[olor1n]

 
Quote:

Quote:

And also about any mods you've made, equipment you're using and music you like. I don't doubt, as has been covered in other threads, that phones like the LCD-2 are overall superior to the 650, but I think that superiority is going to show up much more in some systems than others, in some ears more than others, on some music more than others. One thing I'm certain of: at the discount prices the 650 can be got for these days it's an unadulterated bargain, and more than good enough for 95% of listeners. For the others, Audeze and Stax wait in the wings.

That right there, is what I wish more people realized.  About everything.  

Agreed. The fact people are using baffling terms to describe the HD650 highlights this and I think it's unfair to dismiss the HD650 until you've heard it in a system that can at least hint at its potential. I feel incredibly fortunate to have found a synergy in my chain that's pleasing to me. Sure it's not perfect, but it gets more things right than wrong imo. I love how I can just listen to my music without the nitpicking of the headphone's sound detracting from my enjoyment.
 
@ KneelJung - I used to consider myself entrenched in the Grado/Alessandro camp based on what I thought was my absolute preference for the MS-1i's energetic presentation. Head-Fi hyperbole would have you believe that if you preferred one camp, you could not possibly find anything of worth in another. I still love the in your face attack of the Alessandro and still hope to one day own an RS-1i or MS-Pro, but for now I'm pretty content I've found my all-rounder cans. I'd suggest you at least give the HD650/600 a try, especially with the Sparrow if you still have that.

 

[disastermouse]

so it's safe to say that Grado's would suck for electronic music with deep bass? they are punchy and have good mid-bass, but the bottom end isn't really there?

My SR80 do electronic okay - they separate the sounds better than any other phones I'd tried in the price range. You hear bass but don't feel it. In a way, that's what I prefer anyway - the ability to hear the entire range of notes and sounds distinctly. Also, I don't know how important soundstage is with techno. Bass speed seems to be there and it doesn't muddy the mids, which is what I feel like crap phones like Beats do. It could be that Grados do this primarily by de-emphasizing bass and letting the guitar textures of the mids have most of the textural emphasis.

What the HD 650s do that blew me away was add texture to instruments and vocals - and it's those textures you hear/feel in a quiet (crowd-wise) live experience. They keep the instruments/tones separate and distinct. The bass has texture. The mids have texture. The highs have texture. All at the same time. It could be that the Senns achieve this by de-emphasizing the highs so they don't intrude on the bass texture. This decreases the energy, speed, and immediacy of the mids - but now the bass has body, texture, and you can hear the fluid changes in bass. Now obviously if bass is over-emphasized to skull-shaking proportions, it seems to me that it also becomes far more two dimensional - now we're back to the 'broad strokes' of average crap-phones.

So Grados have a quality sound (IMHO) and Senns have a quality sound - but the two methods seem to have totally different priorities.

 

[jasonb]

wow. beautiful explanations.
 
Quote:

A
 


My SR80 do electronic okay - they separate the sounds better than any other phones I'd tried in the price range. You hear bass but don't feel it. In a way, that's what I prefer anyway - the ability to hear the entire range of notes and sounds distinctly. Also, I don't know how important soundstage is with techno. Bass speed seems to be there and it doesn't muddy the mids, which is what I feel like crap phones like Beats do. It could be that Grados do this primarily by de-emphasizing bass and letting the guitar textures of the mids have most of the textural emphasis.
 
What the HD 650s do that blew me away was add texture to instruments and vocals - and it's those textures you hear/feel in a quiet (crowd-wise) live experience. They keep the instruments/tones separate and distinct. The bass has texture. The mids have texture. The highs have texture. All at the same time. It could be that the Senns achieve this by de-emphasizing the highs so they don't intrude on the bass texture. This decreases the energy, speed, and immediacy of the mids - but now the bass has body, texture, and you can hear the fluid changes in bass. Now obviously if bass is over-emphasized to skull-shaking proportions, it seems to me that it also becomes far more two dimensional - now we're back to the 'broad strikes' of average crap-phones.So Grados have a quality sound (IMHO) and Senns have a quality sound - but the two methods seem to have totally different priorities.

 

[disastermouse]

Another thing I'm realizing is that before - with recorded music, I wasn't really listening to music at all - I was focusing on the passion and the poetry of lyrics - so much so that I could endure terrible singers and mildly annoying arrangements (many of these arrangements annoying only because there was so little instrument and tone separation and 'space').  I used to sometimes EQ down everything but the lyrics in some songs.
 
Now, I hear the music and I feel like I'm finally understanding the nuances.  I find myself much more emotionally moved by the passages: now the lyrics and singing - although still the most powerful part of the arrangements for me - are merely the icing on a much more delicious cake!
 
I....I think I could actually be entertained by classical music with these things!  I might finally be able to understand what all the fuss is about.
 
Here's a good example I'm listening to now.  I don't think that '69 Love Songs' is the most expertly produced album ever - but nonetheless, I find myself enjoying songs that I found difficult before because everything turned to mush and buried the vocals.  Now when music is mixed louder than the lyrics, it doesn't 'bury' them - they can still be picked out of the mix and it feels like there's a real person singing in there.  Songs like 'Sweet Loving Man' and 'Love Is Like Gin' no longer have everything buried - by the mids in the first example and the bass in the second.
 
What scares me now is .... I know it can get even better - even more lifelike!

