[big-ban]

Hi @ll!

It's been some time since I have both of these phones. I decided to take some time comparing both because I haven't discovered a detailed review of these two cans yet.
I previously owned the DT880's only which were a replacement for my broken DT911's (identical to the DT931's) using them straight out of my Terratec Aureon Sky soundcard (headphone amplifier included).
I must admit that the DT880's blew me away the first time I heard them with this soundcard. They presented a huge wide soundstage, very clear, extended highs, a wonderful rich midrange and a very deep and tight bass. Not to mention that I agree with most of the head-fi'ers here that they are simply amazing for female vocals.
The soundstage with its very 3D-like, airy feeling of some recordings kept buzzing me and I was really satisfied with what I heard.

Then I came across the reviews of the HD650's and started investigating if they'd really be worth the price difference over the DT880's. I got my DT880's from ebay almost new for 135€ (instant-buy)... I must say the seller really got himself ripped off there

Once more I found an incredible bargain at dvdupgrades.ch, offering the HD650's for 361 CHF (~228€ - VAT excluded) NEW. I simply couldn't let that opportunity pass and got these immediately. In the end it turned out to a price of ~270€ which is still incredible if you consider that fact these are generally to be had for 350€+
Too bad dvdupgrades has increased the price right after I bought them... I was just very lucky

First impressions
---------------------
When the cans finally arrived I couldn't help but checking them out even without having them burned-in. All of the following impressions refer to the "out-of-the-box" state of the HD650's (stock cable) compared to the "well-burned-in" state of the DT880's.
After hooking them up to my soundcard I instantly noticed they sounded VERY similar to the DT880's. It's very blatant though that the HD650's are louder and can be considered more efficient than the DT880's. This difference in volume made it a little difficult to compare the two as you'd always have to re-adjust the levels.
They do however share the same sonic signature and have comparable capabilities in all frequency ranges.
I did then notice the HD650's had a tiny bit more bass which seemed to extend lower and be more present than on the DT880's. Even though if you compared them A/B you wouldn't notice too much of a difference. I did however have the feeling that with the HD650's you can "hear" the bass more whereas with the DT880's you could literally more "feel" it. It is there too, but more noticable with the HD650's.
On the second listening I found that the midrange of the HD650's had more fullness and airyness to it. I never noticed it when I was listening to my DT880's before, but in direct comparison the 880's sounded a little hollow and "boxed-in" in the midrange.
After some more listening it became apparent that the 880's had a wider soundstage with more distinct positioning than the 650's. With the 650's you'd still have that effect allowing you to distiguish easily between different instruments - it just didn't give me that much of the "wow"-effect of the DT880's on some recordings. The soundstage of the HD650's was still impressive though. Its competitor just did it a tiny bit better.
Then again I had the feeling I was able to hear more detail than with the 880's. When I checked to be sure, I was able to hear the detail on the 880's too. I just didn't notice it before. The HD650's do actually put some more emphasis to detail whereas they're in fact not so much more detailed if you pay attention.
When comparing female vocals on these phones the DT880 stood out a little bit more than the Sennheisers. They delivered a similar presentation in terms of detail, the 880's did just make the voice sound a little fuller and warmer.
Initially I also found the treble of the HD650's to be a little more harsh than on the DT880's. On some recordings I just had to turn the volume down because I am a little bit sensitive to high frequencies.

I then did some burn-in with some low frequency signals like 25, 35 and 60 Hz I burned onto a CD. I then hooked my HD650's up to my CDP and let it run overnight.

After "burn-in"
------------------
I compared the result daily and noticed only slight changes. There were some periods as others have observed too, where the 650's seemed a bit dull and sometimes lacking bass. After like 100-150 hours of burn-in I left the nightly playing of bass notes and decided to just consider them "fully burned-in"

What I notice now that I have played them for several hundreds of hours is that there were only some subtle changes compared to the "out-of-the-box" and the "burned-in" state. The bass seems to be a little (it might be just my imagination) more defined and extend a little deeper whereas the harshness in the highs has mostly disappeared. The midrage still did open up a little bit making the 880's sound even more like "boxed-in" in comparison.
I now feel female vocals sound equally good on both headphones - for whatever reason. Both have that natural, intimate "into-the-ear"-feeling that makes female vocals so soothing and pleasant to listen to (you sometimes find yourself believing, little Norah is just whispering into your ear

)
Comparing the bass responses I definately notice a difference in the very low bass reproduction. The HD650's seem to do frequencies as low as 20-30 Hz more precisely, more defined. Otherwise the bass response is still pretty much comparable with maybe a slight overall plus towards the HD650's.
All in all I have the feeling that the burn-in procedure resulted in some small improvements which I can hardly pin-point.


As some reference recordings I recommend the following.

