[tdockweiler]

 
Quote:

The HD 580/600 is accurate and not colored or musical. 

Well..the HD-580 doesn't sound like the 600. Very similar and same driver. The grill changes the sound a little. HD-580 is very musical to me. The HD-600 less so..(for me)
 
Neither are perfectly neutral IMO. I would say the HD-580 is slightly more colored due to it's more forward upper mids and treble.
This is the only reason it's a little more "fun" for me.
 
Someone is a genius if they can tell me why my HD-600 makes my garbage tracks sound better than they really are. Isn't that itself a coloration?
My HD-580 makes my garbage music sounds like garbage and the HD-600 doesn't. I won't say anything..
 
BTW the upper mids on the HD-580 can often be somewhat fatiguing. Much more so than the HD-600.

 

[kingoftown1]

Quote:

So I've been on the quest again. I've owned the HD600 in the past and I really liked it but I moved on but have been unable to find the tonality and presentation of the HD600 in any other headphone. Is there a natural upgrade to the HD600 because I have been unable to find such a headphone. I want it to coincide with my HE500 and Magnums but no idea where to start other than buying another HD600 but I did not like the headband at all as well as the tight clamp. If only Sennheiser made a HD800 level headphone but with the HD600 in mind..

So I take it the HE500 isn't the natural HD600 upgrade I thought it was?

 
 

 

[palmfish]

Quote:

 

 
Accurate is different from identical. What you want to say is that once a performance is recorded, the music must be colored when you listen to it through some electric appliance.
 
My experience is that when I listen to a music, which was enjoyable through low-end earphones, becomes less appealing with a high-end so called neutral and high clarity headphone, I inevitable love less that music, because, jeez, this woman is actuall saying quite bad!
 
Like it is okay to add MSG in food. I may sometimes want to listen that music again with my low-end headphone.
 
Lots of descriptions in this forum presupposes there is the music itself. For instance, the term "colored" is not possible unless you presuppose there is one original sound. It seems that people here often have the consensus about which headphone is more neutral. But it is possible that the concept of neutral was created by the audiophiles. And there is nothing as neutral.
 
So, my conclusion is only about the value of originality (for a headphone), but share the suspicion with you that whether there is indeed something as original. This suspicion is right because listening seems to be something very subjective. Who knows your original is the same as others' original? You can be rightly skeptical about all forms of description in this forum.
 
But once people agree that a headphone is neutral, You are hard to disagree that there is no extra credit for originality/neutrality/authenticity etc.

 


Quote:

 


Well..the HD-580 doesn't sound like the 600. Very similar and same driver. The grill changes the sound a little. HD-580 is very musical to me. The HD-600 less so..(for me)
 
Neither are perfectly neutral IMO. I would say the HD-580 is slightly more colored due to it's more forward upper mids and treble.
This is the only reason it's a little more "fun" for me.
 
Someone is a genius if they can tell me why my HD-600 makes my garbage tracks sound better than they really are. Isn't that itself a coloration?
My HD-580 makes my garbage music sounds like garbage and the HD-600 doesn't. I won't say anything..
 
BTW the upper mids on the HD-580 can often be somewhat fatiguing. Much more so than the HD-600.

Calling one headphone more accurate than another is like someone who has never eaten an orange saying that Orange Crush tastes more like a real orange than Sunkist Orange Soda.
 

 

[rawrster]

Quote:

So I take it the HE500 isn't the natural HD600 upgrade I thought it was?

 

The HE500 is the better headphone than the HD600 but if you wanted a HD600 on steroids to say then no I would not say that of the HE500.

 

[mrAdrian]

Quote:

All headphones are colored - there is no such thing as an "accurate" headphone.
 
The quest is to find the one that sounds good to you.
 

Quote:

If you know of a headphone that is uncolored to the point that it can recreate the original sound it is transmitting with such a high level of accuracy that no measurement device can detect any difference between the original sound and the headphones duplication of the same sound, then I don't want math - I want a make and model number...

All I was trying to say is that there should be such thing as an accurate headphone, because we know some headphones are more 'accurate' or 'true to source' to others. Unless there is some unreachable limits from laws of physics or what so ever, such headphone that can 'recreate the original sound it is transmitting...' is possible - maybe in an infinite future. And there exist one headphone that can perform the best at this regard right at this moment, as long as, again, if headphones have different levels of accuracy.
 
In fact, HeadFi comes from Hi-Fi right? Isn't Hi-Fi a short form of High Fidelity, 'The reproduction of sound with the minimum distortion, giving a result similar to the original'?

 
Quote:

 

 
Accurate is different from identical. What you want to say is that once a performance is recorded, the music must be colored when you listen to it through some electric appliance.
 
