Dude, you're way too angry about this. It all boils down to "do you like listening to your music with it?", whatever "it" is. Or do you sit down to judge gear instead of listening to music? Regardless of what the 58x driver's origins are, it's still a great headphone and a bargain at 150$. There's absolutely better things on the market, but that doesn't diminish the value of the 58x, especially when you have to go MUCH higher in price to find something appreciably better (and yes, a 650 with a 1000$ amp is much higher in price).
This. It would would be very interesting to find out the real origin of the HD58X driver, but at the end of the day it’s really not that important. What is important is; does it sound good? A personal thing.
Personally, I prefer HD650/6XX (I’ve also posted my opinion on HD58X vs HD6XX somewhere earlier in this thread. TL;DR: the HD58X is great value at $150, but the HD6XX is even greater value at $200). For me, the $99 current production Magni is plenty sufficient to differentiate between them and appreciate the qualities of HD6XX over HD58X.
Okay then, let's go deep and check what we know and look for some images and try to end this matter once and for all.
Here is the OFFICIAL information provided by Sennheiser posted at Drop by the Drop guys:
"What has not changed in the HD58X Jubilee?
-Still has 38mm dynamic drivers.
-Still audiophile quality.
-Same tooling, comfort, interchangeable 600/650/6XX/660S parts in the rest of the headphone.
What is different in the HD58X Jubilee?
-300 ohm resistance lowered to 150 ohms.
-Voice coil material has changed, it has a lower electrical resistance.
-Diaphragm shape has been revised.
-Different damping scheme and acoustic baffle."
Also:
"This driver is closely related to the driver in the new HD660S. EDIT: Same size (both 38mm as confirmed by Sennheiser), same materials, there are some differences in the damping scheme and driver housing."
As you can see the prototype had a spider cage that stays over the bass port like other HD6 cans.
After the changes the spider cage was removed, also the upper section that stays over the driver was taken from the HD5 series:
If you remove the spider cage all of the HD6 and HD5 look similar.
On the other hand the driver housing itself where the sound echoes is taken from the HD6 series, also it uses damping and the paper equal to the HD6 design:
So we get the upper part above the bass port from the HD5 and the entire housing from the HD6 series.
Now about the driver itself, we can't know for sure, but since it has 150 ohms it uses similar parts to the HD700 and HD660s (in relation to the parts that cause resistance, I'm not a headphone designer I don't know all the parts).
As said above the HD58X has the same driver size shared by almost all of Sennheisers headphones: 38mm. The diaphragm is very similar in all of these models which is expected because sound is a physical wave, housing, damping and voice coils also play an important role in sound it's not only about the diaphragm itself.
CONCLUSION:
In my opinion the 58X is a frankstein mixing parts from multiple designs, it uses the technology and what Sennheiser learned that matters the most in a headphone design. To keep costs low it uses some parts from multiple series like the HD5 upper section but with the HD6 housing acoustics, damping and all of the rest, which helps with sound tuning in a cheap form, I also think the driver is a mix of parts, it has improved coils and other parts resulting in the same resistance of the 660S and HD700. It uses a 38mm driver, same size used to many headphones, from the HD599 to the HD660S. It has a tonality similar to the 660S and the best bass extension of the HD6 series, the end result was enough for some to like it more than the HD6 series headphones.
The HD58X feels like those old Nissan cars that were tuned, some parts like the engine are very expensive other parts they cut corners to make it cheaper but in the end they are just as fast as some supercars.
Wait a minute - they told me it was a Beats driver! Maybe it's one of each!
All I know is they're my favorite headphone, there's no argument about that.
This. It would would be very interesting to find out the real origin of the HD58X driver, but at the end of the day it’s really not that important. What is important is; does it sound good? A personal thing.
Personally, I prefer HD650/6XX (I’ve also posted my opinion on HD58X vs HD6XX somewhere earlier in this thread. TL;DR: the HD58X is great value at $150, but the HD6XX is even greater value at $200). For me, the $99 current production Magni is plenty sufficient to differentiate between them and appreciate the qualities of HD6XX over HD58X.
I've had the 58X cans for around a month. Price is the only reason I even considered giving the expected veiled sound another whirl.
They sound nothing like any other Sennheiser I've tried. To my ears these manage to tame much of the harshness without sounding veiled. Properly fed the bass is full without being bloated. The 58X simply delivers an abundance of pleasure. They have also made many more costly cans sound comparatively "off."
The 58X have been successful at getting me to seriously look at the 660 S. It's the "If these sound this good @ $160.00, I have to hear what the newest $499.00 offering is capable of?" If not for the 58X I wouldn't be considering any other Sennheiser product.
