[SSandDigital]

Anyone truly interested can always buy both from Massdrop and hear/decide for themselve. Either pair will likely sell quickly at close to what you pay for either (although you might be very tempted to keep both as I did ).

Agreed. And considering how much in demand both are, I'd expect reselling would be easily achievable.

Personally prefer the HD58x. K712 is is the headphone I like best, but I wanted K712 that was little more intimate with some of the signature HD6xx sound. I'm amazed Sennheiser was willing to sell these at this price. Also made in Ireland is fun to look at, just as made in Austria is.

 

[peter123]

At normal (ie lower) listening volume I also often prefer the signature of the HD58X for certain genres and (as one example) listening to TV dialogue.

As fare as "scaleabity" goes;
I don't know if you have access to a balanced set-up but if you want to truly hear how well the HD600/650 scale (in comparison to other similarly priced cans) a decent balanced amp will help demonstrate it.

If I want to listen to music at louder levels for a short period (ie a specific song) I'll reach for the HD650.
They don't break up/distort even at a volume that's higher than tolerable/safe for any length of time.

This may not be an issue for many but with very dynamic music, sometimes even moderately higher than normal listening can cause distortion when the music volume "peaks" for a short time.

I'm pretty sure this is due to the HD 600/650 higher 300 Ohms as you mentioned. But I also think there could be more to it than that. As I'm not an engineer, I'll simply enjoy it rather than try to explain why I hear their exceptional "scalability" to be actual rather than hype"

Your opinion that these cans don't scale any better than others is definitely in the minority (and I won't bother with IMO on that statement).



Nobody's arguing about or objecting to posting graphs; I was simply trying to state that two different headphones with near identical graphs along a specific audio spectrum can sound quite different.

I didn't realize with all the YMMV and "I think" or IMO that this was some kind of competition as to which is the "better" headphone. Besides, we have said pretty much the same things using different words.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses in different settings and (as stated several times already) I reach for one or the other depending on the music and type of anticipated listening session (e.g. volume,length and/or source).

Anyone truly interested can always buy both from Massdrop and hear/decide for themselve. Either pair will likely sell quickly at close to what you pay for them, although you might be very tempted to keep both .

I'm putting this to bed but feel free to 'til the cows come home.

Yeah I've got several balanced sources (and one balanced full size rig). I'm actually quite lukewarm about the whole balanced hype we've seen recently. Yes, it offers more power but apart from that it is my belief that a well designed SE system will be able to perform equally well as a well designed balanced system. I'll probably keep believing this until I've experienced the opposite

I'm quite flexible when it cones to amps/sources (and headphones/IEM's as well for that matter) and uses a lot of different ones every week (balanced, single ended, tubes, portable, Bluetooth) and I do enjoy the top performing ones of the different types equally much.

Of course everything in here is always YMMV, my 2c, personal preference etc. but with all the stuff I'm lucky enough to own/try I'm quite confident about what I like and don't like for my own listening pleasure. That's really all that matters to me these days.

 

[equalspeace]

.

I didn't realize with all the YMMV and "I think" or IMO that this was some kind of competition as to which is the "better" headphone. Besides, we have said pretty much the same things using different words.
They both have their strengths and weaknesses in different settings and (as stated several times already) I reach for one or the other depending on the music and type of anticipated listening session (e.g. volume,length and/or source).

Anyone truly interested can always buy both from Massdrop and hear/decide for themselve. Either pair will likely sell quickly at close to what you pay for them, although you might be very tempted to keep both .

I'm putting this to bed but feel free to 'til the cows come home.

I don't think I was responding to you guy. I hope you have a nice night though!

 

[Colors]

You can look at this as a good thing (she's easy to please with audio) or a bad thing (might get on your case about buying too many headphones)


Agree with you that measurements don't always tell the whole story and even when you have objective measurements it doesn't mean that you and I will hear the same thing since we both hear differently, we might be listening at different levels, different genres, and also different upstream gear, too many variables.

It’s a bad thing =P

 

[DavidA]

At normal (ie lower) listening volume I also often prefer the signature of the HD58X for certain genres and (as one example) listening to TV dialogue.

As fare as "scaleabity" goes;
I don't know if you have access to a balanced set-up but if you want to truly hear how well the HD600/650 scale (in comparison to other similarly priced cans) a decent balanced amp will help demonstrate it.

If I want to listen to music at louder levels for a short period (ie a specific song) I'll reach for the HD650.
They don't break up/distort even at a volume that's higher than tolerable/safe for any length of time.

This may not be an issue for many but with very dynamic music, sometimes even moderately higher than normal listening can cause distortion when the music volume "peaks" for a short time.

