Also sold as Freeboss HF-2010
 
These headphones surely have one of the highest quality to price ratios on the market today. Whether they are right for you will depend on three things: your taste in music, your budget, and the equipment you plan to use them with. If you love classical music, and you are not poor, then I recommend buying the originals: the Beyerdynamic DT 880 Premium 600 OHM Headphones together with a good headphone amp such asMagni 2 Uber Headphone Amplifier and Modi 2 Uber Digital/Analog Converter. Note that the DT 880 comes in three versions; each has a different impedance. The lower impedance ones work without a strong amplifier. The high impedance ones have purer sound. You'll be wasting your money not to buy the 600 ohm version and a good amplifier.

But are those venerable headphones really better, to real human ears, than the HF 2010? Listening as I type these lines to the bassoon in Mozart's Bassoon Concerto, I'm honestly not sure how anything could be much better. Moreover, because the HF 2010 they have a 60 Ohm impedance (that's one tenth of the best Beyers), you can run them well on a much simpler amp/ digital audio converter combo, such as Signstek HIFI USB to Coaxial S/PDIF Converter Decoder Convert Digital to Analogue Signal Mini USB DAC PCM 2704 Chipset with USB Cable.

If you have a little money and good music is important to you, you will not be wasting your resources to go for something like the DT 880 600 Ohm, the Sennheiser HD 800 S Reference Headphone System(very, very expensive), or the Hifiman HE400S Full-Size Planar Headphone. I don't have any of those, but I do still have wonderful vintage headphones, the Sennheiser HD 530 and HD 560. (If you ever see one at auction, don't pass it up.) They require a strong amplifier. They don't have powerful bass or super-high definition; that's where thirty years of engineering has beaten them. But the purity of timbre is breathtaking.

If instead of having "a little" money, you have little money, then good taste is everything, and these HF 2010s are extremely satisfying. They are very well built, and they actually sound much better with my laptop and small amp/DAC combination than my "better" headphones (which require a powerful amplifier). The engineers have done a superb job, at least for the music I listen to. Be grateful for diversity. (I also considered a Superlux HD668B Dynamic Semi-Open Headphones. Since I didn't buy it and haven't heard it, I can't compare. I chose these because some said the Superlux could be piercing, though other listeners did not experience that. At any rate, the HF 2010 is very well balanced.) Do be sure to give the headphones a few days' use to break in. When I first tried them, the bass sounded exaggerated and unfocused, but that has changed (or my expectations have!).
 
At the end of the day, I have to say that if more expensive headphones really sound a lot better, perhaps I need to improve my ears -- and that's after years of listening to refined old Sennheisers.  An embarrassingly good deal.

I bought a blue K.I.C.A.S. regular during this winter's "Beat the Blues" sale.  I'm using it with my new V-DAC (mostly sourced from a DVD player) and vintage Sennheiser HD 560 headphones, the old flagship when they optimized their headphones for classical music (much prized on Germany Ebay; I got mine on American Ebay).  
 
My ears are recovering from a diet of sweetened bass-boosted consumer audio. For the first time, I have wild fresh berries. Some are riper than others.  A very few recordings I used to enjoy are actually unpleasant (where the treble was simply too bright).  Nathan Milstein's performance of Bach's Violin Partitas, as recorded by DG twenty-five years ago, sounds a bit thin and sharp; Isabelle Faust's performance of the same works, recorded recently, sounds lovely.  Fischer-Dieskau and Moore's Schubert Lieder and Maria Pires's Chopin, for example, are warm and beautiful.  Since I do not have a wide range of headphones with which to test it, it is hard to say how it would perform beyond the HD 560.  But I am listening to the pair right now with a Beethoven cello sonata, and there is plently of bass here.  Other recordings are a complete revelation.  I hear for the first time the humor in abrupt passages.  The detail and dynamics are astonishing. So is the soundstage, certainly compared with the consumer Onkyo amp I have in the other room.  In complex passages, I marvel at the texture of music.  
 
Based on the reviews and descriptions, I thought the K.I.C.A.S. would be even better than the Caliente for classical music, at least with my headphones, and Oriel seconded that view.  Though I haven't heard the Caliente and am sure it's a great amp too, I think the bet is proving to be correct. The level of detail is exhilarating to me.  The K.I.C.A.S. is remarkable, the more so at its price level.  I hope that Purity Audio will keep it in production for a long time to come.   I I I

Please see the discussion here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/71934/sennheiser-hd-560-ovation-ii-review       You 
  
I bought these headphones after using one of their predecessors, the HD 530.  Both are very natural, balanced over the tonal spectrum, though without powerful bass.  The HD 560 has superior housing which gives a wonderfully spatial sense (though I would not say pinpoint location or necessarily the most modern placement in the depth field). 
 