As for the driver's pedigree, mine are 58X. They're doing a wonderful job. Beyond their performance, I couldn't care less!
1. Marantz: what exactly is your Marantz amping setup? Normally, regular speaker amps (stereo or multichannel receivers, integrated amps) are not well suited for headphones, because their output impedance is too high and don’t respect the 1/8 rule (output impedance of amp shouldn’t exceed 1/8 of the impedance of the headphone). Most receivers I know including my Onkyo receivers have a headphone output impedance of over 390 ohms and the impedance of the senns are 300 ohms (hd6xx) and 150 ohms (hd58x). You will still be able to use your receiver’s headphone out, but the sound will be muffled, bass will not be clear and firm, but rather muffled and loose because of the impedance mismatch. These amps simply use the main amping used for speakers and apply a strong impedance in order to bring down the power to headphone levels instead of using a dedicated separate headphone amp section such as small op. amps on integrated circuits. Some stereo receivers or integrated amps may provide a dedicated headphone amp section that is independant from the main speaker amping section, but I have very rarely seen it is the case. On the other hand amps like the O2 or the Schiit Magni 3, which both can be had for 100$, have an output impedance specification of under 1 ohms, therefore well suited for any headphone with impedance of 8 ohms or more (most headphones have an impedance between 18 ohms and 600 ohms depending on their design), therefore they may drive well any headphones.
As I told you the HD58x doesn’t need an amp and may be driven directly from the output of a computer, iPhone, iPad, but would benefit eventually from a dedicated amp such as the Schiit Magni 3 or O2 from JDS Labs or Massdrop. The HD6xx would still be usable with a portable, but would only play at very moderate levels because they require at least 2v of output voltage to really shine and most computers or portable devices will not output over 1V, some of them even less than 1v. My iPhone and iPad may output at close to 1V and my mac outputs up to 1.25v I think, enough for the HD58x and a bit short for the hd6xx. And all of these portable gears have headphone jacks or adapters, although with low voltage output, provide very low impedance output, most under 1 ohms, thus perfect for driving most headphones that require low voltage amping. By comparison the O2 and Magni3 at 100$ may output at over 5 or 6v and also have very low impedance output, under 1 ohms typically. Both headphones are quite efficient and do not need a lot of power to be driven to high levels, but they need voltage, at least minimally 2v for the HD6xx and a bit less for the HD58x. So any decent small dedicated headphone amp with low impedance output that may produce at least 2v of output should do it. I think my hd6xx doesn’t need more than a few mW of power (Volts x current = watts), maybe 20 mw is more than enough, (although audio purists will argue that you need 10x that power for peaks power and snake oil argumentation....). I say to you that both of these headphone don’t really need that much total power, they are very efficient, but the HD6xx need higher voltage than what most computers and portables may provide.
2. I also own the HD598 and I too believe it doesn't have enough strong deep bass. I use them solely for TV usage because of their relatively low impedance. I may assure you that the HD6xx has far better and stronger warmer bass than the HD598, it is not comparable. The HD58x has even deeper bass than HD6xx and it is its strong relative advantage compared to the HD6xx. I find however than the HD6xx is more natural, warmer, more romantic and I prefer the mids of the HD6xx over the hd58x. That is why I prefer the HD6xx over the HD58x, except with music that has a lot of sub bass such as electro music and deep house. But overall all HD6 series of headphones have far better bass than HD5 series in my opinion, with the HD600 that has the least bass of the HD6 series and the HD58x that has the deepest sub bass response (35 hz to 100 hz) of the series. The HD6xx has a bit less of sub bass but has a bit more higher bass accentuation (mostly in the 100hz-250hz region) which gives them a warmer rounder sound. Hope it helps, hope I wasn’t too technical.
For the last few days I've been reading about amps. So on low budget there are Magni 3, O2, Liquid Spark, Atom. The best would be Atom. At least thats what I think. Thing about Atom is that in USA it is 100$ amp, but in Europe it is 200$ amp. Still worth the money? Anything better in 200$ range?
Atom is a good choice.
I also like Arcam rhead which is now quite cheap.
For example https://www.hifix.co.uk/arcam-rhead-headphone-amplifier
In case that you need some "spice" Schiit Vali 2 is a good amp better than magni for me at least.
Atom is a good choice.
I also like Arcam rhead which is now quite cheap.
For example https://www.hifix.co.uk/arcam-rhead-headphone-amplifier
In case that you need some "spice" Schiit Vali 2 is a good amp better than magni for me at least.
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