I'm pretty sure this is due to the HD 600/650 higher 300 Ohms as you mentioned. But I also think there could be more to it than that. As I'm not an engineer, I'll simply enjoy it rather than try to explain why I hear their exceptional "scalability" to be actual rather than hype"

Your opinion that these cans don't scale any better than others is definitely in the minority (and I won't bother with IMO on that statement).

I'm with @peter123 about the whole balanced thing sounding better, to me its a function of the amp design, if it was designed as a balanced amp it should sound better from the balanced output but I've heard a few amps that sound the same from both SE and balanced outputs, granted these amps are a bit pricy but they were designed to sound great from either output. What makes the HD650/6XX is pairing them with a decent/good OTL amp with the proper selection of tubes IMO. The HD58X doesn't seem to respond to OTL amps from my limited trials so far but do great with hybrid amps IMO, a touch better than they sound on SS amps that I've tried.

 

[WilliamLeonhart]

I'm with @peter123 about the whole balanced thing sounding better, to me its a function of the amp design, if it was designed as a balanced amp it should sound better from the balanced output but I've heard a few amps that sound the same from both SE and balanced outputs, granted these amps are a bit pricy but they were designed to sound great from either output. What makes the HD650/6XX is pairing them with a decent/good OTL amp with the proper selection of tubes IMO. The HD58X doesn't seem to respond to OTL amps from my limited trials so far but do great with hybrid amps IMO, a touch better than they sound on SS amps that I've tried.

Just want to chime in to say that my HD58x sounds great with my Little Dot I+, but my HD6XX doesn’t. Also the more I listen to it the more I think my powerful Burson Fun is more suitable towards my HD6xx than my HD58x.

So all in all I do think my HD58X needs a good amp to shine but it should be something along the line of I+ or O2 or Vali 2 instead of those way too powerful amps.

 

[tolis626]

Hey fellas, can anyone here do me a little favor? If yes, please listen to Machine Head's Be Still And Know, preferably on Spotify to eliminate other potential differences in the source (although I had the same thing happen with a flac of the same song), and tell me if there's any crackling/distortion you can hear throughout the song. I have yet to test this with more stuff, but I can hear some nasty crackling on that song in particular, but I can also hear it in others, just not as pronounced. Best case scenario I can hope for is that either it's the recording or my phone and my Q1 are at their limits and distort. Worst case scenario at this point is that something is broken. I really, really hope it's not the 58x. I mean, there's warranty on them and I didn't do anything to them to void it, but I still prefer to not have to do without them.

More testing is needed, but I do need your guys' help! Thanks in advance!

 

[RandomDave]

Hey fellas, can anyone here do me a little favor? If yes, please listen to Machine Head's Be Still And Know, preferably on Spotify to eliminate other potential differences in the source (although I had the same thing happen with a flac of the same song), and tell me if there's any crackling/distortion you can hear throughout the song. I have yet to test this with more stuff, but I can hear some nasty crackling on that song in particular, but I can also hear it in others, just not as pronounced. Best case scenario I can hope for is that either it's the recording or my phone and my Q1 are at their limits and distort. Worst case scenario at this point is that something is broken. I really, really hope it's not the 58x. I mean, there's warranty on them and I didn't do anything to them to void it, but I still prefer to not have to do without them.

More testing is needed, but I do need your guys' help! Thanks in advance!

That is exactly what happened/happens to me all the time. If you can hear it in particualr channel separated, use F2K's invert stereo DSP and listen again, then see if it still crackles in the same channel or it moved to the other channel.
Also ditch the Q1. Also, i recommend doom soundtrack to check for defects. There is a lot of very clean bass notes, so any driver issue should be easily audible.

 

[tolis626]

That exactly what happened/happens to me all the time. If you can hear it in particualr channel separated, use F2K's invert stereo DSP and listen again, then see if it still crackles in the same channel or it moved to the other channel.
Also ditch the Q1. Also, i recommend doom soundtrack to check for defects. There is a lot of very clean bass notes, so any driver issue should be easily audible.

When did that happen for you?

Well, I'd already checked with reversing the channels. I didn't use Foobar, but rather the Peace GUI for EqualizerAPO. It has an invert channel option that it can either apply before or after equalization, very useful. On that particular track, Be Still And Know, the crackling follows the same side, always. If I switch sides, it switches and is consistent. But there's crackling on both sides, so my guess is that there is no problem with the 58x, it never was my first thought. I just want to eliminate that as a possibility first.

