I thought the 650 would be harder to drive, but, from that headphone jack the volume of both 890 and 650 is about the same. I briefly tried comparing the headphone jack of the m-audio to my receiver. My receiver (Yamaha rx777 works great with speakers, but I've never liked its headphone output - I think it is just a 470 ohm resister put across the speaker ouput - the speakers sound great, the headphone output sucks). Using the 890 I carefully matched the volume between m-audio and yamaha jack. I was instantly reminded why I didn't like the headphone jack on the yamaha - the bass on the 890 gets really muddy on the yamaha. So then I plugged in the 650 to the yamaha. To my surprise the 650 was much louder when fed from the yamaha. The sound quality was also much better compared to the 890.
Well, I;ve been rambling for quite a while, and I need to leave soon, but let me give you one final thought. The Senn HD650 is potentially a very expensive upgrade. The cost of the cans is not too bad, but I fear they will soon cause more money to depart my wallet.
1) Like I said I mostly use a computer with my cans. I've got most of my music on my computer. I love the point and click interface to music. When I started ripping my cd's I did some abx testing and found I could easily tell 128mp3 from original, I could tell some 192kps from original, I couldn't tell any of my samples at 256 kps mps from original, so I decided to rip everything at 320. Random sample comparisons since then suggested everything is OK. But now I have these new, very revealing, headphones. I'm going to have to reevaluate using mp3 at all. If it turns out 320 kbs mp3 are no longer indistinguishable from original, I'll have to rerip everything. I've got about 350GB of tunes on my computer, so reripping will cost a lot of time, and more disk space.
2) The m-audio device has been OK up to now. The new cans might require to me to upgrade. I might need a dedicated headphone amplifier, and perhaps a dedicated DAC
3) I might need to start upgrading my speaker stereo again - Aack!
So with the good comes some additional issues. But I like my new cans so I keep them and deal with it (slowly I hope - that is all my wallet can afford and I will not get in debt for this…)
Got to go, no time to edit. I could delete, but think I'll just post what I've got. Please ignore typos and other flaws.
David
Some background might be useful. A couple of years ago I came to this site looking for information on upgrading from my very old Senn 430 cans. Based on what I'd auditioned locally, I knew I liked the Senn 580/600 sound signature, but they were more than I wanted to spend back then since I didn't expect I'd use headphones much (I really prefer speakers). I didn't like the grato cans, and there wasn't really much else I liked locally that fit my $100 budget. I ended up buying Philips HP890 from Meier Audio. Right off the bat I liked the HP890. They had good frequency response. Bass was deep, if somewhat loose. Mids and treble were good (though sometimes the treble could get fatiguing). There were no obvious problems with peaks or dips in frequency response, and, they had exceptional imaging and staging. After a week of burn in the strengths remained, and the weaknesses became less evident. I was happy. Two years later they seemed to sound even better, and, they fit me like a pair of used jeans. But I found myself wanting more. As my speakers continued to improve (I've been working on refining basically the same design for 20 some odd years and have it pretty well tuned to what I like), and I found myself listening to headphones more and more, it was time to get the headphones back up to speaker levels.
I bought a Senn 650 from Todd (the vinyl junkie - see link at the top of the page) for $329 for my wife to give me for Chistmas
. Mostly I use headphones from an M-Audio Audiophile firewire, being fed from iTunes on a Mac. I mostly listen to reggae, classic rock, jam bands, blues, folk, jazz (and some occasional classical). The bass on the hd650 is just as deep as the 890, but it is *much* tighter. The mids and treble on the 650 are smoother and more detailed than the 890. There is no hint of the treble courseness that the 890 occasionally exhibit. I hear details with the 650 that were not apparent with the 890 (if I go back and listen I can find them with the 890, but they are not as obvious). Separation of instruments is much better in the 650. One problem with the 890 was that when bass lines got complicated, and had several instruments contributing, it was sometimes difficult to sort them out. Reggae also has lots of small percussion instrument parts - the hd650 let each bang of sticks, or tink of bell, come through clearly. One thing I don't like about the 650 is having a cord to each ear. They don't yet have that "old shoe" comfort factor my 890 did - they are comfortable, and I'm sure I'll get used to the different feel, and the extra cord (one thing about having a single cord is it is very easy to tell which side goes where on your head). The 650 are very revealing. Good recordings sound great, poor recordings sound like crap. With the hp890 good recordings are just good, and poor ones are just poor. With the 650 good is better, and worse is worse.Other observations - the difference between 890 and 650 is small at low volumes, but becomes more evident as I turn it up. Also, I find myself listening at lower volume settings with the 650, I guess I can hear the detail I want at lower volumes than before - this is a good thing.
As I said, I mostly use headphones from my computer. The M-Audio is mid-fi at best (when I want to listen seriously I still put on a Cd or LP and listen to my main stereo). I have the M-audio device connected to my speaker stereo, but it doesn't match my other sources (I'm not sure if this is due to the DAC, or the line out op-amps, used in the M-audio). I'm not (yet) using a dedicated headphone amp - I'm using the one built into the maudio. I thought the 650 would be harder to drive, but, from that headphone jack the volume of both 890 and 650 is about the same. I briefly tried comparing the headphone jack of the m-audio to my receiver. My receiver (Yamaha rx777 works great with speakers, but I've never liked its headphone output - I think it is just a 470 ohm resister put across the speaker ouput - the speakers sound great, the headphone output sucks). Using the 890 I carefully matched the volume between m-audio and yamaha jack. I was instantly reminded why I didn't like the headphone jack on the yamaha - the bass on the 890 gets really muddy on the yamaha. So then I plugged in the 650 to the yamaha. To my surprise the 650 was much louder when fed from the yamaha. The sound quality was also much better compared to the 890.
Well, I;ve been rambling for quite a while, and I need to leave soon, but let me give you one final thought. The Senn HD650 is potentially a very expensive upgrade. The cost of the cans is not too bad, but I fear they will soon cause more money to depart my wallet.
1) Like I said I mostly use a computer with my cans. I've got most of my music on my computer. I love the point and click interface to music. When I started ripping my cd's I did some abx testing and found I could easily tell 128mp3 from original, I could tell some 192kps from original, I couldn't tell any of my samples at 256 kps mps from original, so I decided to rip everything at 320. Random sample comparisons since then suggested everything is OK. But now I have these new, very revealing, headphones. I'm going to have to reevaluate using mp3 at all. If it turns out 320 kbs mp3 are no longer indistinguishable from original, I'll have to rerip everything. I've got about 350GB of tunes on my computer, so reripping will cost a lot of time, and more disk space.
2) The m-audio device has been OK up to now. The new cans might require to me to upgrade. I might need a dedicated headphone amplifier, and perhaps a dedicated DAC
3) I might need to start upgrading my speaker stereo again - Aack!
So with the good comes some additional issues. But I like my new cans so I keep them and deal with it (slowly I hope - that is all my wallet can afford and I will not get in debt for this…)
Got to go, no time to edit. I could delete, but think I'll just post what I've got. Please ignore typos and other flaws.
David
