[TheChosen0ne]

Can we use a blow dryer if we wanted?  Sorry for the dumb questions

 

[ProtegeManiac]

Quote:

Can we use a blow dryer if we wanted?  Sorry for the dumb questions

 
I blow dry them but there will be a lot of water left in the foam. I don't squeeze it out until dry as it might compress the foam too much; I just prop it standing up on a surface where the drip won't collect (like a plastic soap holder with holes on it) and let it air-dry. It's usually ready in under 48hours. You can make that faster by going back on them with the hair drier every few hours you're free, but use low heat settings.

 

[Nowhere]

well... i finally have entered into the sennheiser hd600 club, put my order in with razordog audio and their great discount.
i feel a great sense of relief in finally making my decision after months of frustrating research and back and forth. haha.
now, i'm on to my continuous and extremely frustrating amp/dac quest in which i keep thinking i have my answer and going back and forth on it for what seems like an eternity.
 
but at least the first part is done, happy to join the hd600 club.. as a 90s kid how could i not have 90s headphones. i mean, really.

 

[Tuco1965]

Congrats!  You're going to enjoy them.  As for the amp/dac quest there are many choices.  I'm using a Lyr and loving it.  At some point I'll buy a dac.  I have plenty of sources to feed my Lry right now.  Start lining up your music.  

 

[charlie875578]

How do the HD600 sound with classic rock, guitar solos, etc. When properly amped do they provide some power and enjoyment or are they more analytical? Compared to say the Denon D5000...

 

[Nowhere]

Quote:

Congrats!  You're going to enjoy them.  As for the amp/dac quest there are many choices.  I'm using a Lyr and loving it.  At some point I'll buy a dac.  I have plenty of sources to feed my Lry right now.  Start lining up your music.  

 
thanks! i'm excited.. it's pretty much my first time entering into the high quality world.. my best previous experience being the a900x audio-technica.
 
the amp/dac stuff is a nightmare, yesterday i was basically going to call the whole thing off and stick with the a900x and forget it cuz of the frustration in choosing amp/dac but today it felt right to go with them, i'll figure out the rest later.
 
i'm basically going to re listen to all of my music hehe [and i have an insane amount of music], does it make any difference in what kind of music you listen to initially for the burn in process? like say i listened to a bunch of electronic music to start would that have any impact on the way it sounds burned in? should i listen to my favorite stuff (90s indie) in that burn in process to make sure it sounds best with that content or basically it doesn't make any difference?

 

[musiclife]

Quote:

/img/forum/go_quote.gif

well... i finally have entered into the sennheiser hd600 club, put my order in with razordog audio and their great discount.
i feel a great sense of relief in finally making my decision after months of frustrating research and back and forth. haha.
now, i'm on to my continuous and extremely frustrating amp/dac quest in which i keep thinking i have my answer and going back and forth on it for what seems like an eternity.
 
but at least the first part is done, happy to join the hd600 club.. as a 90s kid how could i not have 90s headphones. i mean, really.

Welcome to the club Post a personal review when you get them

 

[Nowhere]

Quote:

Welcome to the club Post a personal review when you get them

 
thanks, although.
i'm not even close to an expert so i doubt a review from me would matter.. i sort of know what stuff is but don't know what they mean like i think mids are within a certain sound frequency in the 20hz to 20khz range somewhere in the middle but i have no idea what that even means, i don't know what the sound frequency means beyond what we can hear.
and i don't understand what certain sound signatures mean exactly, such as dark and bright, etc
and i only have 2 other headphones experience to compare it to.. (except for the countless cheapie headphones i've had)
 
i've read the definitions and stuff of these but i find it hard to grasp how they apply to headphones in real life use exactly... for whatever reason.
 
my review would only contain something like "it sounds good to me" haha.
(i'll leave the reviews to the more informed beyond just saying if i'm happy and satisfied with it).

 

[devhen]

Quote:

 
thanks, although.
i'm not even close to an expert so i doubt a review from me would matter.. i sort of know what stuff is but don't know what they mean like i think mids are within a certain sound frequency in the 20hz to 20khz range somewhere in the middle but i have no idea what that even means, i don't know what the sound frequency means beyond what we can hear.
and i don't understand what certain sound signatures mean exactly, such as dark and bright, etc
and i only have 2 other headphones experience to compare it to.. (except for the countless cheapie headphones i've had)
 
i've read the definitions and stuff of these but i find it hard to grasp how they apply to headphones in real life use exactly... for whatever reason.
 
my review would only contain something like "it sounds good to me" haha.
(i'll leave the reviews to the more informed beyond just saying if i'm happy and satisfied with it).

 
20hz to 20khz is generally considered to be the range of human hearing so anything beyond that, particularly above it, doesn't really matter. I can hear below 20hz, all the way down to 5hz depending on the cans, but maybe I'm just hearing the air being pushed around?...
 
Mids are probably roughly 500hz to 5khz (very roughly, I'm no expert on these things either) and you can think of the mids as being the stuff that isn't necessarily bassy or necessarily high-pitched. Stuff like hi-hats are in the highs, stuff like kick-drums are in the lows. Stuff like vocals and guitars are usually somewhere in the mids. Its pretty self explanatory and you'll get it as you read reviews and impressions etc. and listen for yourself.
 
As far as sound signatures:
Dark - more bass than treble
Bright - more treble than bass
V-shaped - more bass and treble than mids
and so on.
 
Checkout the sound glossary: http://www.head-fi.org/a/describing-sound-a-glossary
 
EDIT: This is a handy graph that shows examples of what frequency ranges are produced by different instruments:
 

 

[Nowhere]

Quote:

 
20hz to 20khz is generally considered to be the range of human hearing so anything beyond that, particularly above it, doesn't really matter. I can hear below 20hz, all the way down to 5hz depending on the cans, but maybe I'm just hearing the air being pushed around?...
 
Mids are probably roughly 500hz to 5khz (very roughly, I'm no expert on these things either) and you can think of the mids as being the stuff that isn't necessarily bassy or necessarily high-pitched. Stuff like high-hats are in the highs, stuff like kick-drums are in the lows. Its pretty self explanatory and you'll get it as you read reviews and impressions etc. and listen for yourself.
 
As far as sound signatures:
Dark - more bass than treble
Bright - more treble than bass
V-shaped - more bass and treble than mids
and so on.
 
Checkout the glossary: http://www.head-fi.org/a/describing-sound-a-glossary

oh cool thanks, i didn't know "mids" represented instruments i thought it was more of a volume thing.. like low volume, mid volume, high volume ahaha. so, bass would be very low and something like a horn would be high.. a deep voice male would fall more into a lower range where a female vocal might fall more into the mid/higher?
 
i read the glossary before but the problem is that it just tells you what it is but it doesn't explain how it applies in real world application with reference to headphones.
 
like it says, "highly detailed" but it doesn't explain what exactly that means with a headphone.
evenso, i don't really need to know everything.. all i want to do is put on my headphones and have the music sound great.

 

[devhen]

Personally I think stuff like that in the sound glossary is pretty self explanatory. "Highly detailed" just means it provides plenty of detail, as opposed to being a muddy blob of noise. A highly detailed sound usually has sparkly, sometimes emphasized, treble and produces a nice clean sound with plenty of, you guessed it, detail.

 

[Nowhere]

Quote:

 
EDIT: This is a handy graph that shows examples of what frequency ranges are produced by different instruments:
 

 
wow! that's insane! hehe.
so it looks like female vocal has no bass but starts in the mid range at around 250... very interesting. thanks for the info again.
female vocal is very important to me so it looks like i'd be concerned about mid range definitely.
i'm surprised a harp actually has such range, i would think it was more "high".

 

[Nowhere]

logging my journey with the hd600: part 1
 
keep in mind, i'm not an expert and i won't try to be... i'm just going to express myself as i go along and it will be quite long so if anyone doesn't feel like listening to an amateur rant and express themselves please ignore it. haha.
[also i apologize in advance but i type in all lower case and don't feel like explaining why]
(and i'm coming from an audio-technica ad700 and a900x experience)
 
the new headphones arrived today and i just unboxed them.
 
the first thing i notice was somewhat surprising in how thin and flimsy the cable was, i was expecting a thicker cable that was sleeved.. the cable on my a900x was studier and sleeved and feels almost like a bungie cord where this is kind of your basic cable that you would expect on any common headphone.
 
the next thing that sticks out for me is the headphone shape, my previous headphones (a900x) had very large pads that easily went over your ear and then some and from the pictures i saw of these and the giant looking backside of the earpads i thought they would feel much larger on your head, it's very minimalistic in feel compared to my previous ones which felt large on my head where these feel like they take up alot less space but even though they feel smaller they fit snug and have a good adjuster as to fit properly and feel comfortable nonetheless.
i guess the oval shape instead of the large circle i'm used to will take some getting used to.
 
awesome that the cables are detachable, if i kept these for a long time i'd probably want to get new cables at some point as i'm not sure i like these unsleeved flimsly thin cables.. although in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter that much.
 
moving on:
 
i read over and over about how one needs an amp once you start getting into these higher quality headphones which i took note of, however i wasn't able to afford an amp right away so i had to go without an amp to start.. my thinking was that i don't put the volume that high up when listening to music any way so it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference for me.
i wasn't correct in that thinking, i see what people mean about needing an amp right away from the jump, my constant setting for the a900x was at the volume level of 64 which was more than enough for me to hear and enjoy the sounds.. as i put my first song on at the same level of 64 with these i could barely hear it and so i had to bump the volume all the way up to 100 (max level unless i'm using vlc player which can go higher than 100).
needless to say everyone was correct when they said you needed an amp with these, even at 100 i can't hear it like i was at 64 with my other pair.. but 100 isn't too terrible in terms of hearing it.
 
a quick break from things just to provide a little context, one thing is unfair toward these headphones in that i built them up in my mind to be heaven, pure bliss.. i allowed my expectations to be way too great which i'm aware of and so i even when i was unboxing them i knew in the back of my mind they weren't going to live up to the hype i had build up.
 
getting back to it:
 
so... i start my first .mp3 up in foorbar2000 , i decide on donald byrd's "fallin like dominoes" because even when researching and deciding to get these i just had some kind of feeling that song would sound un-be-lievable on these! haha and wouldn't you know it, that totally blew up in my face!
my very first song and i quickly find out that your source with these headphones is extremely important, man! i had no clue how badly that mp3 sounded that i had been listening to.. it was hidden within my other headphones which it sounded decent in.
it's in a various bitrate of 220-264kbs
i couldn't enjoy this with the hissing contained within and the bass line didn't pop out quite as i had envisioned (perhaps due to no amplification).
 
at this point, i'm scared... did i just waste $320.. i went from expecting heaven to falling in mud.. are all my songs going to be a disappointment?
 
i move on to another song that i'm quite fond of, a trip-hop song by crustration called "purple".
this is in 320kbs but it's an odd recording in that it's very grimy electronics so i wasn't sure what the result would be.
it wasn't too bad but i didn't notice much of a difference from my a900x listening experiences with the song (which would probably number at least 50 times).
but... ok, it sounds slightly better with these and so the scare i had from the previous song was fading a little bit.
 
after that song, i move on to a fantastic song by "the xx" called "crystalised" that blur notoriously covered on youtube.
again at 320kbs (which the majority of my music is at)
this was fantastic, every part of it hit me like wow! the harmonies are sick and every part of the instrumentation had me drooling, it's obvious that this will sound great when i get some amplification... i could tell not having an amp was holding it back but was impressed.
 
"the who" / "baba o riley"
in .flac.
i'm not sure what that instrument is that plays real quick over and over, a synthesizer perhaps? whatever it is sounded really good but i wasn't feeling the vocals on the song as much as the instruments like i was on on the a900x.
(keeping in mind, no amp... basically when i get an amp i want to go back over these songs and listen to them again and see what kind of different experience)
 
 
"nina gordon" / "tonight and the rest of my life"
[she's formerly of veruca salt]
this is much better than my previous experiences! this is what i'm talking about, easily the best so far that i've heard with the new headphones... her vocals are heavenly and with these headphones i felt in an intimacy with the song that i didn't previously.
i really, really liked this.. the intimacy of the vocals and sound was what i was looking for.
 
"lou reed" / "perfect day"
[formerly of the velvet underground but if you didn't know that you need to start getting deeper into music.

]
the intimacy that i spoke of in the last song is again present again here for me, very nice. never heard lou reed's vocals like this (so present and intimate/wasn't like this on my previous headphones) and the instruments sound fantastic.
 
 
"trespassers william / "i know"
a pattern is forming and i think 2 things are evident of this pattern, female vocals sound amazing and there's an intimacy in the sound that i've not previously heard in my headphones.
i'm sitting in complete silence listening with absolute focus as if i was sitting in the front row at an unplugged concert hanging on every word.
everything sounds great here but it was also good on both of my other headphones also (without the intimacy and not quite as good instrumentally).
liked what i heard from this.
 
"tal bachman" / "she's so high".
moving away from the female vocals into more of a male indie track.
this is a track that i immediately feel a strong contrast compared to this headphone when i listened to it with my other 2, i'm not sure the exact difference technically but to my ears it sounds maybe slower? or is it again that intimate sound i was speaking of again but having a strange effect with a faster song? it clearly sounds better technically than on my others but it was an unusual sound than what i'm used to with that specific song that left me confused.
(keeping in mind all of these songs i've listened to alot of times).
 
"the smiths" / "how soon is now"
[famously used as the theme song for one of my favorite tv series charmed in cover form by love spit love, which is where i discovered it]
a slightly different sound experience with the song than i'm used to with my other headphones, first impression i'm thinking for the better...
the guitar distortion (i think it's guitar distortion? that constant sound throughout in the backround?) is present, right with me when before it faded more into the backround.. and morrissey's vocals sound amazing.
this isn't factual or anything but what i'm feeling like is this is the way the song is supposed to sound vs what i heard before in my other headphones.
 
"smash mouth / "walking on the sun"
[if anyone's actually reading this and following along, yes i'm going in reverse in one of my playlists starting from z hah]
very cool, i'd never heard the horns this present before in the song (i think it's horns, i'm not an instrumental expert or anything).. nothing mind blowing but it's the first time i heard the song with this sort of sound and i'm feeling it.
(and as i mentioned before i listened to these songs alot).
 
"monster movie / "driving through the redlights" & "4th and pine" & "beautiful actic star".
driving through the redlights, in an odd twist the headphones being able to pick up like every single sound in the song is working against it for me, i think i was happier not hearing some of the little sound effects thron into the song using my other headphones but it still sounds fine.
 
4th and pine, this is an important moment as this is a song that's very deeply felt for me that means alot to me and so it's gotta sound decent or else haha.
the test is when the main vocal chorus comes in and i'd say it passes, i would've liked an even more heavenly sound but very nice.. the intimacy that i spoke about a number of times certainly helps in these types of vocals.
 
beautiful arctic star, interesting.. again this is a sound presence of the song that i'm not familiar with using my other headphones... again for the better.
the instruments seem so much more present in this headphone than i'm used to, usually the vocals are so present that it drowns everything else out which makes it strange to hear everything so present in this way.
 
 
"sarah mclachlan" / "i love you" [mirrorball live]
the headphones have to play sarah mclachlan well, no exceptions hehe... she's up there on my most loved and i listen to her alot.
wow! wow! stunning.
not much i can say beyond adjectives like phenomenal/amazing, etc.
heavenly, bliss.
 
"the rolling stones" / "gimme shelter"
mainly listening to this because i've heard it so many times before and want to see if it sounds different with these.
and right of the jump it does, haven't heard the instruments sound the way they are now.. that's probably an odd thing to hear if someone's reading it and i don't know how to explain it really except to say i've heard the song many times on other headphones and it sounds a certain way and listening to it now with these it sounds different.
this sort of allows me to understand why someone would own 2-3 pairs of headphones whcih i never understood before.
the recording sounds brilliant but then again it's from a very high quality (hdtracks 24bit) source so that could play into it sounding so good although i listened to the same thing on the a900x.
 
3 of my current favorite songs that are on my playlist every day right now.
"lykke li" / "little bit"
"lykke li" / "breaking it up"
"elizaveta" / "meant"
 
as was the case with some of the other songs where it was almost a completely different listening experience, these songs felt fairly similar as to what i'm used to on the other phones but just better overall, and more intimate and more present instrumentation.
liking how female vocals are sounding with these. (and not even amped hehe).
 
 
 
since shoegazer was discussed in a thread earlier, i'll check out a few tracks:
slowdive/my bloody valentine/astrobrite/ride
not mind blowing but i'm happy with what i'm hearing from some shoegazer tracks, guitars sounding great... vocals.
if one likes the more intimate/pleasant sound of it more than the harsher/rougher sound of it, that is.
 
 
 
 
 
so i'm not sitting here all night listening to thousands of songs i'll have to start cutting things short here on logging everything haha... i'm gonna try to fit in some rap, and bass heavy dubstep just to see what it sounds like.
 
testing out some bass dubstep type tracks:
 
"fever ray" "when i grow up" [bassnectar dubstep remix]
interested to hear something like this because alot of people comment on how they're not great with bass.
it's kind hard to get a proper impression on something like this without an amp because it doesn't go loud enough to see if the bass impacts but it's not too bad, i liked how it sounded more in my a900x in terms of pure bass but in terms of pure overall sound i like it, the bass is present enough but not annoying. (as someone who isn't a basshead extreme impacting and overpowering bass can be very annoying to me).
pleasantly surprised, even though not insane on the bass level i liked the overall sound i was taking in.
 
"district 78" / "demolition"
 
again somewhat surprised, liking how it's sounding with bass... not too overpowering or heavy but sounds good enough for a person who's not a basshead but enjoys a less harsh sounding bass like me.
 
"excision & datsik" / "invaders" [dubstep remix]
 
a less bass heavy song as the other two, sounds fantastic to me... every little intricate sound present, not a good example of bass though so bad choice by me haha.
 
 
 
moving on to try out some hip-hop
 
"2pac" / geto boys / south park coalition / ice cube
hmmmm somewhat strange the sound i'm hearing here.. that same intimacy and stuff that i spoke about earlier i'm thinking might not work in the same positive way with rap, the grime, the roughness.. that reflects the hard lyrics i'm not feeling present here, it doesn't sound right in what i'm used to, which is a somewhat odd contrast as the dubstep bass stuff seemed to sound  good to me.
the bass isn't sounding nearly as good with these rap tracks as those dubstep ones.
yeah, i'm not feeling this at all.. i'm actually thinking rap might work better with really cheap headphones in a sense due to the rough, grimy, hard sound it has (at least in my experiences with the cheap stuff) and of course much better with speakers.
i don't like this at all, i'd probably switch out to my a900x for rap.. it's not mind blowing in those but i liked it alot more than this.. it's dreadful in these. (could be due to unamped? i doubt it though).
 
i'll try to find some heavy, heavy music to try it on although i don't listen to it.
 
"slayer" / "raining blood" & "south of heaven"
i'm not into this type but ironically with these headphones i could like it more because it cleans it up and makes it sound less harsh to me but of course that sort of takes away it's intent i think? it's meant to sound harsh and overpowering i'm assuming which it doesn't in these, sort of like taking off the mask of the monster it makes it less frightening.
i don't think that's how it's supposed to sound even not being a fan of that style it doesn't sound like i would think it's supposed to... similar to how i felt with rap it doesn't feel right to me.
 
 
 
hmmm i think i'll stop it there and might return to it if/when i get an amp to see if some of the songs sounds alot different with the amp.
 
overall with my initial experiences with the headphones i'd say i'm somewhat disappointed but that's in part due to my extreme expectations i had, to me $320 dollars is alot of money and it took me awhile to save up enoug money to get them and coming from the a900x was it worth it to spend all of that money? i'm not entirely sure, i thought the a900x sounded decent enough... understanding that without a doubt the hd600 sounds better but $320 better? hmmmmmmmm.
and i didn't need an amp with the a900x and do with these which adds an even higher total to the price.
 
and the shape/feel of the headphones is still awkward to me, while comfortable the awkwardness is unsettling.
 
i am a big fan of female vocals and really liked how a few of the songs i heard with female vocals sounded on these, and there was an intimacy i found within them in which was mysterious and intriguining.
 
so.. what does that say in the end? i'm not completely sure... it's only an initial impression i'll spend more time with them and hopefully when i get an amp i'll find them even better, but with an amp at around $500+ for everything it seems like alot to pay.
i have to ask myself was i happy using those 60 dollar headphones i used to listen to, or even back when i had a cassette tape player hooked up and listened to that and the answer would most likely be... yes.
so.. how did i get here where i'm paying 500+ dollars hehe.
 
i'm definitely intrigued now to find out what part an amp will play in all of this.
 
and yes, i'm aware some will say.. you need an amp to really experience it which i said at the beginning i'm fully aware of, i wanted to see what experience i would have without an amp vs when i get one... will an amp make such a difference and will that effect me to the point of changing some opinions/impressions? i shall find out sometime in the future.
 
just one person's thoughts/feelings.

 

[Byronb]

I know that many people say the amp is optional for the 600's and while it will make sound without one, using them without one is akin to driving a Ferrari and never shifting out of 1st. The problem is that without amplification you just dont have the headroom most music needs.
Source is also very important, while there are arguments here that there is no difference between rips, there is certainly a minimum threshold at which the encode is going to get in the way. Hard drive space is cheap so I rip all of my music as lossless. That way I have no doubt the source is the best it can be. That brings up the next point, lots of popular music is engineered terribly, nothing you can do about that but try to find the best quality mix available. 
As you have indicated money is tight, I would recommend the Magni/Modi stack from Schiit, it is the best you can buy for the price (I know that is subjective), but no one argues it is a quality setup. It will do things for the HD600 that will make you realize, yes these are $300.00 better than what I had. 
I hope that you can find your zen spot with the HD600 as it is a wonderful piece of gear, but like all high performance machines, you have to feed the beast properly for it to work to the best of it's ability.

 

[Nowhere]

Quote:

I know that many people say the amp is optional for the 600's and while it will make sound without one, using them without one is akin to driving a Ferrari and never shifting out of 1st. The problem is that without amplification you just dont have the headroom most music needs.
Source is also very important, while there are arguments here that there is no difference between rips, there is certainly a minimum threshold at which the encode is going to get in the way. Hard drive space is cheap so I rip all of my music as lossless. That way I have no doubt the source is the best it can be. That brings up the next point, lots of popular music is engineered terribly, nothing you can do about that but try to find the best quality mix available. 
As you have indicated money is tight, I would recommend the Magni/Modi stack from Schiit, it is the best you can buy for the price (I know that is subjective), but no one argues it is a quality setup. It will do things for the HD600 that will make you realize, yes these are $300.00 better than what I had. 
I hope that you can find your zen spot with the HD600 as it is a wonderful piece of gear, but like all high performance machines, you have to feed the beast properly for it to work to the best of it's ability.

 
nice words man thanks, i'm currently debating between the magni/modi stack or the o2/odac stack... i still have some time before i save up enough money to get one of them so i'll have to decide which then.
as to the source, luckily in terms of source the headphones only sounded bad with that 1 mp3 file that was 220-264 variable.... it sounded good on all of my 320kbs and of course lossless.
 
it's hard to think an amp could make such a difference but i'm very intrigued to find out, i like alot about the headphone even unamped but there are some negatives for me as well so far.
if knowing what i know now and i could go back and either save the $320 and whatever i pay on an amp and stick with the much cheaper and requiring no amp a900x? right now i'd probably save the money and put it toward blurays and stick with the unamped cheaper option but i'll see if that changes when i go for the amp/dac stack.
and i only had it like 6-7 hours so my ears/perception has to also adjust to a new sound and most people aren't big on change.