[oak3x]

I had a similar problem with my HD600's... Came to findout it was simply a buildup of earwax. Yup...earwax. One cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol and those canals were all cleaned out. My HD600's came back to life.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mercbuggy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I would predict that perhaps you would find the HD650 neutrality more appealing than a phone a little more biased in the HF region, Grados for instance?

I do have the Grado SR-60's with coin-hole modded pads, and love their sound, especially from my iPod or laptop. The treble can become a bit too much for me after long listening sessions though, but for not too long sessions they are great.

Grado HP2 were great for me, and one of the best sounding headphones I've ever tried, driven by the right amp (Berning Microzotl in my case.)

 

[boomana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsaavedra /img/forum/go_quote.gif Now that I think about it, it would be interesting to check whether people with rising curves in their tonal audiometries tests (like me) tend to prefer Sennheisers and avoid brighter headphones, while people who prefer Grado's and some of the bright Beyers might have audiometry test curves that have downward curves, so that the highs don't bother them that much.

Interesting. I've never been tested, but based on my experience with different headphones and life in general, I am very sensitive to highs and have difficulty with bright headphones (had to rip the DT880s off my head after one note...ouch, couldn't stand the Zu cable with the 650s as it made the highs harsh and shrill, and had trouble with the Proline 2500's treble, trouble with some Grados, and even some difficulty with my beloved K1000s). I love the HD650s, had the 580s, and recently bought the 600s just for comparison. I also find the 650s natural sounding. I enjoy all the headphones I still own for different reasons, but other than my R10s and portables, the Senns get the most use.

EDIT: btw, with my current source and amp, I have no idea what anyone is talking about regarding "smearing" or blending of the sound. I've definitely heard the notorious veil, but know from experience that it is the result of the system, not the headphone.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boomana /img/forum/go_quote.gif couldn't stand the Zu cable with the 650s as it made the highs harsh and shrill

You are probably more sensitive to the high freqs Vicky. (Though you didn't really say "bright", probably by "harsh and shrill" you might mean some other quality in the sound that is not exactly just bright?)

For me, the 650's + Zu are great, in fact my reference so far, driven by the Dynahi at least.

Next to it (and just from memory) the HP2's driven by the Microzotl were so great, as well as the HD600 driven also by the Microzotl. I'd like to try some day the 600's and the HP2's with my Dynahi to compare. The K701 from my Dynahi sounded a bit thin/light to my ears. Brief exposure that one though.

I want to try my own-made aftermarket cable, using Belden's 20awg silver-plated stranded copper wire (with teflon jacket) for my 650's, to see if I like the sound as much as with the Zu. That's the same wire I used for the signal path inside my Dynahi.
(Writes a reminder to order a good plug first.)

 

[boomana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsaavedra /img/forum/go_quote.gif You are probably more sensitive to the high freqs Vicky. (Though you didn't really say "bright", probably by "harsh and shrill" you might mean some other quality in the sound that is not exactly just bright?) For me, the 650's + Zu are great, in fact my reference so far, driven by the Dynahi at least. Next to it (and just from memory) the HP2's driven by the Microzotl were so great, as well as the HD600 driven also by the Microzotl. I'd like to try some day the 600's and the HP2's with my Dynahi to compare. The K701 from my Dynahi sounded a bit thin/light to my ears. Brief exposure that one though.

I remember your Dynahi from my first meet! BTW, every time I listen to De Profundis, I think of you. It was so nice meeting another Part fan.

Yes, I do mean something other than "bright" with the Zu, but not too different. My difficulty with the Zu is solely in the treble and high mids, and I believe is connected with a sensitivity to same. Some notes take on a harsh or almost shrill quality, imo, that is not natural sounding at all. I'm using an RnB G52 cable and find it just to my taste. I like the Equinox as well.

I thought the same re stock K701s, and I'm using a SP tube amp. I've been living with agile_one's ALO recabled 701s for a couple weeks now, and though I still prefer the Senns, the recable has corrected the problems I had with the 701s (a bit thin). They are brighter than the 650s, but in no way painful. Really really nice headphones.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by boomana /img/forum/go_quote.gif It was so nice meeting another Part fan.