Albums:
- A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step
- Liquid Tension Experiment 1&2
- Archive - Londinium (what a bass *waves over to Jazz*

)
- Dream Theater - Scenes From A Memory
- Evanescence - Fallen
- Miles Davis - Aura
- Norah Jones - Feels Like Home
- Christina Aguilera - Stripped (don't hit me, it's just a good recording

)

Various songs:
- Shpongle - Dorset Perception and Divine Moments Of Truth (amazing recordings!)
- Nelly Furtado - Everyday
- Boney James - Seduction
- Kenny G - Malibu Dreams
- Paul Taylor - "On The Move" (nice bass punch

) and "Pleasure Seeker"
- Linkin Park - "Breaking The Habit" and "Lying From You"
- Metallica - It's Electric
- Ill Nino - God Save Us
- Sevendust - Crucified
- Deftones - Around The Fur (drum intro)
- Helge Schneider - Making Of "Fitze, Fitze, Fatze" (

almost sounds like a binaural recording. Ah yeah, and it's crazy, too

)


Conclusion
-------------
My conclusion might not be as most of you would expect. Some consider the HD650's to be highly superior to the DT880's. In fact they do everything a "little" bit better than the 880's do, except for the width of soundstage. The 650's seem a little bit darker overall, where the 880's have a little more presence in the highs.
Now considering the street prices of the two I think that the 650's are not worth almost twice the price of the 880's which they actually cost. The 650's can normally be had for 350€, the 880's for about 200€.
The 880's are still a fantastic headphone and I'd recommend those to everyone who doesn't consider himself to be an "extreme" audiophile (of course to those who have at least a comparable amplification to my soundcard

). They're in fact not very far from the HD650's. The DT880's are a real bargain.
However I cannot say anything about the 650's upgrading capabilities. Most of the aftermarket cables are ridiculously expensive and I wouldn't even bother to pay any of those prices for a simple cable. As some say, the Zu Cable makes a significant improvement over the stock one. Likewise I can't tell the differences to what you might call "real high-end equipment". My reference is my Terratec Aureon Sky soundcard which, to my ears, just produces an incredibly neutral, balanced, clear, and spacial high-end sound. This sound card is a really good one for its price and I believe it is capable of driving both headphones pretty well. When driving both headphones straight out of my CDP headphone jack they just sound plain dull and muffled. No real fun to listen to them. It feels like a big relief if you hook them back up to the Terratec

So in this review I am just referencing to stock cables for both headphones and as far as I am to judge, I like the HD650's more. Maybe I'll sell my DT880's but I most definately know that you don't HAVE to upgrade if you own the DT880's and get tempted to buy the HD650's.

So the 650's do win clearly over the 880's, they do NOT outclass them.

Comments, thoughts and questions on this review are highly appreciated

big

edit: grammatical corrections

 

[wordsworth]

Thanks for a great review big-ban, definetly gives me somehting to think about.

wordsworth

 

[ReDVsion]

Quote:

Originally posted by big-ban I most definately know that you don't HAVE to upgrade if you own the DT880's and get tempted to buy the HD650's.

Great... because I don't have the money to purchase them, anyway

.

 

[fiddler]

Great review, thanks for that.

 

[Geek]

I thought about the same as what you did. I think the HD650s are sonically almost the same as DT880s in terms of how the lows, mids, and highs are arranged. In fact, headroom did a frequency sweep of both phones and found that they were identical sonically (the bumps and dips were in the exact same places!) except the HD650s had highs that were about 5-6dB lower than the DT880s, if i remember correctly.

I thought that aside from this, the HD650 had two significant advantages. First of all, bass articulation and impact was flat out superior to the DT880s in the very bottom end. Secondly, the highs were extremely well done tonally whereas the beyers sounded tonally dry and lacking, although very neutral and clear on both phones. Third, there's just something beautiful about the HD650's midrange, it's so good that it outshines the sennheiser orpheus in A/B testing using stereophile's test CD 2. The DT880 is a great phone, I'd recommend it hands down to anyone, but if you have $200 more the HD650 is well worth the price.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally posted by big-ban - Christina Aguilera - Stripped (don't hit me, it's just a good recording )

Why would you apologize? Seeing beyond her image or marketting etc., she's simply an amazing singer.

 

[hottyson]

Quote:

Originally posted by big-ban So the 650's do win clearly over the 880's, they do NOT outclass them. Comments, thoughts and questions on this review are highly appreciated

Thanks big-ban,

That was a very nice post to read. I am sure that there are some out there who don't use amplifiers and are trying to decide between the two phones that you compared. This should give them a nice starting place to help make their decision.

 

[lini]

big-ban: Nice review, very entertaining to read... I'd never have exspected Helge's "Fitze, Fitze, Fatze" to be included in someone's list of reference recordings, though - love the song, nevertheless...

