[Duggeh]

But right now its just out of the box and it sounds AWESOME!

Just wanted to post that, we've got a bbq on atm and amoung the cries of "good burger" are others such as "ANOTHER pair Doug?"

 

[bLue_oNioN]

You might want to consider pairing it with the Equinox cable. It is a very synergistic combination (to my ears).

 

[incognitoedleon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duggeh amoung the cries of "good burger"

I'm personally waiting for the Criterion Collection edition of this film.

 

[Purgatos]

I couldn't help but see that review at the bottom as:

"A very funny movie!" - A very legitimate critic

 

[seantx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by incognitoedleon I'm personally waiting for the Criterion Collection edition of this film.

<wiping diet pepsi from keyboard.>

 

[Mercuttio]

Sounds cool out of the box, right? Just imagine this: Better midsection, clearer treble, and SMOOTHER.

Yeah. That's all going to happen... be ready!

 

[darkninja67]

The 650s are some decent cans.

 

[DevilDog]

Yeah, out of the box they sound great. But the bass is probably pretty strong and bloomy right now, I know it sounds great now, but it calms down, tightens up and sounds soooo much better.
Congrats and glad you like 'em.

 

[rincewind]

I also thought my 650's were great out of the box (unamped at the time).
1 year later a friend has been looking at high end phones and gave some 650's a listen in the shop. Told me he was fairly unimpressed. Then he listened to mine and said there was a pretty obvious (good) difference. Now I'm using them amped and I think their as good as I can imagine them being (althought that's what I thought when I bought them

). Can't go wrong with them unless you only listen to music where u are more after a really really "fun" sound (the Senns are warmer than any Grado etc). But personally I use them mostly for metal/rock/electronica and find them awesome and for soundtracks and classical they just come into their own even more.

 

[Connectz]

Bro, I thought the same thing! Got mine about 13 days ago and out of the box I thought they sounded damn good! So I listened to everyone's advice and let them play for around the clock (covered so I couldn't hear them of course lol). Right now they have exactly 284 hours on them and the sound has improved immensely.

The treble has smoothed out so much that it's like silk. The mids are more defined and much more present. And the bass, whoa! The bass has tightened up a lot! Out of the box, the bass was slightly muddy and all over the place but now it is perfect. The overall sound is so fricking smooth! And one thing I don't agree with everybody is that these cans have a dull treble. Let me tell you, the treble in these cans is just right; not to much and not to little.

 

[Knuckledragger]

One thing I've learned about the 650s is that they sound great out of the box, but they can be vastly improved upon. The most obvious first step is a good 100+ hour burn-in.

When I first got my 650s, maybe 18 mos. ago, I listened to them for 4-5 months with a stock cable, and almost a year unamped (in fact, checking my journal I was still using the stockers a year ago). I did listen to them before I burned them in, but I don't remember too much, I think I found them to be a bit cold and distant. After a burn-in, with the stock cable they sounded amazing powered by the headphone out on my Yamaha receiver (which is supprisingly good for such an unassuming piece of equipment.)

I did get some Blue Dragon Mk. IIs in May of last year and did a bit of A/B comparison. Even powered by the Yamaha with a moderate-at-best source (Edirol USB DAC), I found a tangible improvement to the sound, especially in the area of tonality. I didn't get an amp until last September, when I bought a GLite + DPS off eBay (from a fellow head-fier who's fairly local, actually). Certainly that made a world of difference. I've discussed the synergy between the GLite and the 650s before, but the short version is that the Senns gain a great sense of spaciousness from the Gilmore's famous "wall of black" sound.

The most recent upgrade I did was buying an Adcom CD player, which has really changed my view of the 650s, though it's taken some time to appreciate the finer aspects of this arrangement.

The two things I have not done with the 650s that I really want to is to run them in balanced mode (the gains of which I read are quite significant), and to hear them with crossfeed. Sounds like there is an expensive Headroom purchase in my future.

The point of this all is that the the HD-650s are quite sensitive headphones, and react quite strongly to whatever is upstream of them. I actually think they are a very good deal in the world of headphones, for two reasons. One, they start out with a good sound, but respond very well to a careful upgrade path. Two, they offer many more listening hours than other cans, in that I never find them to be fatiguing in the slightest. This is in my experience, of course.

 

[Uncle Erik]

Yep. My HD-650s sounded good out of the box, but really sounded good after 100 hours. It continued to about 300 hours, then they settled in.

 

[jl123]

I ran mine 24 hours a day for over a week when I first got mine. Didn't take too long for them to break in.

They still practically run all day.

 

[Oink1]

Congrats mate - 300hrs is the magic number! Enjoy! [size=xx-small](The recable's a good call too!)[/size]

 

[DrewWinters]

Ditto on the sound quality changing. The difference was so obvious I went looking for an explanation (I hadn't heard of "break-in" before - I had convinced myself it had been an illusion when I had heard it in the past).

One more thing to note: I starting using mine with a Headroom Total Bithead; both new at the same time. For the first week or so (not sure on hours) they only sounded okay and the Bithead could not power them properly. I could only bring the volume up to about half of what I can now before clipping. Whether this is a result of the headphones impendence changing with break-in or the amp's caps breaking in I don't know - but it's worth keeping in mind. (most likely the former, however.)