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I listen to metal music primarily, but classical is great stuff.  The musicianship and arrangements are very similar to most of the metal music I listen to.  
 
You really should check out some classical music.  It's a great change of pace, and you can find some soothing stuff or songs that set you on edge.  magnatune has a fairly good selection of free classical stuff streaming at decent quality so you can test some of it out.  

 

[olor1n]

I'm taking my first tentative steps in the classical realm but it's daunting. Easing myself into it with Beethoven's 5th and 7th as well as Arthur Rubinstein's interpretations of Chopin's Nocturnes. Glorious.

 

[pp312]

Quote:

I listen to metal music primarily, but classical is great stuff.  The musicianship and arrangements are very similar to most of the metal music I listen to.  
 

Come again?

 

[Satellite_6]

I don't think I'll ever be listening to a lot of classical music because it's just too boring, but the HD 650s sure are good at it.

 

[Yuceka]

Too boring? Wow... I mean... Wow... May the ghost of Bach, Albinoni and Telemann haunt you for the rest of your life for saying that  
 
Quote:

I don't think I'll ever be listening to a lot of classical music because it's just too boring, but the HD 650s sure are good at it.

 

[ajreynol]

I'd like to try the 650's out...but count me in the camp that probably wouldn't buy them.
 
I don't really have room for open cans in my life.  don't  want the kids hearing EVERYTHING that Kanye is saying, you know?
 
sigh.

 

[ArmAndHammer]

I listen to electronica with my 325i's. They handle it well if you are not looking for deep, boomy bass. In fact I am listening to some Daft Punk as I type and it sounds pretty darn good to my ears. I have been using the G-cushions on my Grados and they help tremendously with the bass and help with the sound stage and separation too. I just can't wait to get a chance to try the HD650's. I need to stop reading about them....lol
 
Quote:

so it's safe to say that Grado's would suck for electronic music with deep bass? they are punchy and have good mid-bass, but the bottom end isn't really there?

 

[V-DiV]

Quote:

I listen to metal music primarily, but classical is great stuff.  The musicianship and arrangements are very similar to most of the metal music I listen to.  
 

Hi Vulgar, its great you're into classical, but while the musicianship may sound similar, classical musicians play at a level beyond most any rock musician.  I played rock for some years, and I was good.  I started playing jazz, but then I ended up going back to school and got a music degree playing various sorts of chamber music.  I realized how simplistic my skills had been.  While rockers like to make things sound fast and hard, a classical musician wants to make the same thing sound effortless.  Fast passages don't seem so fast, but rather relaxed.  That's part of the reason why it sounds "boring" to a young guy (like I used to be) with lots of energy.  A rocker will throw lots of energy at a passage of notes, but very few will make more of them than a bunch of notes strung together.  A classical musician shapes every musical phrase, chooses the dynamics and the nuanced articulation, breathes life into the line.  The wall of sound in a rock/metal/whatever tune and the wall of sound in a Berlioz symphony, while often similar in effect are miles apart in what goes into them.  On the other hand, that's the really cool thing about modern amps and guitar effects.  You can make the sound of a whole orchestra with them. 

 

[pp312]

Quote:

I don't think I'll ever be listening to a lot of classical music because it's just too boring, but the HD 650s sure are good at it.

That's a big statement, because you're covering everything from a Chopin piano sonata to a Shostakovich symphony. I find some of it boring myself, so I sought out what I don't find boring.. Since I came to classical music through film music I look for the same sort of excitement and emotion; that means mostly 20th century composers like Vaughan Williams and the afore-mentioned Shostakovich.
 
As for the 650s, yes, classical is their forte.   

 

[attenuated 3db]

Quote:

I listen to metal music primarily, but classical is great stuff.  The musicianship and arrangements are very similar to most of the metal music I listen to.  
 
You really should check out some classical music.  It's a great change of pace, and you can find some soothing stuff or songs that set you on edge.  magnatune has a fairly good selection of free classical stuff streaming at decent quality so you can test some of it out.  

I just got my Sennheiser 650s Friday, and have not ripped any of my classical music collection to .flac files yet (most of it is on vinyl, and I had to sell my Linn Sondek LP-12 a few years ago, and lack a quality turntable to do the the time-consuming A-to-D conversions), but I highly recommend Linn Radio (http://radio.linnrecords.com/) as a great 24/7 source of high-quality streaming classical (or jazz, or pop) music.  They only play their own record catalog, all of which is immaculately recorded, and if you hear something you really like, you can buy the album or individual tracks (not the best approach with classical music) in lossless or the 320 kbps format that they constantly stream in.  I'm listening to Linn Classical right now since it''s the one musical genre I had not yet played with yet with my new 650s, and the Senns are predictably wonderful at detail extraction with string ensembles.   Gotta fire up EAC and get out my Deutsche Grammaphone collection!

 

[estreeter]

Quote:

Quote:

I listen to metal music primarily, but classical is great stuff.  The musicianship and arrangements are very similar to most of the metal music I listen to.  
 

Come again?

Tough one. A surprising (?) number of metal musicians are the product of a classical-education-gone-wrong, and you will often find that the musicianship is of a far higher standard than you might expect on the latest Britney album (probably being a bit hard on session musos, but thats my opinion). Whether the arrangements are equally complex is a tougher question - you dont have to go far to find a metal guitarist who has stolen, ahem, gained inspiration from a classical piece.