I am using the HD 560 with a Purity Audio K.I.C.A.S. regular (no bass boost) amp and a Musical Fidelity V-DAC, whose inputs come from a DVD player for CDs and my computer for downloads and streaming.  Compared with anything I have heard, the sound is simply stunning; and while I have not heard a great many expensive headphones and amps, I do attend live music.  I hear no distortion.  And I do hear a great deal of detail which opens subtleties in the works.
 
I suspect the HD 560 is far better for classical music or jazz than for high-energy music.  Within its range, it is a fascinating choice for the value-minded audiophile. (For example, it lets you buy a good amp, and it is quite capable of rewarding one.  I can absolutely hear the difference between my K.I.C.A.S. and my Onkyo Mini System, much less my old Sennheiser Lucas surround sound, though it actually sounds quite good with all three.  But it loves the K.I.C.A.S.)   
 
PS: If you find a pair of HD 560s, they are almost sure to need new cushions.  Sennheiser stocks them (more cheaply than Ebay resellers).  You may also want to change the cable from the steel cable that came with the original to the copper cable that comes with the HD 560 II and fits the first version as well.  The HD 600/650 cables do not fit.  Thus the aftermarket high-end cables would require hard-wiring.  It would be an interesting experiment, but it would be more expensive than the headphone itself; and the sound is already crystal clear. (Incidentally, the price I happened to pay on Ebay reflected the need for new cables and cushions as well as a very sleepy auction.  The going Ebay price has generally been nearer $100 and is still a great bargain compared with other headphones at that price, especially for classical music and jazz.) 
 
For further information, see the Sennheiser manual: http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/old_manual.nsf/resources/HD560ovation.pdf/$File/HD560ovation.pdf
 
 Note the following comment by an experienced reviewer on the German forum Http://www.hifi-forum.de:
Hallo,

der HD 560 ist - für mich jedenfalls - ein echtes Spitzenmodell. Neu hat er ca. 300 DM gekostet. Es lohnt sich absolut, die - zugegeben überzogen teuren - Ohrpolster auszutauschen. Nicht alles, was an neuen Modellen auf dem Markt ist, ist besser, ganz im Gegenteil.
Ich bin der festen Überzeugung, daß an die Natürlichkeit und Verfärbungsfreiheit des HD 560 (und HD 560II) nicht viele elektrodynamische Kopfhörer herankommen. Die meisten neueren Sennheiser verfärben bei akustischen Instrumenten und Gesang deutlich und ich widerspreche der Ansicht, die hier einige vertreten, daß ein Kopfhörerverstärker das ausbügelt. Ein Vollverstärker mit sehr ausgeglichenem Frequenzgang verursacht definitiv keine Verfärbungen, mit einem Kopfhörerverstärker kann sich das Klangbild allenfalls in Details verbessern, aber nicht grundlegend ändern.
Und der HD 560 klingt eben meiner Meinung nach auch an einem Vollverstärker gut, ich benutze ihn schon seit 13 Jahren und möchte ihn nicht tauschen. Habe auch schon den HD 580 und HD 595 ausprobiert, war davon aber nicht überzeugt. Und der AKG K 501 spielt sowieso in einer niedrigeren Liga, noch viel niedriger der Koss Porta Pro - der läßt sich doch mit hochwertigen Hifi-Kopfhörern gar nicht vergleichen.

Gruß Muwi

[size=smaller][size=x-small][Beitrag von muwi am 11. Sep 2005, 21:03 bearbeitet] [/size][/size]
 
[size=smaller][size=x-small]besitze selber den sehr ähnlichen, nur leicht veränderten HD 560 II und war von den Nachfolgemodellen HD 580/600 nicht so überzeugt, zumindest nicht an einem Vollverstärker betrieben. Auch sie klingen zwar transparent, sind aber meines Erachtens klanglich nicht so fein abgestimmt wie der HD 560. Wenn Du vorwiegend klassische Musik hörst, könnte die - in meinen Ohren jedenfalls - schlechtere Klangfarbentreue ein Nachteil sein. Hör sie deshalb ausgiebig probe - [size=100%]mit[/size] Aufnahmen, die Du sehr gut kennst. Die HD 580/600/650 und 595 erreichen übrigens unverzerrt viel höhere Lautstärken als der HD 560; vor allem der Baß ist bei all diesen Modellen noch weitaus voluminöser. Das noch knackigere, dynamischere Klangbild gefiel mir bei Rock/Pop besser als beim HD 560 (II), bei Orchesteraufnahmen beispielsweise (vor allem Violinen) klingen sie aber eben nicht so natürlich.

Viele Grüße Muwi[/size][/size]
 
[size=smaller][size=x-small][size=x-small]http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-110-1328.html [/size]

 [Briefly, Muwi says that he would not trade the HD 560 even for an HD 580/600/650 (or an AKG 501).  For classical music, which he listens to (as do I), he finds the HD 560 superior in "Klangfarbentreue" (tonal accuracy) and "Transparenz" (transparency).  Could it be that in some ways the HD 560 sounds more like an HD 800 than do its successors?  Incidentally, both the HD 560 and the HD 800 are made at Sennheiser's German factory.][/size][/size]