[marios_mar]

Quote:

hollow sounding

what does that mean?


The 600s look so neglected back there. Can one buy HE60 replacement pads and place them on 580/600/650 if they are more comfortable?

 

[Hirsch]

Quote:

Originally posted by marios_mar what does that mean? The 600s look so neglected back there. Can one buy HE60 replacement pads and place them on 580/600/650 if they are more comfortable?

I have no idea about "hollow sounding". Mine have a full midrange and lots of air.

I don't know about replacement pads on the HE 60. My suspicion is that they're not interchangeable with the HD series headphones, but I'd have to take a much closer look. Best way to find out might be to ask Sennheiser.

 

[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwood I don't know if the amp is to blame, but the imaging was the worst part. Totally unacceptible. The LT and RT side had a very noticeable gap between them. They really emphasized the negative aspect of headphone sound, the separated LT and RT sound. I suppose it could be remedied with a crossfeed, but for expensive electrostatics, no thank you. Stax absolutely crushed them in imaging.

that's why stax are known as "earspeakers" while the sennheiser electrostats are just headphones.

in a recent writeup of impressions, jan meier found the orpheus to benefit a lot from his crossfeed circuit. however, i've only known one person to ever show interest in using crossfeed with stax..

 

[bozebuttons]

Quote:

Originally posted by Edwood I was really let down by the HE60/HEV70. It was very hollow sounding compared to the Stax 303, 404, and especially the Omega II's. Baby Orpheus has some growing up to do, most noteably in the bass department. I did A/B comparisons to a couple HD600 cable combos. The Baby O sounds nothing like them. I don't know if the amp is to blame, but the imaging was the worst part. Totally unacceptible. The LT and RT side had a very noticeable gap between them. They really emphasized the negative aspect of headphone sound, the separated LT and RT sound. I suppose it could be remedied with a crossfeed, but for expensive electrostatics, no thank you. Stax absolutely crushed them in imaging. On a positive note, they are more comfortable than the HD600's. Especially the ear pads. I wish I could use the HE60's ear pads with the HD600's. -Ed

Having lived with the HE60 for a while I have to disagree
with your asssesment of the sound of the He60s, It could have been they wheren't fully charged when you listened to them, They require a longer time then the stax units to sound there best.Meets are not the best place to realize their potential.
The Hev70 amp could use improvement, but isn't that bad once fully warmed up. The He 60s when used with the stax 007t
do not have a seperated Lt & RT sound and can produce a 3 dimensional headstage wraping around the back of your head.
The stax headphones seem to be more upfront.Bass is very good on these phones,Stax phones have more bass, but I feel the quality of bass is better on the Senn phones.
And I do own the omegaIIs as well as the He90s and did listen to all three and do comparisons. The omega IIs & He90s are more refined headphones no doubt,but the He60s are not far behind, I would like to hear them with a kGSS or weeble.
Everybody has differant preferances, but I will tell you this
my impressions are from living with the HE60s longterm. If I didn't have the HE90s I would have never sold them

 

[agile_one]

I am new to the HE60/HEV70 as well, having had them for just a week now, and not really spending enough time to get intimate with them yet.

My first impressions, however, are extremely positive. Definitely agree with the comments on comfort - these are the most comfortable cans I've worn (I have hd600/650, ATH W100, W1000, L3000, dt880, etc as well for comparison). Sound to me was terrific - much detail, especially at low volume, plenty of fast and accurate bass - no boom boom here, treble up to the sky, and I could listen for hours without fatigue.

It will be a month or more before I have enough experience to make any meaningful comments or comparisons, but for now - Wow!, I love 'em!

 

[Spent&Bent]

After listening to them for several hours today, a few questions popped up.

1.Is it bad to leave the headphones "on" all the time? I mean since I leave the amp on to keep it as good sounding as possible, I also have the headphones connected... would this not wear out the phones more quickly?

2.Wondering about the age of these things (sennheiser has kept them in production for a reasonable time, ending not too long ago) I looked at the serial number, mine is 011659 what's yours and can you tell me when you have bought them (to get a fix an a possible production year??)

3.Doesn't the pass-through degrade performance when I got another amp connected on it? I was comparing the RS-1 on my other amps VS HE60 today and I was wondering about this.

4. I did not get a (service) manual with these phones, does anyone know a online source for this? googling did not turn up anything.

5. If you buy used electrostats is the performance worse over the years or are they like dynamic phones that stay pretty much the same until near the end?

thanks.

edit: very late discovered stupid error (amp has opamps - no talk of mosfet)

 

[Vedder323]

how much does this combo go for?

 

[Chefguru]

Quote:

Originally posted by Vedder323 how much does this combo go for?

750 - 1200 used , When they came out they were about 1700 IIRC but that was some time ago.

 

[Edwood]

Quote:

Originally posted by bozebuttons Having lived with the HE60 for a while I have to disagree with your asssesment of the sound of the He60s, It could have been they wheren't fully charged when you listened to them, They require a longer time then the stax units to sound there best.Meets are not the best place to realize their potential. The Hev70 amp could use improvement, but isn't that bad once fully warmed up. The He 60s when used with the stax 007t do not have a seperated Lt & RT sound and can produce a 3 dimensional headstage wraping around the back of your head. The stax headphones seem to be more upfront.Bass is very good on these phones,Stax phones have more bass, but I feel the quality of bass is better on the Senn phones. And I do own the omegaIIs as well as the He90s and did listen to all three and do comparisons. The omega IIs & He90s are more refined headphones no doubt,but the He60s are not far behind, I would like to hear them with a kGSS or weeble. Everybody has differant preferances, but I will tell you this my impressions are from living with the HE60s longterm. If I didn't have the HE90s I would have never sold them

So it is the amp, then.