Same here Vicky, I remember as well! Believe it or not I still haven't purchased Alina, it's on my purchase list, but I realize, haven't made cd purchases lately. Last Part CD I got was De Profundis from that same meet day! Gee, off to update my Amazon shopping cart...

 

[sghound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gurra1980 /img/forum/go_quote.gif The texture, as I stated before, the little raspiness the little tsss and ksss in the end of the vords, sounds that all voices has more or less. The 650 doesn't give a proper illusion to me.

precisely. it also gives the sense of extra airiness over the 650.

 

[Davesrose]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rsaavedra /img/forum/go_quote.gif Now that I think about it, it would be interesting to check whether people with rising curves in their tonal audiometries tests (like me) tend to prefer Sennheisers and avoid brighter headphones, .......

I haven't had my ears tested, but testing my tonal range via those HF tones on the net, I must have good hearing for someone my age. Interestingly, Grados are the next headphones that I like after the Senns.....especially the SR325i. They are the opposite end of the tonal spectrum, and are more colored for most of my music. I've never found their sound to be fatiguing....but their shear weight on my ears sure are!!

I knew the HD650s were chiming well with my system when I forgot I had headphones on and it sounded like Heifetz was actually in the room.

 

[HypnoLobster]

Proof of a veil.






Kidding.

 

[esuko]

Hello Roam

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roam /img/forum/go_quote.gif Frequency response and distortion is only part of the story as they cover only the frequency domain. Music as we all know takes place in both frequency and time, we also have to examine the behavior of the headphone in the time domain. For that, we have the basic impulse response test which measures the speed and settling time of the drivers, along with the waterfall graph which is a great tool for spotting resonance and stored energy issues. These tests are more or less standard for speakers, but as far as I know, no one outside of a headphone company's labs has carried them out on headphones. As for why waterfall plots are important, let's look at closed headphones since they present the worst case scenario in terms of energy storage and resonance. Several of the "studio style" closed headphones measure reasonably flat, there's no big peaks or dips which would indicate issues with colouration, yet they still sound quite coloured, especially in the midrange. The FR & distortion chart won't tell you much, unless you got lucky and hit one of the resonant frequencies with the the single tones or one of their harmonics. If on the other hand a waterfall plot was made, the problems would become quite clear. The resonances & stored energy would be seen as ridges which stand above the noisefloor, and do not decay cleanly. That's the cause of the colourations. Open headphones still suffer from these issues, only to a lesser extent. Every physical object resonates, the diaphragm itself, the mountings for the drivers, the housing, screens, everything. The fun part of design is reducing the resonances & energy storage to the minimum possible, along with deciding where the remaining resonances shall fall to minimize their detrimental effects on the music.

Thank you for your contribution to the debate.

Timedomain like you said is often measured in speaker world. Luckily like you said HD650 is in quite good position because of open radiation. Decay and groupdelay is as fast as possible with certain element in open configuration.

Siegfried Linkwitz has lot of information on correlation between measurement and heard sound. Siegfried Linkwitz's contribution to diy speaker building world is enormous and on general knowledge of the technical side of hifi. Even he wonders in one of his speaker element measurement would energy storage be the culprit to lack of transparency.

Then there is also effect of size and weight of the element. More radiation surface lowers the frequency that element works as a ideal air pump. Weight of the element is debated to have effect on the heard weight and realism of sound.

For me distortion and frequency graphs are quite important and you can get a good look at headphones tone from them.

I´m here to learn and would like to hear more information of technical effects on sound.

 

[b0dhi]

The graphs TVR has posted are interesting, but aren't reliable because the source of the intermodulation distortion is unknown. A lot of it probably comes from the mic.

Although the HD650 measures well for harmonic distortion, it isn't known how well it measures for IMD, which is the likely cause of the "smearing".

