[Audioholic123]

In my experiences, everytime I listened to some music on my $2,000 Cyrus system, the HD600's where always beaten by my old $1K Denon ah-d7000's. For many years i've searched for the right headphone to match my Cyrus system and I discovered that older headphones such as DT150's and HD600's (whilst always maintaining their "right" or "neutral-ish" sound) only scale so far on this system and are always exceeded or out-performed by the more expensive headphones. The difference between the HD600 and ah-d7000 when compared on my system was like 10% - 15% in favour of the Denons...the bass, mid's and treble on the 600's just wouldn't scale any further, the soundstage seemed to be hitting a wall...whereas the ah-d7000's just was noticeably wider and rounder, even though it's a closed headphone and the HD600's are open. You get what you pay for (most of the time)...

 

[danmlr]

There is so much disagreement due to individual preferences in sound signature.
 
Add to that a lack of volume matching.
 
Add to that the impossibility of blind testing since these headphones are all built differently and easy to distinguish. 
 
Add to that, placebo effect/backwards rationalizing price vs. performance. 
 
 
So far we have:
 
hd600 is better than the latest $1K+ flagship headphones vs. hd600 is easily outclassed by older $1K models. 
 
Everyone says hd600 easily competes with headphones at 5 to 10X the price vs. no one is saying that. 
 
The credibility of these wildly conflicting statements really makes you wonder about the reliability of head fi forums, no?

 

[Audioholic123]

  There is so much disagreement due to individual preferences in sound signature.
 
Add to that a lack of volume matching.
 
Add to that the impossibility of blind testing since these headphones are all built differently and easy to distinguish. 
 
Add to that, placebo effect/backwards rationalizing price vs. performance. 
 
 
So far we have:
 
hd600 is better than the latest $1K+ flagship headphones vs. hd600 is easily outclassed by older $1K models. 
 
Everyone says hd600 easily competes with headphones at 5 to 10X the price vs. no one is saying that. 
 
The credibility of these wildly conflicting statements really makes you wonder about the reliability of head fi forums, no?

You get what you pay for (most of the time)....

 

[StanD]

  There is so much disagreement due to individual preferences in sound signature.
 
Add to that a lack of volume matching.
 
Add to that the impossibility of blind testing since these headphones are all built differently and easy to distinguish. 
 
Add to that, placebo effect/backwards rationalizing price vs. performance. 
 
 
So far we have:
 
hd600 is better than the latest $1K+ flagship headphones vs. hd600 is easily outclassed by older $1K models. 
 
Everyone says hd600 easily competes with headphones at 5 to 10X the price vs. no one is saying that. 
 
The credibility of these wildly conflicting statements really makes you wonder about the reliability of head fi forums, no?

Most of what you read is subjective, hence unreliable, since a proper comparison was not done. Since human echoic memory lasts but for a few seconds we tend to fill in the blanks with our expectations/placebo and will believe this to the very end. I am not impressed with comparisons made across a span of time, which is often the case.

 

[Brooko]

  You get what you pay for (most of the time)....

 
Sadly - that is one statement I heartily disagree with.
 
And yes - IMO the HD600 (for my tastes) competes easily with headphones up to 4-5 times it's price.

 

[Me x3]

  There is so much disagreement due to individual preferences in sound signature.
(...)  
The credibility of these wildly conflicting statements really makes you wonder about the reliability of head fi forums, no?

 
It's not a head-fi thing, head-fi is what it is. Everyone can come in and share impressions without showing credentials and that's great. Everything has pros and cons, that's granted. You'll find very knowledgeable people writing comparisons based on objective stuff + subjective impressions based on long term critical listening and you'll find people who only own headphone "A", bashing headphone "B" based on a 5minute listen under meeting conditions. You'll find metal-heads impressions of a headphone and you probably listen to Opera instead, so those impression will be useless for you. The thing is, you have to do the filtering here. If you read head-fi for a while you start knowing who has similar preferences as you do, who write solid impressions and who's simply a headphone "A" fan boy.

 

[siwolfman]

Has anyone had the chance to listen to the Elear and compare/contrast with the HD 600?

 

[danmlr]

   
Sadly - that is one statement I heartily disagree with.
 
And yes - IMO the HD600 (for my tastes) competes easily with headphones up to 4-5 times it's price.

And likely that headphones at 1/4 to 1/5th the price of the senn's can compete with the hd600's. 
 
Hence, budget headphones can compete with headphones at 16 to 25X the price.
 
Or, is senn hd600 at $250 to $300 the magical cutoff price for headphone excellence?

 

[Audioholic123]

I don't want to bash the HD600 and i'm not trying to. 9 times out of 10 I have got what I paid for in audio equipment (i've spent around $5,000 so far). I've spent thousands of hours with (off the top of my head) at least 34 $100 to $1,200 headphones in the last decade alone. But i've been exposed to high-end sound quality all my life, my father was into this hobby also. I'm an audioholic through and through...addicted!
 
My point is that i'm more than qualified to make these statements Brooko, I mean what I say man.

 

[Argyris]

  I am not impressed with comparisons made across a span of time, which is often the case.

 
I tend to agree, except that often times it's the best a lot of people can do, unless their profession is reviewing headphones and they happen to have a huge stable to choose from for comparison. Most people progress through various models, selling off earlier ones to fund later purchases, sending back or selling ones they don't like, or else just giving them away as gifts when they think they have something better. Greater than half the headphones I've tried are things I never bought or ended up returning for one reason or another. When I do bring them up, I do so in very general terms, or else I recite impressions I remember having at the time. And I always point out that my impressions are of something I listened to quite a while ago or had limited exposure to, since that's a very different thing from offering a definitive "this is exactly how it is" perspective.
 
