[StanD]

That means your amplifier is of low quality rather than a problem caused by the low impedance.

My Auralic Taurus MKII has no hiss with my Shure SE846 and Shure SE535.

My opinion is that amplifiers should always have a low impedance because it can screw up the frequency response of a headphone if the impedance is too high.

That is not necessarily true. It will only do that if the headphone does not have a flat impedance curve.

 

[Click]

Great deal for HD600 right now, if you buy stuff from Newegg.
 
$400 for HD600 + $200 Newegg gift card, so basically $200 for HD600:
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4P01VR6930

 

[kman1211]

  I was a massive fan of the HD600 until I heard the AKG K712 Pro's. I have sold the HD600's now as I feel that the K712's scale better with more expensive equipment. I think the K712's are seriously underrated.

The K712 does scale up more than the HD 600 in my experience, I compared the K712 to others of the K7 series and the K712 must really have different drivers, it just sounds different than the other K7 AKGs to me. The Q701 I have just doesn't sound as good even with the same pads and modded to have the same level of dampening. I do find the HD 600 sounds better and more 'right' on more gear, but the K712 on the right high-end gear is simply amazing, in fact it may be AKG's best headphone currently. The reason I'm planning on getting the HD 600 over the K712 again is because the HD 600 sounds better on my current system than the K712. I do plan on grabbing another K712 as well but later on after I've upgraded my system some. Along with the HD 600, the K712 is one of the few headphones I truly regret letting go. Do you have an Austrian or Slovakian K712? I'm not sure if they are different sounding like the Austrian vs Chinese AKGs.

 

[SunshineReggae]

  The K712 does scale up more than the HD 600 in my experience, I compared the K712 to others of the K7 series and the K712 must really have different drivers, it just sounds different than the other K7 AKGs to me. The Q701 I have just doesn't sound as good even with the same pads and modded to have the same level of dampening. I do find the HD 600 sounds better and more 'right' on more gear, but the K712 on the right high-end gear is simply amazing, in fact it may be AKG's best headphone currently. The reason I'm planning on getting the HD 600 over the K712 again is because the HD 600 sounds better on my current system than the K712. I do plan on grabbing another K712 as well but later on after I've upgraded my system some. Along with the HD 600, the K712 is one of the few headphones I truly regret letting go. Do you have an Austrian or Slovakian K712? I'm not sure if they are different sounding like the Austrian vs Chinese AKGs.

 
But how can this be, the HD600 already scales infinitely?

 

[Audioholic123]

  The K712 does scale up more than the HD 600 in my experience, I compared the K712 to others of the K7 series and the K712 must really have different drivers, it just sounds different than the other K7 AKGs to me. The Q701 I have just doesn't sound as good even with the same pads and modded to have the same level of dampening. I do find the HD 600 sounds better and more 'right' on more gear, but the K712 on the right high-end gear is simply amazing, in fact it may be AKG's best headphone currently. The reason I'm planning on getting the HD 600 over the K712 again is because the HD 600 sounds better on my current system than the K712. I do plan on grabbing another K712 as well but later on after I've upgraded my system some. Along with the HD 600, the K712 is one of the few headphones I truly regret letting go. Do you have an Austrian or Slovakian K712? I'm not sure if they are different sounding like the Austrian vs Chinese AKGs.

I have an Slovakian model. I'm glad because for years I owned the  (Austrian made) K702 and I used it so much that the pads started to wear badly and I couldn't find replacement pads, so I bought a new K702 (Chinese one) and immediately noticed that the bass was more flabby and artificial. It is evidential to me that there is a difference between the Chinese made AKG's and the Austrian/Slovakian models, but I don't know if there are differences between the Austrian and Slovakian models of K712's.

 

[kman1211]

   
But how can this be, the HD600 already scales infinitely?

The scaling gets a bit more dramatic on the K712 in my experience. The K712 is one of the only competing headphones to the HD 6xx in terms of price/performance ratio imho, I don't feel the other K7 series are as good as the HD 6xx though. Not enough midrange body and the center imaging isn't as good on the other K7 series to me as the K712. Tonally the K712 is also the best of the K7 AKGs. 
 

  I have an Slovakian model. I'm glad because for years I owned the  (Austrian made) K702 and I used it so much that the pads started to wear badly and I couldn't find replacement pads, so I bought a new K702 (Chinese one) and immediately noticed that the bass was more flabby and artificial. It is evidential to me that there is a difference between the Chinese made AKG's and the Austrian/Slovakian models, but I don't know if there are differences between the Austrian and Slovakian models.

