[the Ortherion]

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

/

? 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.

 
Can you describe this a little better? I guess i suffer from this also with my HD560II. What did you glue down exactly?

 

[2leftears]

Can you describe this a little better? I guess i suffer from this also with my HD560II. What did you glue down exactly?

When you take the ear cushions off the HD560II you will encounter:

1. The ear cushion (obviously)
2. A flat disc of acoustically transparent black foam
3. A flat thin disc of white felt with a 3cm or so hole in the middle
4. The offending white plastic mesh. It looks like fly screen but then with a much finer mesh and much thinner
5. The driver capsule, with a very thin white felt or (paper?) glued permanenlty over the plastic structure protecting the driver membrane

Now, where your ear presses on the black foam, it will compress the white mesh in place between the foam and the driver capsule, with no room for it to move or vibrate. However, there are areas across the capsule area where your ear will not press on the foam (at the front area of the ears in particular), and here the white mesh may only be loosely held in place. With my HD560II at certain low frequencies this mesh started to vibrate and "rattle" (for lack of a better way of describing) against the felt permanently glued onto the driver capsule. I generally play my headphones at relatively low volume, but even then this was occasionally audible as an irritating resonance/rattling.

One option is to remove the white mesh altogether. I cannot remember exactly what effect it had (I did this years ago), but I do remember that it was not a success. Obviously Sennheiser had good reason to include this mesh and it will present an acoustic resistance/filter function.

In the end I took a very deep breath, and decided to glue the mesh in place onto exactly the same ridges where the white felt/paper protecting the driver membrane has been glued onto the spider-web-shaped plastic frame of the capsule underneath. I used the TINIEST amounts of super-glue for this, but it is crucial to ensure that the glue does not soak into the felt/paper protecting the driver, potentially migrating across the entire area. You want to keep the areas of felt between the spired-web-shaped ridges of the frame completely free of glue.

In hindsight super-glue was not the easiest glue to be using. If I had to do this again I would probably try to find a water or ammonia-based rubber glue for this. Much easier to apply in thin ridges, much more time to work with it and it doesn't soak/creep.

The end effect was that the problem was solved. The headphones still sound the same, but the resonance/rattling is a thing of the past.

How this design flaw managed to pass the Sennheiser engineers by is still a mystery to me. Then again, I have never heard anyone else mention it...

 

[punks15]

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.

 

Couldn't agree with you more

 

[Bark Snarly]

Well thanks to this thread the headband replacement went flawlessly. Made it out of some old black leather I found around the house and cut it down using the old headband as a guide. Fits perfectly and looks like it belongs there apart from the lack of little pads on the bottom of the band. Good news is that they're still as comfortable as anything!

 

[the Ortherion]

Well thanks to this thread the headband replacement went flawlessly. Made it out of some old black leather I found around the house and cut it down using the old headband as a guide. Fits perfectly and looks like it belongs there apart from the lack of little pads on the bottom of the band. Good news is that they're still as comfortable as anything!

pics or it didn't happen

 

[Bark Snarly]

I'll take some tomorrow morning. Still not fully back in one piece as the silver rings that are usually on the headphones around the earcups currently aren't on it as I lost one of them and I hate how it looked when unbalanced like that (although some new rings are on the way - thanks padam!). The earpads are brand new though so they sound fully functional and comfort is still great too.
 
When the rings arrive they'll essentially look as good as they sound!

 

[Bostonears]

The HD650 has an identity crisis; it is confused as to whether it is a pair of headphones or a head clamp.

No identity crisis. It's a head clamp.

 

[o0CosmoMemory0o]

Many headphone headbands need to be stretched carefully and quite a bit in fact to give them a comfortable clamping force. Excessive clamping of a HD540 band negatively affects its stereo imaging IMO. I stretched out the headband of a like-new HD540II this evening. Sounds and feels much better after the warm/hot hairdryer treatment. The notion that the HD650 is a high fidelity device is a complete joke; I would facepalm at any audio engineer wearing one for serious audio editing, broadcast or mastering.
 
Here's my latest restored HD540II.
 

 

[dweeper]

  Many headphone headbands need to be stretched carefully and quite a bit in fact to give them a comfortable clamping force. Excessive clamping of a HD540 band negatively affects its stereo imaging IMO. I stretched out the headband of a like-new HD540II this evening. Sounds and feels much better after the warm/hot hairdryer treatment. The notion that the HD650 is a high fidelity device is a complete joke; I would facepalm at any audio engineer wearing one for serious audio editing, broadcast or mastering.
 
Here's my latest restored HD540II.
 

 
 
The hd-650 is not good for monitoring indeed.

 

[dpastern]

  Many headphone headbands need to be stretched carefully and quite a bit in fact to give them a comfortable clamping force. Excessive clamping of a HD540 band negatively affects its stereo imaging IMO. I stretched out the headband of a like-new HD540II this evening. Sounds and feels much better after the warm/hot hairdryer treatment. The notion that the HD650 is a high fidelity device is a complete joke; I would facepalm at any audio engineer wearing one for serious audio editing, broadcast or mastering.
 
Here's my latest restored HD540II.
 

