I love the HD650 but am curious what else is out there as this is my first good headphone. Lots of people in the HD650 thread talk about replacing the HD650 with a flagship and coming back to the HD650. Says a lot about the HD650, but interested about experiences of leaving the HD650 and finding something they liked a lot more, whether that be something much more expensive or just something much different like Grados. Obviously hearing is the only way to make an individual decision, but curious about the experience of others as I haven't seen any meets in my area. There is a good audio store near me, though my first experience with headphones wasn't very helpful. Possible a second visit could be better now knowing more about amps and dacs.
I bought 4 HD650's, Dating back to about 2004, maybe sooner.
I must admit I wasn't that impressed with them every time because my expectations were too high.
The 1st pair I bought two amps totalling about $2500, the Earmax Pro Silver Anniversary Edition and the Headroom Maxed Out Home. I still have both amps. 1st was the Maxed Out Home and I didn't hear magic and was told I needed a tube amp to start hearing magic, so I bought the Earmax Pro. Still no Magic. I broke the cable on that pair and forgot about them
A few years later I saw guys raving about them on the forums about a supposed stealth revision, so I bought them again. I decided to buy a Woo amp this time. Still wasn't as magical as I hoped, even after 400 hours of burn in. I had cabling and connector issues with them and broke them too
A few years after that the HD800 was released and Sennheiser had a new flagship and of course, people were raving about it on the forums. So I bought the HD800 AND the HD650 just so I could compare them. By this time I had about 10 headphone amps. Long story short after a few hundreds of hours of burn in I decided to sell both headphones, the 650 for $50 because I'd broken the headband again by sitting on it.
The 4th pair I bought because I'd heard of another stealth revision and got excited again. Dunno, sounded like the same HD650 to me but I didn't have any of the previous versions to compare it with. I broke the headband again.
Today I have 44 headphones and 23 headphone amps. This time last year I had over 100, but I gave away/loaned a bunch to friends and family. The HD650 is a very nice, clean headphone. Boosted treble but very few people know it because it's very smooth and non fatiguing. Natural sounding. Slightly rolled off bass too so while it may sound slightly thin it's extremely clean and clear.
But I personally prefer not to have rolled off bass and hear the natural bass bloat that is present in the recording itself. The HD650 has less rolled off bass and less boosted treble than the HD800, which makes it better for pro use than the HD800.
I'm thinking of buying another pair of HD650's now because my new Oppo PM-1's are not impressing me, but I'll wait for another month of burn in!
I love the closed but I can't travel with it, connector/cable problems. The weight doesn't bother me at all but I think I'll look into a guy that says he can change the connectors for me. That will make it portable.
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