My experience is that when I listen to a music, which was enjoyable through low-end earphones, becomes less appealing with a high-end so called neutral and high clarity headphone, I inevitable love less that music, because, jeez, this woman is actuall saying quite bad!
 
Like it is okay to add MSG in food. I may sometimes want to listen that music again with my low-end headphone.
 
Lots of descriptions in this forum presupposes there is the music itself. For instance, the term "colored" is not possible unless you presuppose there is one original sound. It seems that people here often have the consensus about which headphone is more neutral. But it is possible that the concept of neutral was created by the audiophiles. And there is nothing as neutral.
 
So, my conclusion is only about the value of originality (for a headphone), but share the suspicion with you that whether there is indeed something as original. This suspicion is right because listening seems to be something very subjective. Who knows your original is the same as others' original? You can be rightly skeptical about all forms of description in this forum.
 
But once people agree that a headphone is neutral, You are hard to disagree that there is no extra credit for originality/neutrality/authenticity etc.

I agree with a lot of what you think. But to me, hi-fi is different to the best sounding pair. So in my definition, 'originality' is how well the system can reproduce the live, unplugged sound, and hence it should be objective (edit: or the way the producer intends us to listen, or maybe how he heard his music), and the sole point of reference one could describe a headphone. It would be fantastic if I can compare what I hear live, unplugged, vs what signal is being processed and presented in my years from that particular system. Like very fantastic. That would give an unbiased result of a headphones' performance (accuracy, neutral etc).
 
However, preference over the favorite headphone or the best sounding pair is subjective. So orange is the original piece of orange. In our ideal case all oranges sound the same. Now you can compare different by-products of orange and see which tastes the most similar to it (and it would have a definite answer), but I can strongly prefer a fanta over a fresh orange. Otherwise, what's the point of making fanta?
 
And at a certain degree, | agree with you again. Sometimes people just have to label a fanta as a bad copy of the original orange juice. What? They are for different purposes!

 
Quote:

There you go palmfish, duyu said it best.... measurements are meaningless in this hobby....we're not machines, and besides life is sometimes more palatable with some seasoning added 

 

Similar thoughts as above, except if the measurements show a specific strong/weak frequency range, then its ability to produce the original sound would not be very fantastic...
 
 
 
 
 
Now if God let me choose a system that could 100% duplicate what the original sound was like, compared to a system that would make everything sound absolutely blissful...
 

 

[FlySweep]

So I've been on the quest again. I've owned the HD600 in the past and I really liked it but I moved on but have been unable to find the tonality and presentation of the HD600 in any other headphone. Is there a natural upgrade to the HD600 because I have been unable to find such a headphone. I want it to coincide with my HE500 and Magnums but no idea where to start other than buying another HD600 but I did not like the headband at all as well as the tight clamp. If only Sennheiser made a HD800 level headphone but with the HD600 in mind..

 
I've kind of been on this same quest, rawrster.  I've listened to the HD600 fairly extensively.. enjoyed it very much, but preferred the FA-003 over it by a slight margin.  Enter the T50RP (which I had LFF mod) and the 003 became an afterthought.  Still, I missed the HD600's unique sound (airy, crisp, slightly warm, & dynamic) but didn't feel like shelling out the dough.. since I had just bought the HE-500 a month or so back.
 
After researching like crazy, I ended up going with an HD580 (which is said to be very very close, if not identical, in sound to the HD600).  From memory, the HD600 sounded ever-so-slightly more neutral (than the HD580) to my ears.  I'm going off memory, though, so I could be wrong.  If this was the case, I actually welcomed it cause I wanted a touch of that ethereal Senn coloration.  The HD580 delivered that in spades.  I was able to find an 580 (with  the silver mesh) in fantastic condition that had new earpads & the HD650 cable for a can't miss price.. jumped on it, bought the HD600 grills & did the APS mods.. and I'm incredibly happy with the decision.  Since listening to the HD600 way back when, I had upgraded my desktop source equipment more recently.. so I'm listening to the HD580 with a proper desktop rig & find they scale very well.
 
I searched high & low for phone that's an 'out & out' advancement on the HD580/600 sound and couldn't find one.  The RE262 is as close as it's gotten in universal IEM form, but I haven't found a full sized phone that can replicate & refinethe HD580/600 sound.  I recommend the HD580, especially since you've got a really nice SS amp in the V200.  The HD580 sounds lovely with a clean, neutral tube that has a wide soundstage too.

 

[palmfish]

Quote:

All I was trying to say is that there should be such thing as an accurate headphone, because we know some headphones are more 'accurate' or 'true to source' to others. Unless there is some unreachable limits from laws of physics or what so ever, such headphone that can 'recreate the original sound it is transmitting...' is possible - maybe in an infinite future. And there exist one headphone that can perform the best at this regard right at this moment, as long as, again, if headphones have different levels of accuracy.
 