Ditching the Q1 is next on my list. I really want to get a proper desktop setup. The Q1 will stay with me for portable use, but that's about it, it has way outlived its usefulness in the house. Thing is, I don't have the money right now to buy anything good. Plus, even when I do get money, I probably won't be able to buy anything better than the Schiit stack or maybe the X1s. And even between the two, I don't know what I'd choose, because the X1s has way less power and probably a worse DAC than the Modi 3 (although the implementation of the 9018 ought to be good in it) than the Schiit stack. But the stack gets a lot of Schiit online (Huh, pun) for whatever reason and I can't distinguish between what is real and what is just noise because of hating without justification. I really can't choose and am kinda sad that I won't be able to afford better gear for the foreseeable future. I'd really like an NFB-11 or an EL Stack from JDS Labs or something similar. Maybe even a Topping DX7s would fit the bill, which is semi-affordable on Massdrop. Ugh...

In other news, the Doom soundtrack sounds just fine. Thing is, it's got a lot of sounds going on at all times, so any small crackling sounds would not really show. But no matter how hard I try, I can't hear much. It's a cool sound though. Makes me wanna slay demons.

 

[RandomDave]

Speaking of damaged drivers, is anyone able to descibe how does that sound? I have played some low quality music through my headphones multiple times and haven't noticed any difference. I am not sure how durable dynamic drivers are.
Someone told me it's basically either dead - no sound or fine - sounds fine. Can anyone confirm?

 

[Filter500]

Hey fellas, can anyone here do me a little favor? If yes, please listen to Machine Head's Be Still And Know, preferably on Spotify to eliminate other potential differences in the source (although I had the same thing happen with a flac of the same song), and tell me if there's any crackling/distortion you can hear throughout the song. I have yet to test this with more stuff, but I can hear some nasty crackling on that song in particular, but I can also hear it in others, just not as pronounced. Best case scenario I can hope for is that either it's the recording or my phone and my Q1 are at their limits and distort. Worst case scenario at this point is that something is broken. I really, really hope it's not the 58x. I mean, there's warranty on them and I didn't do anything to them to void it, but I still prefer to not have to do without them.

More testing is needed, but I do need your guys' help! Thanks in advance!

Listened on Spotify for you: no crackling or distortion. My signal chain is MOTU Micro Book> Mayflower O2> HD 58X.

 

[Dsnuts]

Was recently at Rocky Mountain Can Jam. Got to hear the HD660 and the HD820 from Senns HDV820 amp. All I can say is. Save your money.

Will surprise you just how much value your getting in the HD58x.

 

[tolis626]

Listened on Spotify for you: no crackling or distortion. My signal chain is MOTU Micro Book> Mayflower O2> HD 58X.

Thanks a lot mate! Much appreciated!

Nothing out of the ordinary, huh? Well, that's not good for me. Gotta investigate further. Let's hope it's just that your source chain is much better than my Q1!

Update : The issue persists everywhere. I tried the 58x with the Q1, on my phone and on my PC. Same parts of the same songs do it on every device. Then I also tried the MSR7 and they do it do, although it's a bit less pronounced. I think I can also hear it on my **** IEMs directly off of my phone, but their sound is too congested to make out any such details. Seems like the problem lies with the songs themselves. But what is wrong on my end that the O2 solves for you? Is there anything really wrong? I'm baffled, really. At least it seems that my 58x aren't broken, so I'm happy.

 

[SSandDigital]

Thanks a lot mate! Much appreciated!

Nothing out of the ordinary, huh? Well, that's not good for me. Gotta investigate further. Let's hope it's just that your source chain is much better than my Q1!

Update : The issue persists everywhere. I tried the 58x with the Q1, on my phone and on my PC. Same parts of the same songs do it on every device. Then I also tried the MSR7 and they do it do, although it's a bit less pronounced. I think I can also hear it on my **** IEMs directly off of my phone, but their sound is too congested to make out any such details. Seems like the problem lies with the songs themselves. But what is wrong on my end that the O2 solves for you? Is there anything really wrong? I'm baffled, really. At least it seems that my 58x aren't broken, so I'm happy.

Yeah there is odd distortion to it, almost like background noise. Fulla 2 w/ HD58x. Definitely more prominent with K712. Odd crackling sound to it. I don't like it, it's annoying to hear. This on google music stream and Tidal. Yeah it's unlistenable.

 

[SSandDigital]

Was recently at Rocky Mountain Can Jam. Got to hear the HD660 and the HD820 from Senns HDV820 amp. All I can say is. Save your money.

Will surprise you just how much value your getting in the HD58x.

Thanks for the update, definitely satisfied with this sound.