The only thing I'm convinced of about my powers of perception is that they're definitely not infallible.

 

[kman1211]

  In my experiences, everytime I listened to some music on my $2,000 Cyrus system, the HD600's where always beaten by my old $1K Denon ah-d7000's. For many years i've searched for the right headphone to match my Cyrus system and I discovered that older headphones such as DT150's and HD600's (whilst always maintaining their "right" or "neutral-ish" sound) only scale so far on this system and are always exceeded or out-performed by the more expensive headphones. The difference between the HD600 and ah-d7000 when compared on my system was like 10% - 15% in favour of the Denons...the bass, mid's and treble on the 600's just wouldn't scale any further, the soundstage seemed to be hitting a wall...whereas the ah-d7000's just was noticeably wider and rounder, even though it's a closed headphone and the HD600's are open. You get what you pay for (most of the time)...

I have noticed the HD 6xx does stop scaling up much at a certain point(I don't have that level of gear), it scales up still but it's not near as dramatic. Some of the more expensive headphones do scale up more, but finding the right headphones can take some research as well. I do have an Audioquest Nighthawk I plan on comparing the HD 600 to. The Nighthawk uses a similar driver to the D7000, curious of what my impressions will be of their fidelity compared to each other. I bought the HD 600 for it's sound signature and presentation mainly, I know there are more refined headphones out there. Also I want the HD 600 due to it's importance and influence as a neutral benchmark for amp design, etc. I want the headphone as a baseline I can always compare everything to. I do plan on going a level higher in headphones in time, but deciding what exactly I want after some listening, whether the HD 800 S, Elear, etc.

 

[Argyris]

  Only reason I went with HD-650 first was cost, it was cheaper than the HD-600 at the time from Amazon, ($290 for HD-650 vs $339 for HD-600).  When I finally bough a HD-600 it was $235 during the black Friday sale last year.

 
Just saw this part of your post. I remember about a year and a half ago that the HD 650 dipped below the price of the HD 600 on Amazon. In fact, your prices are about where the two were during this period. I was considering the HD 650 then, but I had other priorities for the money I had on hand and decided to pass. I often looked back on that point and wondered if I'd missed a stellar deal, which, going by Amazon prices, I did indeed. I guess it doesn't matter because I feel like I got a pretty good deal on the HD 600, and while I'd still love to try an HD 650 someday and may well like it, I'm pretty much over the moon about the HD 600.
 
I don't want to think about what I would have done if the HD 650 had dipped down to ~$250 on Prime Day. I may very well have one in my collection now if that had happened.

 

[Brooko]

 
And likely that headphones at 1/4 to 1/5th the price of the senn's can compete with the hd600's. 
 
Hence, budget headphones can compete with headphones at 16 to 25X the price.
 
Or, is senn hd600 at $250 to $300 the magical cutoff price for headphone excellence?

 
Not in my experience.  You're talking about headphones in the $50-$100 range competing with the HD600 on a roughly even footing - nope, I can't think of a single one (please let me know any you think compete on an almost equal footing).
 
There is a reason that even after 20 years, the big three (HD600, DT880 and K701/2 or variants) are still regarded so highly. They are all incredibly capable headphones, and all undervalued considering he sonic performance they deliver.  And of the three (and I know this is personal preference), the HD600 IMO is the most natural sounding (timbre and tone).  That makes it THE absolute bargain in the $250-300 range.
 

  I don't want to bash the HD600 and i'm not trying to. 9 times out of 10 I have got what I paid for in audio equipment (i've spent around $5,000 so far). I've spent thousands of hours with (off the top of my head) at least 34 $100 to $1,200 headphones in the last decade alone. But i've been exposed to high-end sound quality all my life, my father was into this hobby also. I'm an audioholic through and through...addicted!
 
My point is that i'm more than qualified to make these statements Brooko, I mean what I say man.

 
And you're entitled to your opinion - just as we all are.  I just happen to disagree with your statement that most of the time you get what you pay for.  Especially in audio.

 

[Me x3]

 
And likely that headphones at 1/4 to 1/5th the price of the senn's can compete with the hd600's. 
 
Hence, budget headphones can compete with headphones at 16 to 25X the price.
 
Or, is senn hd600 at $250 to $300 the magical cutoff price for headphone excellence?

There are some headphones like the Pioneer SE-A1000 which can provide HD650-like experience for less than 50 dollars.
That said these are not as good as HD650 but some whould say they have the very best price/performance ratio.
 
I don't think HD600 (DT880 or K702) at $250 to $300 are the magical cutoff price for headphone excellence, but I do think these are pretty much as good as it gets technically speaking, and then personal preferences start playing a bigger role than technicalities, so you might end up prefering one of them over a much more expensive headphone that's not as close to your preferred sound signature.

 

[Audioholic123]

Of course there are headphones that seem good or even great value for money (Pioneer SE-A1000/Fostex T50RP/DT770/ AKGK612/HD 558 can all be had for less than $100) but IMO they are like fad's. For me, the HD600 was a fad...

...yes it was! the AKG K712 Pro performs better on my system.
 
A fad is defined as: "an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something"...
For a period of time, people think "WOW...this is the best thing i've ever heard!!!"...but within a few months they are back on the forums and back in the audio stores looking for something better. That is not true value for money IMO. True value for money are headphones such as the HD800/Fostex TH900 because they can do everything that their predecessor's can do only they do it better. Headphones like those can actually save you money in the long term.
 
Cheers.