I don't have a preamp to be able to use my mic with my computer, but if someone can do this experiment it might help shed some light: -

A. Using a 3-way speaker with a known cross-over point, we could gauge the IMD created mostly by the mic. Use two sine waves: a low one that will be rendered by the subwoofer and a higher one, between about 1.5-3kHz (depending on the cross-over point), that will be rendered by the midrange speaker. The amplitude of the lower frequency wave should be 12dB louder than the higher frequency wave. Play the sound through the multi-way speaker and record it using a microphone. Because the IMD between the subwoofer and the midrange speaker is vanishingly low, this step essentially measures the IMD distortion originating in the mic (and the rest of the chain, including DAC, amp, etc).

B. Then, using the same waveforms used in (A), perform the same measurement through the headphones instead of a multi-way speaker, with the same microphone. Make sure to adjust the volume on the headphones so that the microphone measures the signal amplitudes at the same level as was measured in (A) (this can be done with a realtime FFT measurement while adjusting the volume to get the right output level). The amplitude measured at the mic should be matched to within 1dB.

C. Compare results from (A) and (B) in the frequency domain. Most of the intermodulation distortions present in (B) but not in (A) will be from the headphone driver alone. Note that intermodulation distortion doesn't look like harmonic distortion. IMD will occur close to the frequencies of the two input waveforms.

While this test isn't perfect, it will give a fairly good idea of how much IMD comes from the headphone driver alone.

 

[tourmaline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by oak3x /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had a similar problem with my HD600's... Came to findout it was simply a buildup of earwax. Yup...earwax. One cotton swab and some rubbing alcohol and those canals were all cleaned out. My HD600's came back to life.

I would figure it would sound like a veil, but not as smeared sound.

 

[Gurra1980]

Quote:

Originally Posted by heretical /img/forum/go_quote.gif Really? And I thought that sometimes the HD650 lacked the last bit of smoothness with female vocals. You like sibilants?

I hate it, I couldn't stand my Dt990, a couple of minutes and my ears was ringing, I can't stand grados either, nothing but scratchy hard sound. The thing is that I don't want my headphones to take away anything in the recording, which the HD650 does IMO.

My D2000 with x-can v3 and Reflektor 6H23N-EB tubes, is heaven!

 

[tourmaline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gurra1980 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I hate it, I couldn't stand my Dt990, a couple of minutes and my ears was ringing, I can't stand grados either, nothing but scratchy hard sound. The thing is that I don't want my headphones to take away anything in the recording, which the HD650 does IMO. My D2000 with x-can v3 and Reflektor 6H23N-EB tubes, is heaven!

I think that is the smearing i am hearing too, the very last bit of edge detail is missing?! But then again, the graphs show it behaves very well througout the frequencies, so it won't take much away. It could well be that your IC's block more then the sennheiser does!

had the same problem with grado sr1's; the highs killed me. The drive is better then the hd650. But with good amping, the hd650 comes very close.

it seems that alot of people who cannot stand the highs on grado's all love sennheisers.

But, if you can stand the highs, the sr1 is a good headphone the gs1 is even improving on that. it suppose to have better highs, not as sibilant and better, deeper controlled bottom. So, yes, sennheiser needs a new dynamic champ.

To bad the sr1 is sooo expensive over here, at least 800 euro's vs the 400 euro's for the hd650. And i think they are pretty much in the same ballpark.

You bet good NOS tubes make a hell of a difference. A reviewer measured new tubes and NOS tubes and without an exceptiuon, the NOS tubes measured alot better then any newly produced tube! Some rarer tubes can be expensive though, as i found out.

 

[tourmaline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by esuko /img/forum/go_quote.gif Siegfried Linkwitz has lot of information on correlation between measurement and heard sound. Siegfried Linkwitz's contribution to diy speaker building world is enormous and on general knowledge of the technical side of hifi. Even he wonders in one of his speaker element measurement would energy storage be the culprit to lack of transparency. I´m here to learn and would like to hear more information of technical effects on sound.

Energy storage in the drivers or the panels around the drivers?! I heard some time ago a guy made a woofer out of concrete and it suppose to sound very good. It suppose to have near none resonance. Also, for dynamic drivers, you could make the drivers thinner. I think compared to electrostatic phones, the drivers are quite thick.

Learning and understanding makes you more knowledgable and it can help you to find the best setup or to easier pick out the better components.