But then again, as a fairly competent jazz musician, him keeping an eye on sound quality may not be that surprising at all...

hottyson: Mind you that the Aureon 5.1 Sky & 7.1 Space (as well as the newer 7.1 Universe (= 7.1 Space plus DMX 6fire style front bay, but now with real phono section in hardware) & 7.1 FireWire) are a bit different than quite a few other modern soundcards - all carry a real headphone amp section (one TL072 opamp driving a B772/D882 transistor pair per channel) providing ~ 2x 60 mW. A PortaCorda(II) already does noticably better, but for a more or less free feature, Terratec's headphone amp sections do the job fairly well...

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini

 

[pbirkett]

Nice review, and I agree with many parts of it, but to my ears the DT880 was noticably cleaner and leaner sounding than the HD650, but unfortunately the DT880 does not have the same bass impact as the HD650. If you dont need bass impact badly, then I dont think the HD650 is worth a high premium over the DT880.

 

[rsaavedra]

Quote:

Originally posted by pbirkett but to my ears the DT880 was noticably cleaner and leaner sounding than the HD650

Using some logical negation, is it fair to say that you mean to your ears the HD650's is noticeably "dirtier" and "fatter" sounding than the DT880????

 

[JaZZ]

Very nice review, big-ban!

I have no idea how to rate your Terratec's headphone amp, but it sounds like it's quite useful. My own experience with both headphones is somewhat similar, and I also find the HD 650 to be sonically related to the DT 880. But beside all relatedness I also notice relatively big differences. The soundstage is clearly more pronounced and extended with the HD 650 to my ears and in my setup, and the biggest difference is that it seems to have better conditions to «breath», expressed in a fuller, warmer and more dynamic sound with a better sonic balance and more mids. I believe to detect some sonic effects resulting from the DT 880's only semi-open design.

I wouldn't call its treble grainy at all, it's similarly smooth as the HD 650's, but certainly the HD 650's treble is even smoother and more refined, although less in the fore. I think the DT 880's bass goes even deeper and is flatter than the Senn's, whereas it's even cleaner and more transparent with the latter.

As to the price difference: to my ears it's absolutely justified. And I even find the price of a Zu Mobius justified from the purely sonic point of view. You may consider an Oehlbach cable from Jan Meier... One is on its way to my home BTW (just out of curiosity and maybe for my still appreciated HD 600).

I'm probably too much focussed on the HD 650 to be able to fully appreciate the DT 880's undisputed merits as much as it deserves. It's not long ago I was rather enthusiastic about its sound...

I'm sure one continuous hour of listening to it would cure this issue. But how can I renounce the HD 650 for one full hour...

 

[pbirkett]

Quote:

Originally posted by rsaavedr Using some logical negation, is it fair to say that you mean to your ears the HD650's is noticeably "dirtier" and "fatter" sounding than the DT880????

Basically, yes.

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally posted by pbirkett Basically, yes.

Hey, that's not my experience! I've still not heard a cleaner bass than the HD 650's. The DT 880's comes close though...

 

[pbirkett]

Not so much the bass, the bass on the 650 is better, but the rest of the sound on the DT880 sounds cleaner and clearer to me.

 

[Cyberius]

I A/Bed these phones at a meet this past weekend and I concur with big-ban's findings, though I only spent 1/2 hour or so doing comparisons.

I own the DT880 so I'm very familiar with their sound, but I only spent about 1/2 hour with the HD650s.

To me the HD650 seemed to have a little more space between the notes, a more present bass, and highs that were a little quieter than the DT880. Timing wise they reminded me more of my Grados than Beyers. In other words, the HD650 is Faster and Flatter than the DT880.

Female vocals and violins were a little sweeter on the DT880s, I think the DT880 wins out for female vocals, but the HD-650s are almost just as good, and the HD650s do everything else a little better than the DT880s.

With the HD650, it was like I was no longer hearing headphones, but instead listening directly to the music. Yes, we've all heard people say that a gazillion times before, but this was the first time I had that sort of subject impression about a set of cans. The DT-880s give me this effect quite often on certain passages, but not like the HD650s on which the effect was continuous throughout the songs. I guess what I'm getting at is analogous to what big-ban said about the "boxed-in" sound on the DT880s vs. HD650s

It was like going from V.S.O.P to X.O cognac. X.O. also costs 3x as much for something that is marginally better, so I stick to VSOP. On the other hand, headphones you only have to buy once, it's not like you empty the bottle and then gotta buy another one.

DT880 = The Poor Mans HD650, especially if you can find a good price used.

Is it worth the price difference? Probably not, but I'd still like some HD650s anyway

Would I sell my DT880s if I had HD650s?
I'd have to do more extensive A/B comparisons before I decided if I would give up the DT880s vocal renditions.

Would I sell off my other phones to get them?
Yep.