Ah I see, I am hoping the Slovakian ones are pretty much the same as the Austrian made ones, I get the feeling they are as the suppliers of materials is likely the same. To me the Chinese AKGs have more brittle and harsher treble, less bass slam, and a lot thinner in terms of mids.

 

[rgs9200m]

Am I nuts? Even with an LCD4 and HE1000 and liking them both a good deal, I find myself reaching for my HD650 and 600 more because something about their sound is so extremely satisfying. It's like the HD6xx's have a direct connection to the music-appreciation part of my brain. I can't even say why technically by parsing or analyzing the sound. It just because that's the way it is.
(And I sold my HD800 and Abyss too sometime back, again somehow gravitating to the HD6xx sound.)

 

[madwolfa]

  Am I nuts? Even with an LCD4 and HE1000 and liking them both a good deal, I find myself reaching for my HD650 and 600 more because something about their sound is so extremely satisfying. It's like the HD6xx's have a direct connection to the music-appreciation part of my brain. I can't even say why technically by parsing or analyzing the sound. It just because that's the way it is.
(And I sold my HD800 and Abyss too sometime back, again somehow gravitating to the HD6xx sound.)

 
No you are not. I've also sold Audeze in favor of HD600 before...

 

[rgs9200m]

OK, thanks for the confirmation madwolfa.

 

[Brooko]

I have the T1 within handy reach.  As much as I love it - it rarely gets used (most of my time is either HD600 or HD630VB).

 

[rgs9200m]

Yep, I sold my T1 also.

 

[Argyris]

I think a better way of looking at it is asking how much more would the HD 6x0 family cost if it were released today, rather than asking how the headphones in this family can possibly compete with modern flagships costing an order of magnitude more. Flagship headphones have gotten a lot more expensive in the past 10 years; they haven't necessarily gotten substantially better. The HD 6x0 family are Sennheiser's former flagships. They were the best the company could do when they were released (excepting the Orpheus, and a lot of Orpheus technology went into the HD 580, which was of course the progenitor of the HD 6x0). It's just that, back in 1997, hardly anybody was prepared to spend thousands of dollars on a headphone, especially not a dynamic headphone (electrostatic headphones were the premium option).
 
The times have obviously changed. I fully believe that if they were released today, the HD 6x0 family would be $1,000+ headphones. The only reason they cost what they do is that there's no way Sennheiser could get away with hiking up the price of something that came out almost two decades ago.

 

[danmlr]

I'm sure the cost of the 600's r&d and manufacturing has been amortized many times over by now. 

 

[Me x3]

  I think a better way of looking at it is asking how much more would the HD 6x0 family cost if it were released today, rather than asking how the headphones in this family can possibly compete with modern flagships costing an order of magnitude more. Flagship headphones have gotten a lot more expensive in the past 10 years; they haven't necessarily gotten substantially better. The HD 6x0 family are Sennheiser's former flagships. They were the best the company could do when they were released (excepting the Orpheus, and a lot of Orpheus technology went into the HD 580, which was of course the progenitor of the HD 6x0). It's just that, back in 1997, hardly anybody was prepared to spend thousands of dollars on a headphone, especially not a dynamic headphone (electrostatic headphones were the premium option).
 
The times have obviously changed. I fully believe that if they were released today, the HD 6x0 family would be $1,000+ headphones. The only reason they cost what they do is that there's no way Sennheiser could get away with hiking up the price of something that came out almost two decades ago.

They can make a very simple and relatively inexpensive redesign in the looks of the newer HE-1 and charge 1000 for them if they want, but they don't.
In my opinion, newer flagships bring some new things to the table, but former flagships were already so good that everytime you change something to them there's a trade off, and that's what companies are facing. More so, they have to fill a market, if Sennheiser raise the price of HD6x0 to 899usd, then DT880 and K7-series will start selling like never before and Sennheiser will lose its market share.
 
Sennheiser can price the HD6x0 around 300 usd and keep selling tons of them or price them 1000usd and sell a few thousands a year, companies are always dealing with this kind of decisions. (Same would apply to DT880 and K702/K712)

 

[BobG55]

  I have the T1 within handy reach.  As much as I love it - it rarely gets used (most of my time is either HD600 or HD630VB).

In my case it depends on the production of the album I'm listening to.  I still like the T1 and use the HD600 about equally w/ my Zana Deux S.