[bifcake]

Eagle_Driver,

Isn't that plagiarism? I want royalties for that!

Brian,

I don't mind you defending 590's to your heart's content as long as you use the Avatar I made. You can't be anonymous and defend 590's. You gotta show your face.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Oops. Sorry, bifcake; I deleted the questionable part of my post.

 

[bifcake]

Eagle,

That's better. Else I would have had to beat you with a Cardas cable.

 

[bkelly]

acs236,

Where you at?



Best
Brian

 

[acs236]

For me, the ideal work headphones would have to be open and extremely comfortable. And they better sound pretty damn good as well. To further this purpose, I have acquired the Sennheiser 580 and 590. As a preliminary matter, I feel that I should let everyone know that I purchased the 580s new. At present, they have about 50-100 hours of mileage on them. The 590s, purchased used, have closer to 200 hours of use on them. I am reviewing them in their stock form, free from any tweaking whatsoever.

My personal preferences are also relevant as they certainly color this review. I’m not a bass fanatic, but that’s an understatement. I confess that I probably prefer less bass than most people – keep that in mind. Also, to further acquaint you with my tastes, if Etymotic Research came out with a full size, circumaural headphone that sounded like the 4x series with the soundstage improvement of a full-size, open phone, I would purchase it and be done with the matter.

Not surprisingly, both phones meet my comfort requirement, with the edge going to the 590s because of their light weight. On to the sound…

I. Acoustic Guitar

Being a guitar player, I often listen to acoustic guitar music for comparison purposes. I know very well how acoustic guitar sounds, and can thus evaluate how accurately a pair of headphones reproduces the instrument. Of course, I realize how the recording is manipulated, but I feel that comparing to live sound is the best I can do.
Compared to the 580, the 590 seems to resonate more – the “decay” of the plucked string is slower and longer. While this particular quality varies from guitar to guitar, it sounds as if the sustain is just a bit unnatural. Additionally, the lower notes are significantly more pronounced. I certainly wouldn’t call the 590s boomy – it’s rather controlled. However, the bass notes on the guitar creep into the unpleasant zone. I suspect I could cure this by a careful EQ adjustment.
Both phones sound good to me, but overall I give the nod to the 580s not only for the above reasons, but as a whole I think the acoustic guitar music that I listened to sounded more realistic with the 580s.

II. The Battle of the Reverend

Next, I compared “The Reverend” segment of the “Battle of Epping Forrest” on Genesis album Selling England By the Pound. I chose this piece for the very nice snare/hi-hat (I think) combination played pretty much throughout the segment by a Phil Collins not yet soiled by his inability to dance and free from even the yearning to write a Disney score. When listening to this track with the 580s for the past few weeks, I was struck by how excellent it sounded. I could really appreciate the precision of even strike of the hi-hat.

As said, I chose this piece because of how nice it sounded with 580s. The 590s did an admirable job with the piece as well, but with a tad of the high hat sound missing. I found the difference subtle, but the 580 was a bit more realistic.

III. Close to the Edge

One of my all-time favorite pieces of music. The introduction is so busy that it turns lesser headphones into murky, plodding poop – not so with either of these phones. The first time through I tried to follow individual instrument lines throughout the introduction. I was able to easily follow the guitar (obviously), the drums and keyboards with the 580s. The bass guitar was slightly more difficult. The 590s made it much easier to follow the bass guitar. Additionally, the fairly high frequency keyboard track struck out more as well. The slightly muffled sound of the 580s’ midrange really hurts them here. While I found the 590s to also have the slightly muffled character in the midrange as well, it is surely less. I preferred the 590s when listening to this track, and suspect I would for most fast, busy music.


IV. Conclusions
Since these phones would be used for the same purpose, it is my intention to decide which one I like more and sell the other. That decision is still far off, and will require much more listening. Also, I wanted to tweak both the 580s and 590s a bit. I also have a Vision 1 cable to try with the 590s. However, the pushed bass concerns me. I'll update this thread with more impressions as they come to me. Time to do some more listening!

 

[bifcake]

ACS, that's a pretty good review. What source and amps did you use? Did you try switching interconnnects to see if that would make any difference or try different sources and amps?

 

[bkelly]

acs236,

Upur review was definitley well written and informative. Where do you get the Visions 1 cable for the 590? I have a Stefan Arts cable on mine which calms the 590 down a bit and makes them noticeably cleaner sounding although the difference is not huge by any means.

I have tried the Cardas, Stefan Arts and Clou Red on the 600's and the Clou was my favorite becasue it can noticeably wake the 600's up although the Cardas offers a significant boost in the high end.

I was surprised that you said the mid-range was recessed on both the 590 and the 580. A recessed mid-range is definitely not a general criticism of the 590. Most people think they are too in your face to be called recessed.

On my system what drives me nuts about the 600 is all of the small detail like pick and string noise is either softened or gone. This is especially true on violing music (no bow grinding even though if you were standing there when it was recorded you would have heard it) Depending on your taste this may be a good thing to some but irritates me.

