2leftears, talk me through how you feel HD800, HD650, HD560 and HD540 600 Ohm compare against each other. I want to see whether any of your impressions correlate with my own. How do you feel about the HD800? Do you find music through it as focussed and engaging as through HD540 and HD560?
o0CosmoMemory0o, happy to!
In reverse order of preference:
The HD560: I got one of the last models before they were discontinued. I never really got on with this one. My father had a very early HD560, which sounded definitely better (certainly a bit "warmer") My dad could also hear the difference clearly. On top of that, I don't know if Sennheiser was selling off the leftover capsules, because the left and right capsules on mine are not particularly well matched. The peaks in the treble region are clearly at slightly different frequencies which means that spatial definition on this particular par of cans is not great. Sennheiser feedback on my complaint was that my hearing was extraordinarily sensitive
/ :mad: ? Furthermore, I have big ears and the cups on the HD560 are simply not deep enough. They hurt my ears after an hour or so. They also contain a fine plastic mesh underneath the foam covering the drivers, which used to have an annoying habit of just ever so slightly resonating at certain frequencies (until I glued it down). Other than that they sound good, but not quite in the league of the HD540 /HD800.
The HD650 has an identity crisis; it is confused as to whether it is a pair of headphones or a head clamp. Way to tight on the head
! As far as sound is concerned: good, but a little too warm for my taste. The somewhat emphasized bass makes the mids sound a bit retracted, and on the whole I find the sound not all that well balanced. Because of these reasons I don't use them all that often.
The HD800 is a
great pair of headphones. A very well balanced sound with unparalleled spacial definition. I do find it very critical with respect to the quality of the recorded material. Many popular albums can suffer from excessively aggressive treble with this one, and it is sensitive to sibilance. Also, material with a lot of "attack" (drums, plucked instruments, piano etc.) seem to loose their coherence just a little bit. I think this headphone may exhibit some of the typical behavior of bandpass-enclosures, which are "group delay" or a frequency dependent time shift, and poor impulse response. It is the same reason I don't like reflex-loaded (ported) speakers. Mine are closed-type enclosures (Spendor S3/5R2). Just a little less deep bass, but much more coherent bass and way better pulse response. The best way to describe this group-delay is like listening to music from a little distance, and the speed of sound being just slightly dependent on the frequency. For all these reasons I use The HD800 mostly for very well recorded classical music with predominantly voice, choral, or non-plucked string instruments (Viola da Gamba, Cello etc.). Harpsichord is still OK, maybe because it has relatively little bass generated after striking the strings. On these recordings however the HD800 is sensational.
The HD540 (600 Ohm) are
still (since 1990!) my favorite pair of cans. Extremely comfortable. Honestly, I could wear these for
days. I much prefer the double headband construction rather than the apparently more popular single headband construction. The HD540 is light, distributes its weight beautifully and has loads of space for my big ears. The sound is heavenly. Yes, it has less spacial definition that the HD800, and less air around the instruments, but on the whole it has an equally balanced sound as the HD800. I have always thought that as far as sound balance is concerned the HD800 is the closest Sennheiser have come to the HD540. But unlike the HD800, sound with a lot of "attack" sounds more coherent with the HD540. This is therefore my preferred headphone for popular music, or classical with plucked instrument like the Lute, Theorbe, Chinese Qin, Japanese Koto etc.
