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I started researching audiophile headphones a month ago and finally chose the HD 598. Turns out they weren't a good match with my amp (flabby bass I suspect was due to an impedance mismatch). I decided to order the HD 650 because it is 300 ohm vs. 50 ohm. When the 650's arrived, I listened to them both side-by-side extensively to decide which one's I would keep.
The hands down winner was the HD 650.
They sound different, but for me, there is nothing the 598 does that the 650 doesn't do better. The 598 has more prominent/brighter treble, so if you like your music bright, that might be a consideration, but to me, the smoother more refined 650 is the (much) better headphone (although I will admit that the 598 is more comfortable to wear being lighter and having less clamping force).
They are both fine-sounding headphones. If the 598's had matched up better with my amp, I would have kept them and been perfectly happy. That said, I definitely would not keep them both. I am a one headphone kind of guy and I think both the 598 and 650 are well suited to all types of music and movies.
I'm looking for some advice/opinions on my HD650 enjoyment.
I've had some time to settle into my 650's and am not completely happy with them right now.
My intent was to use them exclusively with my "casual" 2-channel system which consists of 7 year-old entry-level Pioneer universal disc player (DVD, CD, SACD), Pioneer turntable, and 25 year-old Carver Receiver. All analog-only - I have no plans to stream digital on this system.
I started with the HD598's but found the bass much too flabby and uncontrolled, which I attributed to inadequate dampening due to an impedance mismatch with my receiver. The 650's improved the situation tremendously, but I still feel the bass is a little loose on some recordings and the treble is a little more recessed. I suspect that maybe the headphone stage of my receiver is not as robust as I once hoped/believed (I was initially under the impression that higher quality vintage amps had decent headphone stages designed for higher impedance headphones). Doing more reading in the forums, I am beginning to think that a dedicated headphone amp wired through the tape monitor loop via RCA cables would solve my problem and let me hear the 650's as the were intended.
I am hesitating to purchase a dedicated headphone amp however because, in listening to my 650's on my home theater AVR (Pioneer Elite SC-25), the bass has no flab whatsoever and the treble sounds just right. I actually think they sound pretty good through my AVR - that is until out of curiosity, I tried plugging my 650's straight into my iPod Classic. My AVR sounds basically the same as the iPod (maybe I detect a hint more air/space around instruments with the AVR, but the difference is very subtle). This makes me wonder if I simply don't have the hearing/experience to hear subtle nuances and I would be disappointed with a dedicated headphone amp upstairs.
So, here are my questions:
1. Do you think my Carver Receiver headphone stage is simply inadequate as I suspect? Could it also be that the headphone stage is fine, but the sound signature of the Carver is bass heavy/treble recessed? If it is the sound signature I'm hearing and not a problem with amplification, will a headphone amp hooked in to the tape monitor loop bypass this signature and give me a "pure" signal through the headphone amp to the 650's?
2. Re: my AVR/iPod experiment...what is the typical quality of the headphone stages found in "higher-end" modern home theater AVR's (such as my Elite SC-25)? Is the fact that it resembles the output of my iPod so closely indicative of an afterthought PC board, or would you say that my ears simply aren't well trained at detecting the differences? I suspect it's a little of both since music from the AVR is bitstreamed from my Oppo BluRay player via HDMI and converted with the AVR's internal Wolfson 8740 DAC, which is no doubt a higher quality stream than the headphone output of my iPod.
3. What would you do in my situation? Replace the Carver with another integrated receiver with a known high quality headphone stage (if one exists)? Add a headphone amp to the tape monitor loop? Sell the 650's and buy a headphone that is less demanding to drive but with a higher dampening factor to be more compatible with the Carver?
4. Keep the 650's. Let them burn-in a little more and just turn down the bass a smidge when I listen to music than sounds a little loose in the bass?
I realize that it's hard to give advice on a setup you have never listened to, but I appreciate any thoughts you experienced head-fiers might have. I didn't intend to embark on a quest for (my) perfect headphone sound, but I am a lifelong audio enthusiast and I want to be happy with the sound. If I can tighten up (not necessarily reduce) the bass, I think I can stop analyzing my music and start enjoying it. I've never had this much difficulty with loudspeakers - but I'm definitely finding headphones to be more difficult to nail down (because they're more revealing?).
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!