Anyhow, keep the review coming.

 

[acs236]

Thanks everyone.

Bkelly, I'm not sure if "recessed" is the word the I'm looking for. I think both the 580s have a very thick, creamy midrange, and the 590s less so, but compared to the midrange of the Ety 4s, it seems a bit "less clear" to me. I've heard the lower end Grados a while back (60s, 80s, 125s) and I think the midrange of the 590s is closer to the 580s than to the Grados. If the Grados are the typical forward phone, I don't think I'd describe the 590s as forward. It's been a while since I've heard the Grados.

Like I said, I still have a lot of listening to do, and I'll post more impressions later. I'll listen to a few string quartet performances.

I bought one of the last Vison cables from Stefan Audioart. I've been told that they're being discontinued. I figure I should get used to the 590s with the stock cable more before I switch to the Vision 1.

 

[acs236]

Quote:

Originally posted by bifcake ACS, that's a pretty good review. What source and amps did you use? Did you try switching interconnnects to see if that would make any difference or try different sources and amps?

I believe the sources I used were the most limiting factor here. I used a H/K CD player, my Toshiba 6200 DVD player, and my Slim-X -- I compared the various pieces on the same equipment though.

As for interconnects, I have a straightwire and a Markertek mini-mini. I used the straigtwire most of the time, but I'll try the Markertek.

I used the headphone out of my Sony receiver and my META42 (portable).

 

[Joe Bloggs]

If you don't want much bass, you really ought to be looking at something like the AKG K401/501 (which have an early bass rolloff and provide a very 'clear' sound to those who don't mind the missing bass) and the Beyerdynamic DT831/931 (the 831 is a closed phone with little bass but high praise in all other regards; the DT931 has phenomenal bass EXTENSION but it is usually perceived as bass light because it does not have a bass hump, unlike most phones with good bass extension.

The Sennheisers you're looking at are known for their above average bass response and the 580 in particular for its annoying 'midbass hump'.

 

[acs236]

Joe,

From your description (and that of Headroom) it does seem like the Beyerdynamic 931s would be ideal for me. I don't want to miss the bass, but I still want it there. Maybe I'm searching for a flat bass response, or even a dip -- I'm not sure. I'll keep my eye out of for the 931s.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by Joe Bloggs the DT931 has phenomenal bass EXTENSION but it is usually perceived as bass light because it does not have a bass hump, unlike most phones with good bass extension.

Joe, having heard the 931, I don't feel that they are "bass light" because other phones with good bass have a hump. I think they're light in the bass because, well, they're light in the bass

IMO the HeadRoom graph for the DT931 isn't representative of their sound.

 

[Tim D]

I think the graphs on the DT931 are ok...it is just the psychoacoustic effects of having elevated treble compared to the rest of the frequencies...after coming off a headphone like HD600 you will hear mostly treble, and recessed everything else. To most people coming off of HD600 sound, both midrange and bass just come off weak. This is just like how ER4P's differ from ER4S mostly in treble instead of bass...I guess to most it comes off as a bass difference, but to others with critical ears it is recognized for muted treble.

Impedance matching helps the situation. And after listening to the DT931 for a long time, you can definitely begin to appreciate the pretty flat response all the way up to mid treble. Unfortunately I'd still put an impedance compensated DT931 as still bright particularly in some areas even after I've listened to them for awhile, however instead of trying to compensate even further by upgrading the things before it, I just got AKG240S instead and I'm happy with them.

In terms of criteria, it is pretty hard to get flat bass without the midbass hump, or without early fall off (like other popular AKG models), or without elevated treble or peakiness in some areas like Beyers, or without getting ER4's. AKG240S although not stellar in all areas, fit this criteria which is not met by most IMO.

HD600 bass is not the best in absolute extension but very good...and as far as all its other traits including a midrange and treble that is pretty much in check with no real rises, it is easy to appreciate HD600 bass for most people. It takes a highly critical ear to be dissapointed in HD600 bass extension...that and equipment that isn't up to the job. With all the right equipment and accessories you can basically flatten the midbass hump down by piling heavy stacks of money over it.

And of course there are people that don't mind having or notice a midbass hump at all...it is such a common audio trait and there are so few headphones/speakers that don't have it and don't have something wrong going on in other areas.

 

[MacDEF]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tim D I think the graphs on the DT931 are ok...it is just the psychoacoustic effects of having elevated treble compared to the rest of the frequencies

I think this is a pretty fair analysis, Tim, and a much better one than "other good headphones have exaggerated bass." It's definitely true that the bass and mids are "recessed" in comparison with the treble. I retract my statement about them necessarily bass light, and change it to "they have flat bass but the upper mids and treble are elevated so it sounds like they don't have good bass"

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Have you tried adding a 120Ohm impedance adapter to the DT931?