[riddley]

I just had a chance for the first time today to listen to the Sennheiser HD580 and the AKG K501 side-by-side in a very good environment... a quiet listening room with my favourite CDs, an Arcam CDP, an X-CAN V3 amp and a nice cup of tea.

Now, the HD580s sounded great... but what suprised me was that I found that the cheaper AKG K501s sounded even better. The K501s did lack lower bass, as I expected, but they seemed to have better definition overall and a much sweeter midrange. To my ears, the HD580s had a lifeless midrange, and a hump in the mid-bass that gave them a "booming" sound. I also tried the HD600s and found pretty much the same problem.

So my question for all the Sennheiser fans is: are those the sonic qualities of the Senn that would be corrected by using the replacement cable? I could stretch to getting the Meier/Oehlbach cable for the HD580/HD600s if I bought them... any opinions on whether it would correct those problems (problems, at least, as perceived by me)?

Of course, the other possibility is that I just like the AKG sound better than the Senn sound... perhaps my ears have been conditioned by listening to Etys. That's not a problem for me, I don't need to uncondition them

 

[acs236]

I own the AKG 501s and the Sennheiser 580s -- and my thoughts pretty much mirror yours. I known both and have no plans to sell either. Further, I recently purchased a cable upgrade from the 580s -- the Clou Red (from others I hear that the Cardas and Equinox replacements are "better"). I think the Clou Red improves the 580s, but I don't think the midrange compares with the AKG 501s. The only headphone that I have heard extensively that compares to the 501s, in terms of midrange, are the ETY 4S's.

Even with the cable replacement, the 580s midrange still sounds just a touch muffled, or less clear, than the 501s. That being said, there is really something I like about the 580s. They do have a midbass hump, but I actually like that, because it lets me listen at low volumes and still hear some bass. That being said, I'm not a bass head at all, and sometimes I feel that the 580s have too much bass.

One thing that makes me wonder is the 501's cable. If anything, it seems to be thinner than the 580's cable. It's hard to believe that changing a cable can really make that much of a difference. I've already said that I found it make some (fairly substantial) difference, but I think their are qualities of the 580s that no cable can change -- love them or hate them.