[gargani]

Got a replacement headband today.

Album showing before, during, after: http://imgur.com/a/hb7j7

Spoiler: Thumbnails only

My 598 Ivories are also in need of a new headband. Nice pictures.
One question. To replace the headband, do you loosen the 2 screws on either side to remove the old headband, then attach the new headband and re-tighten the screws?

 

[GoodBoy]

I'm not sure which black edition you're referring to. I said Ivory was superior to Cs, but you prefer Cs. And I do understand; that's why I said "we'll leave it at that." Plus, I've made my comparisons between the 2 clear here and in other threads, some of which you previously commented on, so no need for me to repeat myself.

I was referring to SE that you supposedly returned because of in your opinion much inferior sound quality than ivory edition....

I don't think opens are technically worse nor better than Cs. Despite some differences they are on the same league to me, but yes for music I prefer the latter. For gaming, movies and comfort I prefer the opens.

 

[LazyListener]

I was referring to SE that you supposedly returned because of in your opinion much inferior sound quality than ivory edition....

I don't think opens are technically worse nor better than Cs. Despite some differences they are on the same league to me, but yes for music I prefer the latter. For gaming, movies and comfort I prefer the opens.

Yes, that's true. The SE, which is only a black version of the original ivory, sounded very different, and in my opinion, inferior, to the Ivory. They are supposed to be identical except for color, and others have reported them sounded the same, so I can only assume the one I got had some quality/manufacturing issues. My 2nd Ivory pair, sounded like the first. The SE was the outlier.

 

[mbwilson111]

Yes, that's true. The SE, which is only a black version of the original ivory, sounded very different, and in my opinion, inferior, to the Ivory. They are supposed to be identical except for color, and others have reported them sounded the same, so I can only assume the one I got had some quality/manufacturing issues. My 2nd Ivory pair, sounded like the first. The SE was the outlier.

I have seen you mention that before and found it interesting. I have never heard an Ivory pair. I might have to send my SE into work someday with my husband so he can compare with a workmates Ivory (who loves his Ivory). But will I allow my beloved SE out of the house....

 

[Hammy]

My 598 Ivories are also in need of a new headband. Nice pictures.
One question. To replace the headband, do you loosen the 2 screws on either side to remove the old headband, then attach the new headband and re-tighten the screws?

Nope, no need to unscrew anything. The old headband is held on with some relatively strong adhesive, which requires some tugging force to remove, but then you can just spread the headphones apart and align the new headband into place.

 

[olderroust]

A couple of years ago, I picked up the 598SEs for 99 bucks on the lightning deal. I've always liked them, but found they are a problem with a new pair of glasses - the glasses have long, almost straight, bows that extend behind my ears. The pads on the 598s tend to rest uncomfortably on the bows - that's how long they are.

I saw the Massdrop go up for the 650s, but that would have involved waiting until December. I read a few of the threads that get into detailed measurements of the earcups, and it appears that the 650s have slightly wider ear openings, a vote in their favor. Reading a bit more, I saw that there were folks putting a memory cell earcup called the HM5 on 598s. The problem for me is that memory foam is pretty rigid, and it didn't seem like the geometry of the earcup was much different.

Dorking around on Amazon, I ran into HD650 earcups for 50 bucks and decided to give them a whirl - available much sooner than December, and potentially a way to get the pads off my eyeglasses.

The pads arrived yesterday and I wanted to give my impressions:

- the pads for the 650 do fit the 598 just fine.
- the pads for the 650 are thinner than the stock 598 pads, not a lot - probably 3 mm or so?
- the pads for the 650 are much more comfortable to me than the stock 598 pads. The stock 598 pads, even after having owned the headphones for a couple of years, are much stiffer. Although the new pads still rest on the rear of the glasses, they deform around them much better and put less pressure on them

I haven't sat down and tried to really compare the sound much. The phones still sound very good but I haven't sat and listened to music I know really well yet. Some folks who put the HM5 pads on 598s say those pads make bass louder and uncontrolled - I'm NOT hearing an effect like that, and expect I would. I typically prefer components with reviews at Amazon that say "oooh, the bass is thin" or "but my Beats sound so much better than this wimpy stuff!" and I've returned gear in the past for overdoing bass.

The sort of stuff I'll listen to more carefully is Ry Cooder's Talking Timbuktu and some classical. TT is an album I know very well, and has a well defined sound stage. In the course of setting up speakers in my office recently I know how the headphones compared to decent speakers there, and I can do the same comparisons now.