In fact, HeadFi comes from Hi-Fi right? Isn't Hi-Fi a short form of High Fidelity, 'The reproduction of sound with the minimum distortion, giving a result similar to the original'?

 

I agree with a lot of what you think. But to me, hi-fi is different to the best sounding pair. So in my definition, 'originality' is how well the system can reproduce the live, unplugged sound, and hence it should be objective (edit: or the way the producer intends us to listen, or maybe how he heard his music), and the sole point of reference one could describe a headphone. It would be fantastic if I can compare what I hear live, unplugged, vs what signal is being processed and presented in my years from that particular system. Like very fantastic. That would give an unbiased result of a headphones' performance (accuracy, neutral etc).
 
However, preference over the favorite headphone or the best sounding pair is subjective. So orange is the original piece of orange. In our ideal case all oranges sound the same. Now you can compare different by-products of orange and see which tastes the most similar to it (and it would have a definite answer), but I can strongly prefer a fanta over a fresh orange. Otherwise, what's the point of making fanta?
 
And at a certain degree, | agree with you again. Sometimes people just have to label a fanta as a bad copy of the original orange juice. What? They are for different purposes!

 

Similar thoughts as above, except if the measurements show a specific strong/weak frequency range, then its ability to produce the original sound would not be very fantastic...
 
 
 
 
 
Now if God let me choose a system that could 100% duplicate what the original sound was like, compared to a system that would make everything sound absolutely blissful...
 

You make some very good points, but I think it is impossible for a headphone to recreate something that is undefinable. What is the "original" source? Is it what the musician heard while standing in the studio? Is it what the engineer heard from his studio monitors? Is it all the reflections and delays from the 16th row in an amphitheater that an orchestra performed in?
 
Since nobody knows what the source is "supposed" to sound like, all we can do is find a headphone that most closely matches our opinion of what the source should sound like - or more likely, what we want the source to sound like.
 
And due to the limitations of technology, no chain of electronic components will ever be able to faithfully take live sound, encode it into an electrical signal, and then turn it back into sound without altering the original sound. With recorded music, there is simply no such thing as "high fidelity." High quality, high dynamics, high realism, high enjoyment? Yes. High fidelity? No.
 

 

[mrAdrian]

Hey check your pm. But that was inspiring, I think I learnt something that's very special today through your reply.
 
Put it short for people who are interested, we can do a think experiment. Assume you have a place with perfect acoustic properties - no echo, no reverb no nothing but just the performer. Now as you move in that space, due to change in distance/angle, sound you hear will be different. And none of them are less accurate than other... So just like you would buy the 'perfect seat' in a live performance, you are purchasing the headphone that you believe can most accurately portrait the music (assume you are one of those purist out there xp).
 
But its time to get back on topic. 

 
Quote:

You make some very good points, but I think it is impossible for a headphone to recreate something that is undefinable. What is the "original" source? Is it what the musician heard while standing in the studio? Is it what the engineer heard from his studio monitors? Is it all the reflections and delays from the 16th row in an amphitheater that an orchestra performed in?
 
Since nobody knows what the source is "supposed" to sound like, all we can do is find a headphone that most closely matches our opinion of what the source should sound like - or more likely, what we want the source to sound like.
 
And due to the limitations of technology, no chain of electronic components will ever be able to faithfully take live sound, encode it into an electrical signal, and then turn it back into sound without altering the original sound. With recorded music, there is simply no such thing as "high fidelity." High quality, high dynamics, high realism, high enjoyment? Yes. High fidelity? No.
 

 

 

[duyu]

Quote:

Hey check your pm. But that was inspiring, I think I learnt something that's very special today through your reply.
 
Put it short for people who are interested, we can do a think experiment. Assume you have a place with perfect acoustic properties - no echo, no reverb no nothing but just the performer. Now as you move in that space, due to change in distance/angle, sound you hear will be different. And none of them are less accurate than other... So just like you would buy the 'perfect seat' in a live performance, you are purchasing the headphone that you believe can most accurately portrait the music (assume you are one of those purist out there xp).
 
But its time to get back on topic. 

 


 

I found no quick way to reject the skepticism of fidelity.

 

[lejaz]

How about the recording and mixing and mastering? Microphones, mic positioning, monitors, mix decisions, etc? Probably no way to tell what the live performance sounded like. 
 
Quote:

Hey check your pm. But that was inspiring, I think I learnt something that's very special today through your reply.
 
