[sacd lover]

Nope, no doubt fully broken in ( atleast 200 hours). I KEPT PLAYING THEM AND PLAYING THEM WAITING FOR THE SENN MAGIC. It never showed up. The 650's have sounded right from the very beginning. I have probably 80 hours or so on the 650's and I dont think they have changed that much since the 50 hour mark, which is where I stopped keeping track. I like the 600/ equinox very much but I like the 650 better, even with the stock cable. I didnt have a gilmore amp then with the 580, I had an old MAXED OUT HOME AND AUDIO ALCHEMY HPA V1.0; the MOH is supposedly one of the better headphone amp combos around though. The treble on the 650 is much cleaner and linear sounding than the 580 or 600. It doesnt stand out and appear to be riding on top of the music( best description I can think of on the fly) like the 580/600 can to me. The equinox mostly solved that treble problem when I listened to a the combo last month, but its still there in comparison to the 650. There is no doubt the 650 has more bass extension and little or no upper bass ringing/ emphasis. The 650 is my favorite headphone now; period.

 

[tom hankins]

fewtch, I think sacd lover's comparison of the HD650's to the 580's to about the same ones I find compared to broken in HD600's. As much as I enjoyed the HD600's, the HD650's are IMO a MUCH better headphone, and I beleive I have had both in systems that allow them to be as good as, or close to as good as they can get.

 

[lextek]

I guess I'm the minority. My 650s after a full week of "burn-in" sounded like I had my 600s over a wool, winter cap. No sparkle at all.

 

[tom hankins]

Thats a bummer. Did you send them back and keep the HD600?

 

[JaZZ]

The HD 650 isn't warm at all -- to my ears --, it's neither cold nor warm. The HD 600's sound has clearly more warmth. Compared to it the HD 650 can even sound coolish, because of the high transparency and clarity. This is where I don't agree with Geek, but we seem to rather have a different understanding of «warmth» than a different perception. If warmth is seen as synonym for smoothness, then the HD 650 is indeed warm, but I don't perceive smoothness (coupled with transparency in this case) as warmth at all, but rather the opposite. Whereas the HD 600's denser, rougher sound appears as warm to me.

Yes, the HD 650's bass goes deeper, and it's much cleaner, has more punch and lacks the HD-600's slight upper-bass emphasis (which BTW isn't really a problem to me). And yes, the midrange is richer, more detailed and much clearer. And the treble is the most delicate and most beautiful I've ever heard from a headphone.

I still think the HD 600 is the more «musical» headphone in the sense of a more sonorous, colorful (actually coloring) character. While the HD 650 appears as almost analytical in comparison. But it isn't really, because it doesn't expose its opulence of detail, but puts it into the service of an unveiled view of the musical flow in its whole beauty. Flow is the keyword with this headphone.

 

[JaZZ]

lextek...

...how did you break it in? Did you use loud, bass-heavy music, or did you just feed it with normal listening levels?

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by tom hankins fewtch, I think sacd lover's comparison of the HD650's to the 580's to about the same ones I find compared to broken in HD600's. As much as I enjoyed the HD600's, the HD650's are IMO a MUCH better headphone...

I made no claims as to which was a better or worse headphone -- rather, I was disagreeing with his sonic characterization of the HD580 and saying it sounds to me like an unbroken in HD-580. Perhaps he's adjusted to the sound of the HD650 and "de-adjusted" from the HD580... happens to me all the time when switching headphones.

In particular, what he said about better bass extension is absurd. I've tested both the HD-580 and HD-600 with sine waves and they go lower than most headphones out there... I can still hear sound coming out of them below 20 Hz. Their bass extends well below the level of human hearing, so there's nothing to improve on there with the HD-650. As far as hearing harshness in the treble or whatever... sounds exactly like what I heard from my HD580s for about the first 4 hours (went away fast, thank goodness). A sort of plasticky, harsh/congested sound that reminded me of the HD-280 Pro. It's possible my ears just got used to it, but I tend to doubt it.

I'm sure there's room for improvement, and am also sure the HD-650 is the better/more neutral headphone (at twice the price of the HD600, of course). That doesn't change my disagreement with his characterization of the sound of the 580/600.

 

[lextek]

Yup. Happy with the 600/Cardas.

 

[Anders]

I think HD650 is playing some games with us, at least it did with me during burn-in. Sounds like a $50 headphone was my first impression out of the box, but luckily I had heard a somewhat burned-in one in the shop. Later I thought that the main burn in was made after 75 hours, now I would rather say 100 - 150 hours. During this process it seems to change sound many times.
After 150 hours I got my Zu Mobius and was happy of the sound and that it was close to the neutral balance of the burned-in stock cable but with improved transparency and bass. After some burn in, this cable began to sound way too warm and didn't retain balance until about 100 hours. On one of the tracks that sounded too warm, I later understood that the sound of the violins was intermixed with concert hall ambience, which in a later phase were seperated. It is hard to say if the headphone burned in further after 150 hours becuase I switched cable, but I am inclined to believe it.
I think that one reason for these sometimes subjectively drastic changes during burn-in is the high resolution of the headphone, putting the microscope on anything and small changes in for example tonal balance becoming very noticable. After 250 hours I am very satisfied with this headphone I agree with all of JaZZ's points a few posts before in this thread, that it has a neutral tonal balance, is very clean and resolved without overemphasizing detail, you don't hear DETAIL but all the details when there are any to be exposed.
With the Zu, bass is magnificant with high volume and very tight. On one of the tracks on the newly remastered On the Beach (Neil Young), it sounded during the burn-in phase like I had a subwoofer in the room at the opposite wall. This seems to have been some phase-shift that later disapperad with the drum moving inside the soundstage. The bass is very loud and tight and filling the room on the track On the Beach. Yes, I wrote fill the room because this is the illusion. Here crossfeed is needed to get the bass really tight, without it has a little looser character like space sound. I wondered if this level of bass was overmephasized but think not. The bass is not something that is in the character of the headphone/cable combo and always present. Rather you get what you feed into the headphone, from nothing to very loud depending on the recording. I would rather say that the bass is reproduced to its full volume and extension, which is unusual for headphones (as well as most speaker systems). There is no tendency of compartmentalisation of bass and midrange which are well integrated with a seemless transition. The separation is also very good so a high volume of bass does not interfere with perception of midrange and highs.

It can take some time to be used to this bass quality as well as the low distortion and cleanness in midrange. I regard the midrange and treble to be of very high quality but have not made a full evalutaion yet. One reason is that the Mobius is stated to need 250 hours for full burn-in and improvements in transparency and smoothness can be expected. The other reason is that I feel a need to visit some live concerts with acoustical instruments to calibrate my own references.

 

[lextek]

Just curious why doesn't the owners manual mention "burn-in"? What does big "S" have to say about this? Real or percieved?

 

[sacd lover]

ITS ABSURD I SAID THE 650 HAS BETTER BASS EXTENSION. Its absurd you make claims about something you have never heard.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by sacd lover ITS ABSURD I SAID THE 650 HAS BETTER BASS EXTENSION. Its absurd you make claims about something you have never heard.

Maybe you didn't read what I said. Once you have complete bass extension (all the way down to 20 Hz and below human hearing like with the 580/600), there is no way to get better bass extension. It's impossible! That's why I said your claim is absurd. You cannot get better bass extension than "extended all the way to the bottom." What, are you saying the HD-650s go down to "-15 Hz" or something like that?

 

[Tim D]

Just because you can hear sub-bass tones on a phone doesn't mean it is not attenuated compared to say a 1khz tone. HD580/600 bass extension is quite good. Infinitely better than say some typical PC speakers, quite better than decent bookshelf speakers, and most likely better than a great deal of headphones.

But there are other phones that reach lower, and at less roll-off. The only graph that supports that they extend to sub-bass without rolling off is...ta-da the Headroom "normalized" graph which averaged the results of bass-response of many other headphones. Which when a headphone with more extended bass-response is matched to that graph the bass level actually increases as frequency lowers. I am sure the HD650 would do that as well.

I am certain that three of the headphones I use for example extend lower, the DT880, ER4P/S, and AKG240S (AKG with some reservation however since it may carry an even more hefty midbass hump than the Senns do).

In absolute terms it doesn't make sense to say they lack bass extension, but the context is obviously that of comparison against its better.

It is wheter you want to term frequency extension the Sony way, in which you just slap down a number because the transducer "responded" at a given frequency even though we know their earbuds do very little audibly at say 5 hz. Therefore we have at least two qualifiers for bass extension...frequency *and* db.

 

[fewtch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim D But there are other phones that reach lower, and at less roll-off. The only graph that supports that they extend to sub-bass without rolling off is...ta-da the Headroom "normalized" graph which averaged the results of bass-response of many other headphones.

(non-normalized HD600 graph)

OK, so the HD600 rolls off about 2dB below 25 Hz. I suppose certain pipe organs or synthesizers could sound a tiny bit quieter than they should, provided you could hear them at all that low.

Perhaps the thing here is the term "bass extension." I think of extension as meaning how extended something is, so "bass extension" to me means "how low does it go." Perhaps the intended claim was something different, like "bass is more pronounced with the HD-650" -- if so, cool... I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at a claim like that.

 

[Tim D]

Yes and when you look at the HD600 vs HD650 graphs done more recently by headroom you clearly see a clear cutdown on the midbass hump, and less roll-off of the lowest bass.

HD580/600 sub-bass may sound -2db in reference to 1khz, but it is also -7 in reference to the top of the bass hump. This will shape the perception of bass greatly.

Technically if you go by "how low does it go" practically ANY good headphone here will extend to the lowest frequencies bar the AKG1000 perhaps. And even by making that claim I might get a dissident response. But throw in a clean undistorted sub bass response without much attenuation and the competition lightens up greatly. Thankfully even the HD580 can remain up there even in those categories but that doesn't mean the HD650 couldn't be better (and from both gathered subjective and objective evidence it seems to be one of the big areas of improvement).