How long does it take for the HE60's to charge up and warm up? The were on for more than 8 hours at the meet. Would that be long enough to charge up? They didn't magically sound better after 8 hours. (man, that was a long meet 12 hours!) Fuller for sure, but the soundstage was not improved much, and it had it's ass handed back from the Stax.

-Ed

 

[AndreYew]

Quote:

Originally posted by Spent&Bent 1.Is it bad to leave the headphones "on" all the time? I mean since I leave the amp on to keep the mosfet as good sounding as possible, I also have the headphones connected... would this not wear out the phones more quickly?

I turn mine on when I get into the office, and turn them off before I go home, so that's about 10 hours a day.

Quote:

2.Wondering about the age of these things (sennheiser has kept them in production for a reasonable time, ending not too long ago) I looked at the serial number, mine is 011659 what's yours and can you tell me when you have bought them (to get a fix an a possible production year??)

The HE60s are 011216, and HEV70 is 101743, but I got mine used, too.

Quote:

5. If you buy used electrostats is the performance worse over the years or are they like dynamic phones that stay pretty much the same until near the end?

If they act like QUAD speakers, then they could degrade over time if overdriven. QUADs would spark across the air gap, and make little holes in the insulator, making it easier to spark the next time, but if you aren't overloading the phones, I don't see how they could degrade for that reason (environmental things not considered).

The main thing I'm worried about is getting replacement ear pads and cables. I know I need to change the pads on my HD-580/-600 every 3 or 4 years.

--Andre

 

[AndreYew]

FWIW, I preferred the Baby Orpheus at the LA meet to the three Stax headphones. The Stax had overly emphasized midbass, but yes, the left-right separation of the Baby O is extreme. My theory is that the HE60 doesn't squash the outer pinnae and the drivers are farther away from the ears, so this is easier to hear. Unless the Stax amp had crossfeed, there is really nothing an amp can do to emphasize or decrease separation --- it's a purely physical phenomena.

--Andre

 

[Spent&Bent]

Andre, thanks for your answers.

The seperation you and others have noticed is indeed appearant, for me it borders on the line of acceptable, at least with my current dac.
The dac itself has GREAT imaging, which probably prevents leaving a gap, this is perhaps its biggest strength, ofcourse it also has its lesser sides but IMO at least it offers about the best imaging I have heard short of a sweet, sweet wadia player that I have been exposed to (unfortunately).

I can very well imagine the imaging collapsing completely leaving a hole with a lesser dac, for one I don't like the phones one bit with standard redbook of my DVD player, aside from the obvious problems it has almost no imaging, but then again that is really dire redbook to be honest, I have older cd players that beat it in all respects.

Since there are also people here in this thread with RME digi 96/8 PAD, I will conduct some testing in combination with that card as soon as possible to see if the imaging holds up IMHO on that type of source, maybe this will interest them.
Basic 128/160 and to be honest even 192 MP3 sounds very very ****ty BTW IMHO, just horrible even worse then on the classic system 2,
This is not the case on RS-1+RA-1/EMP (where it often sounds smooth and nice, just varying levels of detail and/or soundstage)
The card is still underway from Germany I hope it will arrive soon.

I must say the baseline performance of the amp+phones has really increased over all the hours I have left it on (30 or so), especially when switching to smooth SACD, which sounds excellent on the HE-60
My ears have now adjusted to falling into the music with the senns rather then meeting it with the grado's.
Because of the conditioning of the HE60 the RS-1 now sounds to me compressed,bright, overly upfront and slow.
After listening to the RS-1 for a while again to me the HE60 sounds distant,veiled,and metallic edged (spitty).
I really have to work to listen in the first few minutes, it's like my ears got so lazy because of the RS-1.

It's strange how fast my ears get adjusted from RS-1 to HE-60 and vice-versa though... I'd bet a Omega II on it that more multi-headphone owners can confirm this brain (?) function ***, which makes judging certain things so hard for me.
Seperated these systems sound incredibly good, at least on the RS-1 I will never change that opinion it's truly something special, not trying to sound like speakers and in that sense worth having even if you have speakers (and can use them), I worry already about extra RS-1's to have around and spare pads for the future.

***:Wearing no headphones at all for a few hours maybe days probably will lessen or even nullify the psychological / physical adjustment effect I have totally.

 

[Spent&Bent]

A little addition: In the song "hold the line" from Toto there is a certain part at 2.00 or something like that where the guitars play behind me.
The sound image is definately solid on the rear of my head.
So even in stock form the HEV70 is most definately capable of projecting such an image.
YMMV I suppose..........

 

[agile_one]

Spent: just checked my serial #'s - 011910 for the HE60's and 101939 for the HEV70. They were new in 2003.

So far I am really enjoying them, and they are definite keepers. Will have the opportunity to compare with a friend's Stax Omega II's in a few weeks when we get together. THAT should be interesting.

Trying to reserve too many comments during this honeymoon stage - everything sounds wonderful to me on them right now, as much because of the differences they bring as any superlatives or extremes they go to.

 

[BANGPOD]

Quote:

Originally posted by Chefguru 750 - 1200 used , When they came out they were about 1700 IIRC but that was some time ago.

Can this be bought new today? NOS?
Or, has Sennheiser discontinued it?

If so, what is a reliable place to buy this new?
If not, what is a reliable place to buy this used?

Also, while on the topic, how much are each of the various electrostatic amplifiers?

Weebl?
Kevin Gilmore Solid State?
Kevin Gilmore Hybrid?
ZZZ's amplifier?
Blue Hawaiian?

Have I excluded any of the DIY electrostatic amplifiers?

BANGPOD