Put it short for people who are interested, we can do a think experiment. Assume you have a place with perfect acoustic properties - no echo, no reverb no nothing but just the performer. Now as you move in that space, due to change in distance/angle, sound you hear will be different. And none of them are less accurate than other... So just like you would buy the 'perfect seat' in a live performance, you are purchasing the headphone that you believe can most accurately portrait the music (assume you are one of those purist out there xp).
 
But its time to get back on topic. 

 


 

 

 

[rawrster]

Quote:

 
I've kind of been on this same quest, rawrster.  I've listened to the HD600 fairly extensively.. enjoyed it very much, but preferred the FA-003 over it by a slight margin.  Enter the T50RP (which I had LFF mod) and the 003 became an afterthought.  Still, I missed the HD600's unique sound (airy, crisp, slightly warm, & dynamic) but didn't feel like shelling out the dough.. since I had just bought the HE-500 a month or so back.
 
After researching like crazy, I ended up going with an HD580 (which is said to be very very close, if not identical, in sound to the HD600).  From memory, the HD600 sounded ever-so-slightly more neutral (than the HD580) to my ears.  I'm going off memory, though, so I could be wrong.  If this was the case, I actually welcomed it cause I wanted a touch of that ethereal Senn coloration.  The HD580 delivered that in spades.  I was able to find an 580 (with  the silver mesh) in fantastic condition that had new earpads & the HD650 cable for a can't miss price.. jumped on it, bought the HD600 grills & did the APS mods.. and I'm incredibly happy with the decision.  Since listening to the HD600 way back when, I had upgraded my desktop source equipment more recently.. so I'm listening to the HD580 with a proper desktop rig & find they scale very well.
 
I searched high & low for phone that's an 'out & out' advancement on the HD580/600 sound and couldn't find one.  The RE262 is as close as it's gotten in universal IEM form, but I haven't found a full sized phone that can replicate & refinethe HD580/600 sound.  I recommend the HD580, especially since you've got a really nice SS amp in the V200.  The HD580 sounds lovely with a clean, neutral tube that has a wide soundstage too.

 
If all else fails I think I'm going to get the HD600 again since that is a known quantity to me.  I know what to expect, how it sounds like with my equipment, songs, etc. The only problem is I don't like the build and I want something slighly better in terms of technical ability since I consider the HD600 to be on the upper end of midfi or lower end of hifi. However the HD600 is much easier on the wallet since past that is 1k but I'll probably end up selling one of my Magnums or something and not spend anything if you think of it that way. Maybe I'll just sell my Magnums and T50RP and get a HD800 and HD600
 
The problem is when you know what you want (kinda) but it doesn't exist.

 
 

 

[imackler]

Just listened to one of my favorite albums for the first time on the HD600 w/ a simple E9. Just fantastic. Amazing across the frequency range.
 
I think a pair of HD600 and an E9 should be government issued to everyone. People don't know what they're missing out on.

 

[duyu]

Quote:

Just listened to one of my favorite albums for the first time on the HD600 w/ a simple E9. Just fantastic. Amazing across the frequency range.
 
I think a pair of HD600 and an E9 should be government issued to everyone. People don't know what they're missing out on.

Same set up here! Really love the voice of HD600

 

[donunus]

imackler, the e9 is definitely a pretty good match with the hd600s and is overall a very good value but there is another amp that is dirt cheap with even better sound than the e9 for the 300 ohm senns. I couldn't believe what I was hearing when I tried the JDSlabs CMOY with my hd600s, better defined bass, much better mids and much smoother highs than the E9 and power is basically unlimited for the senns just like the e9 in that sense. Plug the amp into the wall and gain even more juice. Unfreakinbelievable! Just don't use any low impedance cans with the cmoy though because they will be powerless with those.

 

[ri_toast]

not to be a spoiler of any ones fun in headphone land but I just received my 600s this morning. They are beautiful and light as a feather. The stone look of the headphone and the weight are just opposite of whats expected. I'm running the stock cable presently but have a Milian Acoustics cable at the ready. I just went with a new listening space and moved a tube preamp GAS power amplifier and a transformer box for a Stax sr-5. I spent an hour with the Stats and moved to the HDs. In comparison the 600s are warm and not as quick but still range lower to upper registers very well. In the late 80s (or early 90s) I bought the HD 545; I still don't know where these are in relation to any other of Sennheiser previous offerings. I suspect the 595s are very close. Here's the odd thing, I still have those old 545s, the foam in the headband turned in vapor....I imagine; just gone. The foam on the speakers is going that way also but the sound is all Sennheiser.
 
I had always imagined that between the 600 and 650 I would like the 650 more; you know; all that "better bass" chatter. It might have something to do coming directly from a "bright" Stax setup but from the fr graphs I've seen they really tell what the phone sounds like; smooth. Here's a bad pic: