[StanD]

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

+1 Which gives rise to the more expensive products in the lineup. Marketing and costs rules the day.

 

[Sonic Defender]

I find the 800S stunning, and I think it will be the one of the two I keep. However, there is no way the 800S is dollar for dollar better, most certainly the diminishing returns are really at play. In terms of value and sound quality to cost ratio, the 600 has to be one of the best options in any headphone lineup.

 

[rgs9200m]

I also had the notion that the HD600 and 650 would be introduced at well over $1000 usd today.
But I feel the other flagships from that era would not command more cost; I never liked the flagship Beyers (880, 990, even T1) and AKGs (701, 702) at that time and sold most of them.

 

[kman1211]

  I also had the notion that the HD600 and 650 would be introduced at well over $1000 usd today.
But I feel the other flagships from that era would not command more cost; I never liked the flagship Beyers (880, 990, even T1) and AKGs (701, 702) at that time and sold most of them.

The biggest problem with those Beyers and AKGs is really the tuning. Beyers tendency towards sharp treble and treble emphasis and AKGs tendency towards thinness and shouty upper mids/lower treble. They would of been so much better if tuned well like the HD 6xx. Wouldn't say better than the Senns but much better competition. The DT 880/990 were Beyers flagships but it wasn't the Beyer to get, it was the DT 150(one of the few headphones that have been in production longer than the HD 600) which if you really like the HD 6xx I highly suggest you listen to a pair, it's basically a closed HD 6xx without really sounding closed.

 

[Sonic Defender]

  ...., it was the DT 150(one of the few headphones that have been in production longer than the HD 600) which if you really like the HD 6xx I highly suggest you listen to a pair, it's basically a closed HD 6xx without really sounding closed.

Wow, those are really ugly, but if they sound as good as you say. I thought the DT 440 was also a great sounding headphone. Personally I did really like the DT 880, but that was a few years back. I'm not so sure I would love it today with my shift toward warmer preferences. However, as evidence by my enjoyment of the HD800S, I still can appreciate a less warm signature as well, but it does have to be very well done.

 

[Me x3]

  I also had the notion that the HD600 and 650 would be introduced at well over $1000 usd today.
But I feel the other flagships from that era would not command more cost; I never liked the flagship Beyers (880, 990, even T1) and AKGs (701, 702) at that time and sold most of them.

I prefer both K702 and DT880 to the HD6x0 most of the times. I think personal preferences and recordings used play a big role here.
 
HD6x0 does some things very well, like vocal rendering (HD600) and microdetail (HD650). The midrange in general is warm and nice on both but these are relatively closed-in in terms of soundstage, the mid-bass is boosted and quite woolly, and the treble lacks natural presence and air when paired with most top class recordings I've tried. In my book these are a nice balance between relative neutrality and compatibility with a wide range of recordings.
 
DT880 is a more neutral headphone bass to treble, the bass is flatter and more extended and the whole presentation is airier and cleaner.
Top class stuff sounds like the real thing on these and it doesn't get much better than this in my experience. Real life music is full of energy and DT880 does a great job recreating that sense of energy. The only thing to consider is that these are a little bit north of neutral in the 6-8kHz region, so modern compressed recordings can be tiring and even bass-light (same would apply to most relatively low quality recordings)
 
K702 is the most technically capable headphone here in my view, it boast unmatched instrument separation and soundstage that's hard to beat even for modern flagships. Bass clarity and layering is a step up from HD6x0 and DT880. The bass can hit faster than HD800's and although bass layering is still better on HD800, the K702 gets really close. The thing with this headphone as @kman1211 suggested is that the upper midrange is a tad too forward and it might appear as shouty even with some of the best recordings, so despite its capabilities the K702 is the worst all rounder of the trio.
 
Price/Performance ratio is great on these headphones and thus they all could be priced higher.
Similarly, price/perforance ratio on modern flagships HD800/S/T1/K812 is much worse so they could be priced lower.
The thing is, modern flaships are targeted mainly to those who don't care, and that's fair I think.

 

[DavidA]

  Wow, those are really ugly, but if they sound as good as you say. I thought the DT 440 was also a great sounding headphone. Personally I did really like the DT 880, but that was a few years back. I'm not so sure I would love it today with my shift toward warmer preferences. However, as evidence by my enjoyment of the HD800S, I still can appreciate a less warm signature as well, but it does have to be very well done.

DT-150 is a really good sounding headphone and if I really needed to use a closed back design the DT-150 would be it.  Its an ugly duckling but it sounds as beautiful as a Victoria's Secret model looks.  I've only seen/listened to it once at a music store here in Honolulu and it was a workers personal headphone.

 

[kman1211]

 
I prefer both K702 and DT880 to the HD6x0 most of the times. I think personal preferences and recordings used play a big role here.
 
HD6x0 does some things very well, like vocal rendering (HD600) and microdetail (HD650). The midrange in general is warm and nice on both but these are relatively closed-in in terms of soundstage, the mid-bass is boosted and quite woolly, and the treble lacks natural presence and air when paired with most top class recordings I've tried. In my book these are a nice balance between relative neutrality and compatibility with a wide range of recordings.
 