 

[mbwilson111]

The sort of stuff I'll listen to more carefully is Ry Cooder's Talking Timbuktu

Oh I have not listened to that ever with headphones... only with my old speaker system that I left behind when moving from the states to the uk. I did bring all my cds... going now to bring it down and rip it to Flac...

Thank you!

 

[olderroust]

Oh I have not listened to that ever with headphones... only with my old speaker system that I left behind when moving from the states to the uk. I did bring all my cds... going now to bring it down and rip it to Flac...

Thank you!

Glad I reminded you of it - it's a really nice set of recordings and performances.

So, I sat down and did a bit of a listen, and made two discoveries as well as getting a feel for how they sound.

First, the listen: They sound very good with the new pads. The tonal balance is pretty comparable to the loudspeakers in the office and free of nasty "that sounds like a speaker saying 'look at me' rather than music" artifacts. So, the sound balance is pretty comparable to what it was before I made the change. I'm comparing them against a pair of Gallo CL-1s (nice speaker, I got mine via ebay on closeout from Gallo. There are a few available at A-gon as well. It's a conventional 2 way speaker, doesn't have the fancy tweeter that the boxes up the price chain have, but is supposed to have a pretty interesting crossover layout, a first-order crossover only for the tweeter.) I would give the edge to the Gallos for soundstaging - but that's been true for some time, they're surprisingly good at that. Both the headphones and the speakers get the benefit of a subwoofer in the room - full range signal from the receiver goes to an old Velodyne, and from there to a Monoprice desktop amp. Source is FLAC to a Yammie RX-V1200 av receiver with the bells and whistles off - cheap on Craigslist, can handle 4 or 8 ohm speakers, has an FM tuner as well as both optical and coax digital inputs and a variable gain analog stereo output intended, I think, to feed a second amplifier but handy for feeding a sub.

discovery 1: Your amplifier's headphone jack can make your headphones sound pretty bad. In the course of looking at how to quickly
swap between headphones and speakers I thought "this amp cuts the speakers right away when a headphone jack is inserted. I'll see if what they say about
receiver headphone jacks is true."

Boy howdy is it. Overwhelming bass and a seriously rolled off high end. Just miserable sounding.

- I am uncomfortable trying to snap the original earpads back into place. It's the weirdest thing - I did a test remove-and-replace before trying to fit the new pads. And getting the original pads back on took some effort but worked out fine. The new pads went on so easily, I initially thought something was wrong. Today, I removed the new pad to get a photo of it alongside the original, thinking I'd put the originals back on and do some additional listening. I'm no longer willing to - they simply won't snap on easily enough compared to the new pads. You can see the difference in the geometry below - the plastic ring that clips the 650 earcup into place has a wider diameter than the ring on 598se that I received.

The 650 earpad is also slenderer

I may, at some point, get around to forcing the 598 pads back on. Probably not Right Away, though - doing it won't let me be a whole lot more precise than I am now, even if I sit and take notes.

And it doesn't make a huge difference - these sound fine now and are more comfortable than they were.

 

[Hammy]

Glad I reminded you of it - it's a really nice set of recordings and performances.

So, I sat down and did a bit of a listen, and made two discoveries as well as getting a feel for how they sound.

First, the listen: They sound very good with the new pads. The tonal balance is pretty comparable to the loudspeakers in the office and free of nasty "that sounds like a speaker saying 'look at me' rather than music" artifacts. So, the sound balance is pretty comparable to what it was before I made the change. I'm comparing them against a pair of Gallo CL-1s (nice speaker, I got mine via ebay on closeout from Gallo. There are a few available at A-gon as well. It's a conventional 2 way speaker, doesn't have the fancy tweeter that the boxes up the price chain have, but is supposed to have a pretty interesting crossover layout, a first-order crossover only for the tweeter.) I would give the edge to the Gallos for soundstaging - but that's been true for some time, they're surprisingly good at that. Both the headphones and the speakers get the benefit of a subwoofer in the room - full range signal from the receiver goes to an old Velodyne, and from there to a Monoprice desktop amp. Source is FLAC to a Yammie RX-V1200 av receiver with the bells and whistles off - cheap on Craigslist, can handle 4 or 8 ohm speakers, has an FM tuner as well as both optical and coax digital inputs and a variable gain analog stereo output intended, I think, to feed a second amplifier but handy for feeding a sub.

discovery 1: Your amplifier's headphone jack can make your headphones sound pretty bad. In the course of looking at how to quickly
swap between headphones and speakers I thought "this amp cuts the speakers right away when a headphone jack is inserted. I'll see if what they say about
receiver headphone jacks is true."

Boy howdy is it. Overwhelming bass and a seriously rolled off high end. Just miserable sounding.

- I am uncomfortable trying to snap the original earpads back into place. It's the weirdest thing - I did a test remove-and-replace before trying to fit the new pads. And getting the original pads back on took some effort but worked out fine. The new pads went on so easily, I initially thought something was wrong. Today, I removed the new pad to get a photo of it alongside the original, thinking I'd put the originals back on and do some additional listening. I'm no longer willing to - they simply won't snap on easily enough compared to the new pads. You can see the difference in the geometry below - the plastic ring that clips the 650 earcup into place has a wider diameter than the ring on 598se that I received.

The 650 earpad is also slenderer

I may, at some point, get around to forcing the 598 pads back on. Probably not Right Away, though - doing it won't let me be a whole lot more precise than I am now, even if I sit and take notes.

And it doesn't make a huge difference - these sound fine now and are more comfortable than they were.

Love me some pad rolling.

The original ivory pads have the same mounting ring as the HD650 pictured. Do all SE versions have that hard plastic ring? Never seen it before, but I don't know anything about the SE 598s.

 

[gargani]

Nope, no need to unscrew anything. The old headband is held on with some relatively strong adhesive, which requires some tugging force to remove, but then you can just spread the headphones apart and align the new headband into place.

Oh, I see. Thanks for the information.
Now I just have to find someone who sells it, and ships to Canada.

 

[gargani]

Glad I reminded you of it - it's a really nice set of recordings and performances.

So, I sat down and did a bit of a listen, and made two discoveries as well as getting a feel for how they sound.

First, the listen: They sound very good with the new pads. The tonal balance is pretty comparable to the loudspeakers in the office and free of nasty "that sounds like a speaker saying 'look at me' rather than music" artifacts. So, the sound balance is pretty comparable to what it was before I made the change. I'm comparing them against a pair of Gallo CL-1s (nice speaker, I got mine via ebay on closeout from Gallo. There are a few available at A-gon as well. It's a conventional 2 way speaker, doesn't have the fancy tweeter that the boxes up the price chain have, but is supposed to have a pretty interesting crossover layout, a first-order crossover only for the tweeter.) I would give the edge to the Gallos for soundstaging - but that's been true for some time, they're surprisingly good at that. Both the headphones and the speakers get the benefit of a subwoofer in the room - full range signal from the receiver goes to an old Velodyne, and from there to a Monoprice desktop amp. Source is FLAC to a Yammie RX-V1200 av receiver with the bells and whistles off - cheap on Craigslist, can handle 4 or 8 ohm speakers, has an FM tuner as well as both optical and coax digital inputs and a variable gain analog stereo output intended, I think, to feed a second amplifier but handy for feeding a sub.

discovery 1: Your amplifier's headphone jack can make your headphones sound pretty bad. In the course of looking at how to quickly
swap between headphones and speakers I thought "this amp cuts the speakers right away when a headphone jack is inserted. I'll see if what they say about
receiver headphone jacks is true."

Boy howdy is it. Overwhelming bass and a seriously rolled off high end. Just miserable sounding.

- I am uncomfortable trying to snap the original earpads back into place. It's the weirdest thing - I did a test remove-and-replace before trying to fit the new pads. And getting the original pads back on took some effort but worked out fine. The new pads went on so easily, I initially thought something was wrong. Today, I removed the new pad to get a photo of it alongside the original, thinking I'd put the originals back on and do some additional listening. I'm no longer willing to - they simply won't snap on easily enough compared to the new pads. You can see the difference in the geometry below - the plastic ring that clips the 650 earcup into place has a wider diameter than the ring on 598se that I received.

The 650 earpad is also slenderer

I may, at some point, get around to forcing the 598 pads back on. Probably not Right Away, though - doing it won't let me be a whole lot more precise than I am now, even if I sit and take notes.

And it doesn't make a huge difference - these sound fine now and are more comfortable than they were.