 
I would concur on the newer Sennheisers - I just had a new Sennheiser HD600 arrive today (appealed to me over the HD650 cos it wasn't as dark sounding and was more "airier" by all accounts) and it isn't a patch on my HD540 ref Golds.  They kill this new breed of Sennheisers and more.  More detail.  More air.  Better bass, more musical.  Better soundstage too.  Yes, I realise the HD540 ref Golds were a LOT more expensive, but I doubt that the HD800s would even come within cooee of the old units.  
 
Note: I bought the Sennheiser HD600's for public transport use with my AK 120 II.  For that purpose, they'll be fine.  For serious home listening, I'll get the HD540 ref golds out. 
 
It's a shame that Sennheiser has went downhill so badly over the past 20 years.

 

[2leftears]

   
I would concur on the newer Sennheisers - I just had a new Sennheiser HD600 arrive today (appealed to me over the HD650 cos it wasn't as dark sounding and was more "airier" by all accounts) and it isn't a patch on my HD540 ref Golds.  They kill this new breed of Sennheisers and more.  More detail.  More air.  Better bass, more musical.  Better soundstage too.  Yes, I realise the HD540 ref Golds were a LOT more expensive, but I doubt that the HD800s would even come within cooee of the old units.
 
Note: I bought the Sennheiser HD600's for public transport use with my AK 120 II.  For that purpose, they'll be fine.  For serious home listening, I'll get the HD540 ref golds out.
 
It's a shame that Sennheiser has went downhill so badly over the past 20 years.

 
Well, I suspect you have the bass-heads to thank for that.  Sennheiser needs to sell headphones, and unfortunately the vast majority of headphone users seem to care more for the quantity of bass than the quality.  I know a lot of my colleagues can't actually hear a clean 30Hz bass unless it gets distorted to produce significant 60Hz and higher harmonics.

 

[dpastern]

   
Well, I suspect you have the bass-heads to thank for that.  Sennheiser needs to sell headphones, and unfortunately the vast majority of headphone users seem to care more for the quantity of bass than the quality.  I know a lot of my colleagues can't actually hear a clean 30Hz bass unless it gets distorted to produce significant 60Hz and higher harmonics.

 
Maybe.  i find it ironic that the bass on the HD600s is far inferior to the bass on the 540 Gold refs though.  I'm no bass freak - I want realistic but tight bass, don't get me wrong.  I find my Sony MDR-V55s have better bass quality (and are better than the HD600 in most areas too - better midrange, more musical, easier to drive).  

 

[o0CosmoMemory0o]

The HD540, especially II, is certainly a better performer than the HD600 and HD650. I hate to sound so dramatic here but they are both quite a coloured mess in the bass and lower midrange when you compare them against HD540/HD560/HD800. Going back to the HD540II is like a breath of fresh air. The HD800 (S/N 30466) that I listened to carefully over several weeks showed that the modern drivers are fantastic in the frequencies but not so great in phase alignment, which ultimately is going to affect the presence of the reproduction; whether the playback feels distant/withdrawn or engaging/foot-tapping. Sort out the phase of the HD800 and you have the basis for a headphone that can be a substantial improvement over the HD540/HD560 models. No amount of technologically advanced analytical equipment can do the listening for us so the wise, educated listener is perhaps the best critic of sonic fidelity we have. Sadly with the HD800, corporate greed came before musical enjoyment... Even though the HD800 is a partial failure, I still consider it a very important development in transducer technology and therefore I still respect its capabilities.

 

[dpastern]

  The HD540, especially II, is certainly a better performer than the HD600 and HD650. I hate to sound so dramatic here but they are both quite a coloured mess in the bass and lower midrange when you compare them against HD540/HD560/HD800. Going back to the HD540II is like a breath of fresh air. The HD800 (S/N 30466) that I listened to carefully over several weeks showed that the modern drivers are fantastic in the frequencies but not so great in phase alignment, which ultimately is going to affect the presence of the reproduction; whether the playback feels distant/withdrawn or engaging/foot-tapping. Sort out the phase of the HD800 and you have the basis for a headphone that can be a substantial improvement over the HD540/HD560 models. No amount of technologically advanced analytical equipment can do the listening for us so the wise, educated listener is perhaps the best critic of sonic fidelity we have. Sadly with the HD800, corporate greed came before musical enjoyment... Even though the HD800 is a partial failure, I still consider it a very important development in transducer technology and therefore I still respect its capabilities.

 
Agreed, although the sad thing is that 25 years on (I bought my HD540 Gold Refs in '88) Sennheisers top of the range products still can't match it.  The transducer technology is a means to an end - if the end result is less than great, and worse than what we could get 20 years ago, then as far as I'm concerned, it's went backwards.  

 

[o0CosmoMemory0o]

I'm glad that I had the AKG K1000 to turn to. Since using the HD800 and HD540II alongside one another from the same DAC/amp, I missed the HD800's improved bass weight and purer resolution when I went back to the HD540II yet when I left the HD540II to return to the HD800, the rhythm/focus just wasn't the same and I missed the engaging neutrality that I was used to having. I wasn't fully satisfied with either but the K1000 is everything I could possibly want from drivers close to the ears. They don't quite have the distance you would get with nearfield/midfield monitor speakers but it certainly doesn't feel that music is confined inside the head. Really pleased with the progress I have made over the last couple of years.