DT880 is a more neutral headphone bass to treble, the bass is flatter and more extended and the whole presentation is airier and cleaner.
Top class stuff sounds like the real thing on these and it doesn't get much better than this in my experience. Real life music is full of energy and DT880 does a great job recreating that sense of energy. The only thing to consider is that these are a little bit north of neutral in the 6-8kHz region, so modern compressed recordings can be tiring and even bass-light (same would apply to most relatively low quality recordings)
 
K702 is the most technically capable headphone here in my view, it boast unmatched instrument separation and soundstage that's hard to beat even for modern flagships. Bass clarity and layering is a step up from HD6x0 and DT880. The bass can hit faster than HD800's and although bass layering is still better on HD800, the K702 gets really close. The thing with this headphone as @kman1211 suggested is that the upper midrange is a tad too forward and it might appear as shouty even with some of the best recordings, so despite its capabilities the K702 is the worst all rounder of the trio.
 
Price/Performance ratio is great on these headphones and thus they all could be priced higher.
Similarly, price/perforance ratio on modern flagships HD800/S/T1/K812 is much worse so they could be priced lower.
The thing is, modern flaships are targeted mainly to those who don't care, and that's fair I think.

I agree that the Senns can sound a bit woolly and the treble could have more natural presence. These issues bothered me more on the HD 650 than the HD 600, I guess because of how well the HD 600 rendered vocals as problems with vocals is usually what bothers me the most with headphones. The main thing I didn't like about the HD 650 was actually how it rendered vocals while vocals is what I liked the most about the HD 600. Personally I view both as amazing all-rounder headphones.
 
Beyers definitely handle energy better than Senns in my experience and have a very clear and clean sound to them. They do sound amazing on high-quality recordings. I don't fully view the DT 880 as neutral, but I view neutral to be more akin to the HD 600/650 tuning in terms of headphones.
 
True, the K701/2 is a headphone while finding it probably is the most capable of the classic trio is quite flawed in many ways. The K712 alleviated most of the issues for me but still had some problems but not near as bad as the K701/2 or Q701. A well driven K7 is also strangely euphoric sounding imho. 

  Wow, those are really ugly, but if they sound as good as you say. I thought the DT 440 was also a great sounding headphone. Personally I did really like the DT 880, but that was a few years back. I'm not so sure I would love it today with my shift toward warmer preferences. However, as evidence by my enjoyment of the HD800S, I still can appreciate a less warm signature as well, but it does have to be very well done.

They are definitely excellent, a bit of the HD 6xx and Beyer sound mixed together. Has that Beyer treble clarity, but unoffensive and very 3D/holographic sounding.  Tyll was impressed by them as well. Only thing really holding them back is their looks. I had no issues with their comfort personally(comfort is personal of course though) and they don't weigh much, about the same as the Senns. I recently heard the HD 800 S and quite enjoyed it, a lot more than the HD 800 which I'm not much of a fan of despite hearing it's capabilities. 

 

[Audioholic123]

I also own the Beyerdynamic DT150 although I very rarely use it (I like to preserve it because it's a classic). I once modded my HD600's to be closed-back...and discovered that they sounded around 90% the same as the DT150's. I also once listened to DT990's and although they are very good headphones, I prefered the 150's.

 

[Argyris]

I keep hearing about the DT150. Several people in this thread have mentioned it, I know Tyll said he liked it, and apart from the upper bass hump it measures well, so I can believe it's good. Interestingly, it seems to go for around the same price as the DT880, and for considerably more than the DT770 Pro and DT250. It's a different line from the DT880, closer in function to the latter two in being a pro-oriented piece of equipment, so I'm gathering that Beyer considers the DT150 its best closed back professional headphone?
 
Or something. I will never live to figure out the vagaries of Beyer's product catalog. Extra credit: trace the DT770/880/990 range back to its start in 1980. Your mind will reel, you'll likely miss half a dozen model iterations along the way and discover half a dozen more I somehow missed, and you'll just end up shaking your head at the fact that these three headphones at one point came in nineteen concurrently available varieties collectively, some of which you could only get if you ordered specifically from Beyer.
 
One of the truly refreshing things about participating in the HD 600 thread is that the headphone only comes in one impedance, and has only ever come in one impedance, so we don't have the incessant "which version should I get?" questions and the endless circular debates over whether or not the version with the biggest number sounds the best or any different from the others, like we do with the DT880. I guess the closest equivalent would be the slight differences in the construction and materials used in the HD 6x0 over the past few decades, and since the last such changes happened quite a few years ago, most of the older versions that were made before then have been mothballed or otherwise taken off the market, so it's rare one has to worry about the supposed differences anymore.

 

[mysticstryk]

The dt150 is available for considerably cheaper on Amazon UK. It came to something like $120 USD before shipping when I bought them several months ago.

I may have a job soon that allows me to listen to music at work and I'm considering the hd600 as a compliment to my 650 at home. I have a Valhalla 2/Bifrost stack at home and I'll be getting something like a Modi 2/Vali 1 stack for at work.

 

[madwolfa]

I've tried K712 once, while it had great resolution, nice soundstage and decent bass, it's been too stringent on top even with the best recordings. And of course it didn't do as well with vocals.
 
So, all in all - very good performer for classical music (think big orchestras and such), but not for anything else in my book.

 

[yangian]

If I can only use one word to describe hd600, that's natural. It's so much natural so that it's very natural to put it on your head to listen for several hours

 

[Autre31415]

Are the 600s so much better than the 650s that it would be worth it to sell my 650s and get 600s?

 

[rgs9200m]

No, they are different sounding (see posts from various members in the last few weeks). I would not sell the 650 unless you find them wanting.