[Joe Bloggs]

Heavy metal, for example, maybe?

 

[DesBen]

Electronica maybe? Techno, trance, etc., maybe?

One could reword the question: for what music style is a $69 headphone better than a $200 pair? See what I'm getting at..?

Also, bear in mind the difference in style. The V6 give a more forward and robust sound that's likely to please the younger crowd more than the 580 would.

One area in which the V6 should be more suitable than the 580 is sound monitoring. The V6 resolve a lot of detail and they are excellent for analyzing sound. I believe the 580 would present the details in a more discrete and musical way.

(I have limited experience with the Sennheiser line.. I had a good listen to the 495 and I only had a few minutes with the 600, through a cheap receiver. Still, I think I know what "style" of sound they are aiming for.)

 

[Russ Arcuri]

I think the choice between the V6 and HD580 is more a question of listening environment than genre of music. If there's significant ambient noise, the V6 are a better choice because they're going to block out that ambient noise pretty well.

Honestly, I can't think of any particular kind of music I'd rather listen to on the V6s than the Senns if I'm in a relatively quiet environment.

Russ "The Peripatetic Audiophile"

 

[tktran]

Well I've never heard the V6/7506

You can imply that you don't need good gear to listen to techno/trance (or any other genre). But to me that seems that you don't listen to enough of it to be able make an informed decision.

IMHO the HD600s are fantastic for ALL music. But for electronica they aren't particularly a good choice because everyone in your close proximity can hear what you're listening to. And it won't make sense to them.

 

[kwkarth]

There are four basic areas in which the V6's trounce the HD-600s.

1. Attenuation of ambient noise (neither good nor bad, just fact)

2. Portability. The V6's fold up nicely.

3. The 600's have a notch/hole in their frequency response around 6-8kHz, the V6's don't.

4. The V6's are easily driven by a portable device, the 600's are not.

Now, one may argue for points other than the above, but they're well, arguable,

I while the four criteria I enumerated are unassailable, incontrovertible.

That said, there are many, many areas in which the 600's are better than the V6's. The two are simply suited for different purposes.

Cheers!

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Quote:

Originally posted by Russ Arcuri ...the V6 are...going to block out that ambient noise pretty well.

Well, I don't know about "pretty well", but "better than the 580's", definitely.

 

[DesBen]

[tktran]: "You can imply that you don't need good gear to listen to techno/trance (or any other genre). But to me that seems that you don't listen to enough of it to be able make an informed decision."

I think you got me wrong. I didn't want to imply trance was bad or that you didn't need good equipment. Au contraire! Trance puts great strain on the equipment it is played on, because it uses both frequency extremes. And nothing annoys me more than trance played on a cheap car stereo where all you hear is the cymbals and the kick-drum. The essence of trance resides in the midrange, but you also need the bass to make it complete and sound "right".

I thought the V6 would be better suited for trance than the HD600 because of their punchy viceral bass. That's a good thing.

BTW, 75% of my music listening is trance. I love everything Global Underground and all Tranceport/Transport. Oakenfold, Digweed and Warren are my GODs, but I also enjoy Max Graham, Tiesto, Darren Emerson, Johan Gielen and many others very much.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

The 600's have a notch/hole in their frequence response around 6-8kHz, the V6's don't.

kwkarth, I saw this in two different threads now

I've done tone sweeps with the HD600, and I cannot duplicate this "hole" at those frequencies?

 

[kwkarth]

I can hear it and you should look at the graphs on Headroom. They confirm what I hear and said.

It could be a notch caused by comb filtering effect, which means that it may not be present in all ear/headphone situations, but I hear it nontheless.

 

[Neruda]

Quote:

Originally posted by DustyChalk Well, I don't know about "pretty well", but "better than the 580's", definitely.

You're kidding, right?

 

[Voyager]

Neruda, I think he meant that how well the V6s block out sound is relative to what you are used to; he also meant that the HD580s are less apt to block out noise than the V6.

 

[Neruda]

just seemed like a rather pointless argument to make...

 

[ai0tron]

My ears do not permit me to hear this notch, frequency anomoly, in the HD600's sound.

 

[Tim D]

A lot of headphones will have a notch around that area since that is probably an area of resonance in the ear canal. I think Etymotic once said something about this once upon a time.

In any case, I do not believe that the AKG1000 would register as completely flat under Headroom's measurement methods. They actually already probably performed tests on it, but have yet published them. Only Pre-production graphs were published which were very whacked out. However I am sure that AKG themselves according to THEIR measurement standards have produced very flat graphs with the AKG's.

Than again there is always the issue of wheter this dip is TOO much a valley, or if it is not dipped enough to which it may perhaps come off as bright?

I think a lot of people have misconceptions that brightness is in the frequency range where a lot of old guys have hearing loss as in the 15khz+ range. Brightness probably occurs much much lower...

You can compare the SOUND of the phones and say the HD600 is indeed darker perhaps because of some recesses in some higher frequencies. But I don't know if you can compare published graphs to graphs that aren't published, or graphs done by a different party. I do think Headroom should publish ALL their graphs especially for the phones they use in normalization data. And get a V6 in there as well.

That said, if I bought a product, I would value the graphs of those that USE the graphs for quality control rather than a third party. Unless you assume the company to be fraudulant in their claims or boasts. So once Headroom DOES get the Etymotic graphs working...if they come out wacky it isn't because of the phones. Also I still find...the moment you need to adapt the measurement criteria to do more accurate testing...the less the graph information is relevant to other graphs. Which is why those AKG graphs might not be as relevant to Headroom's graph whatsoever because of a lot of differing testing procedures and equipment.

Course I do agree that the headroom graphs do show the HD600 as laid-back...and to my subjective appraisal somewhat dark. And I also heard what I perceived as a slight midbass bump as headroom graphs show. And my subjective appraisal came long before any headroom graphs. But I still think most people would well enjoy the Senns more than V6. It is very hard to compare however since there is a big difference in what they are used for as well as price.

I do find it a tease that Headroom had preproduction graphs of their highest tier headphones, but no longer. And they actually USE the data in the normalization process anyhow, so without publishing those graphs, the smoothed normalize graphs mean very little to me. AKG1000, some STAX, Sony 3K, and even the Big O I believe were once visible.

 

[dngl]

Both are good cans. I like the V6s more for non-classical. Of course, the modded cd1700s beat both... but... it's all about flavor.