From what I've read, most recievers have a high impedance at the headphone jack output. Oddly enough, the HD 598's (and hd 518, hd558) don't seem to be designed for use with recievers (or any device or source with a high output impedance). That's because they have a huge rise in impedance in the bass frequencies.
I have actually made some crude frequency measurements with an spl meter, held close to the driver; with the 598's plugged into my objective 2 amplifier, as compared to plugged into my Yamaha reciever.
The bass response starts to rise at 40hz , peaking at 7db to 8db, between 70hz and 125hz, then levels out by 250 hz, when plugged into my Yamaha. That is a huge bass boost.
This doesn't happen with any of my other headphones, because none of them have extreme variations in impedance , like the 598's do.

 

[mbwilson111]

From what I've read, most recievers have a high impedance at the headphone jack output. Oddly enough, the HD 598's (and hd 518, hd558) don't seem to be designed for use with recievers (or any device or source with a high output impedance). That's because they have a huge rise in impedance in the bass frequencies.
I have actually made some crude frequency measurements with an spl meter, held close to the driver; with the 598's plugged into my objective 2 amplifier, as compared to plugged into my Yamaha reciever.
The bass response starts to rise at 40hz , peaking at 7db to 8db, between 70hz and 125hz, then levels out by 250 hz, when plugged into my Yamaha. That is a huge bass boost.
This doesn't happen with any of my other headphones, because none of them have extreme variations in impedance , like the 598's do.

I have not tried my 598s (or any of my headphones) with our A/V receiver (was an Onkyo recently replaced with a Denon).
I have used it with all of these except the Nobsound(copied from my profile page):

Fiio E12A Mont Blanc (portable)
SMSL M6 Dac/Amp (for desktop pc)
Nobsound NS-01E mini hybrid black (also on desk but only fed by Daps)
xDuoo ta-03 tube amp in living room

I have used it the most with the portable one as I have had that the longest and only recently got the tube amp. I have been happy with it with all but I have never tried to measure anything. I just like to enjoy my music and not concentrate too much on the equipment. The equipment is a tool. If I am enjoying the music that is all that is important to me. Having said that, I do enjoy different sound signatures. The Sennheisers are not my only headphone (headfi's fault).

I think I will plug it into the little Nobsound later...

 

[gargani]

I have not tried my 598s (or any of my headphones with our A/V receiver (was an Onkyo recently replaced with a Denon).
I have used it with all of these except the Nobsound(copied from my profile page):

Fiio E12A Mont Blanc (portable)
SMSL M6 Dac/Amp (for desktop pc)
Nobsound NS-01E mini hybrid black (also on desk but only fed by Daps)
xDuoo ta-03 tube amp in living room

I have used it the most with the portable one as I have had that the longest and only recently got the tube amp. I have been happy with it with all but I have never tried to measure anything. I just like to enjoy my music and not concentrate too much on the equipment. The equipment is a tool. If I am enjoying the music that is all that is important to me. Having said that, I do enjoy different sound signatures. The Sennheisers are not my only headphone (headfi's fault).

I think I will plug it into the little Nobsound later...

Before I got the objective 2 amplifier, I plugged all of my headphones into the headphone jack on my Yamaha reciever or my Samsung tablet.
When I got the HD 598's and plugged them into my reciever, what I heard , was similar to what olderroust heard. My impression was: " holy cow, these are pretty bassy".

I was baffled. Of all the reviews I had read, no one mentioned the 598's as being bassy headphones; if anything, some people were saying they didn't have enough bass.
Upon further reading, I came across the impedance "thing'': high output impedance at the device headphone jack, high impedance spike, in the bass frequencies, on the hd598's = boosted bass

That's why I bought the objective2 headphone amp. I wanted to hear the 598's the way they were supposed to sound; or at least, the way everyone else was hearing them.

If you're interested, pick a song with some bass, play it through one of your amps and listen with the 598's ; then play it through your denon with the 598's connected to the denons headphone jack. If the Denon has a much higher output impedance than your amp(s), you'll hear the increased bass. No need for measurements. I just made the measurements out of curiosity.

I agree with you, that the main reason to listen to music through headphones, is to enjoy the music. However, I have to admit, sometimes, I find myself listening to the " equipment". (Oops).

By the way, that's quite a collection of headphones you have.

 

[Nells]

By this point I've gotten to own/try a lot of expensive flagships, and while they're obviously better I still can't get over how incredible the HD598's sound at their price point. They're actually so good.

I wish they didn't discontinue the ivory models though.

 

[gargani]

They may be discontinued, but you can still buy them, new and used.(amazon.com, amazon.ca, new egg, ebay)