Sennheiser HD595...not that great - why?
Sep 5, 2006 at 12:10 PM Post #16 of 42
Give the cans some more listening. Your brain still needs to acclimate itself to their sound.

Typically, people enjoy the sound of their headphones more when they become accustomed to it. In a recent thread, some one stated that they owned a pair of HD595's and then decided to purchase a pair of HD650's. At first the poster preferred the HD595's but then, after hearing the phones for a while, concluded that the HD650's sounded superior.
 
Sep 5, 2006 at 2:24 PM Post #17 of 42
Firstly, the HD595 can use more power than just the Bithead. Secondly, the sound signature will be difference - the super.fi 5's are a great intimate phone with a huge huge but well done bottom end. The HD595 is much more neutral.
 
Sep 5, 2006 at 3:03 PM Post #18 of 42
Give them some time to get burned in and your ears get used to. If they still give you the sense of muffled boredom, the Sennheiser-type sound isnt for you. You should try something with bit more neutralish sound, like Beyerdynamics DT880 or 990, or perhaps total polar opposite of Sennheiser, over-excited Grados, if you wish to go that direction.
 
Sep 5, 2006 at 10:24 PM Post #19 of 42
I noticed xcodeguy hasn't made a response to his post in a while. I'm curious, xcodeguy, what is the source for your 595s. If you have a sound blaster card, did you enable any of the funky stuff like EAX, CMSS-3D, etc. Those will ruin the true sound of ANY great sounding headphone. Are you listening to your cans plugged directly into your soundcard or a front I/O bay? What are your audio properties settings? 5.1? 2.1? Headphones?

I too had the same impression when I first got my 595. I felt like it was seriously lacking in bass (source: front I/O X-Fi Fatal1ty) then I tried listening to my 595s in my living room reciever and these cans blew me away. The bass is definitely there and when I crank up the bass settings on my reciever, I could feel my headphones violently vibrating against my ears. For approx. 50hrs I left my 595s in my living room to burn in whenever I was at school or at work.

A month after owning the 595s I can honestly say I'm in love with them. For the 595s I really depends on the quality of your source. If you or a friend or relative own a reciever, trying plugging your 595s into them, throw in your favorite CD and see if it still sounds flat and muddy.
 
Sep 5, 2006 at 11:48 PM Post #20 of 42
I don't find my HD595s muffled at all, even after using the SR60s. I find the midrange and vocals incredibly soothing to listen to. Bass is lacking after the box, but after proper burn in its sufficient without the need for any sort of bass boost. Perhaps you just prefer the sound of IEMS? I know that I still enjoy listening to my E2s even though they are very low end compared to the 595s. To me they just offer a different sound experience, not one that is necessarily inferior.
 
Sep 6, 2006 at 12:03 AM Post #21 of 42
Quote:

Originally Posted by OpTicaL
I noticed xcodeguy hasn't made a response to his post in a while. I'm curious, xcodeguy, what is the source for your 595s. If you have a sound blaster card, did you enable any of the funky stuff like EAX, CMSS-3D, etc. Those will ruin the true sound of ANY great sounding headphone. Are you listening to your cans plugged directly into your soundcard or a front I/O bay? What are your audio properties settings? 5.1? 2.1? Headphones?

I too had the same impression when I first got my 595. I felt like it was seriously lacking in bass (source: front I/O X-Fi Fatal1ty) then I tried listening to my 595s in my living room reciever and these cans blew me away. The bass is definitely there and when I crank up the bass settings on my reciever, I could feel my headphones violently vibrating against my ears. For approx. 50hrs I left my 595s in my living room to burn in whenever I was at school or at work.

A month after owning the 595s I can honestly say I'm in love with them. For the 595s I really depends on the quality of your source. If you or a friend or relative own a reciever, trying plugging your 595s into them, throw in your favorite CD and see if it still sounds flat and muddy.


My sources are mp3 128 - AIFF, Berhinger AMP800, BitHead '06, iPod 5G, MacBook Pro. Aside from my opinion of the HD595's sound wise, the BitHead, BH+MacBook and AMP800 don't seem to have enough juice for the 595's. I had a similar experience last year when I gave the HD 555's a try.
 
Sep 6, 2006 at 12:11 AM Post #22 of 42
Quote:

I too had the same impression when I first got my 595. I felt like it was seriously lacking in bass (source: front I/O X-Fi Fatal1ty) then I tried listening to my 595s in my living room reciever and these cans blew me away. The bass is definitely there and when I crank up the bass settings on my reciever, I could feel my headphones violently vibrating against my ears. For approx. 50hrs I left my 595s in my living room to burn in whenever I was at school or at work.


Yes - it sounds like you have some real power behind your HD595's. But I'm sure that many people have used a portable rig to listen to the HD series.
 
Sep 6, 2006 at 12:36 AM Post #23 of 42
I didn't find the HD595 muffled, but flat I could agree with. I thought the vertically stacked soundstage to be their worst feature, making them seem fairly unnatural to me. I really couldn't listen to them once I started hearing the grain. I actually loved them when I first heard them, and though I certainly don't have golden ears, I've preferred everything else I listened to since.
 
Sep 6, 2006 at 12:39 AM Post #24 of 42
Quote:

Originally Posted by xcodeguy
My sources are mp3 128 - AIFF, Berhinger AMP800, BitHead '06, iPod 5G, MacBook Pro. Aside from my opinion of the HD595's sound wise, the BitHead, BH+MacBook and AMP800 don't seem to have enough juice for the 595's. I had a similar experience last year when I gave the HD 555's a try.


The Bithead should drive the 595 just fine. Just to confirm: you hav the 50 ohm version, correct?
 
Sep 6, 2006 at 12:48 AM Post #25 of 42
Quote:

Originally Posted by xcodeguy
Yes - it sounds like you have some real power behind your HD595's. But I'm sure that many people have used a portable rig to listen to the HD series.


I don't know exactly how much juice my reciever (Pioneer VSX-84TXSi) is feeding the headphones. This was all I could find in the manual: 140 Watts x 7 Direct Energy Amplification (20Hz – 20kHz, 8 ohms, .09% THD – FTC)

I can only assume my reciever is feediing my 595s a lot of juice because I can't crank the volume knob higher than 5 or the sound becomes disorted, it's really loud even at volume 4. I hooked it up to my reciever only for comparision reasons because I was afraid that's how my 595s really sounded on my X-Fi.

I ordered the LDM+ on eBay. Dunno what to expect yet but I have my fingers crossed.
 
Sep 6, 2006 at 2:25 AM Post #26 of 42
My Xiang Sheng 708B amp has sounded effortless with every pair of headphones I've ever driven from it. I've never needed the volume dial even 1/3rd of the way up before worrying about my hearing. Certainly I hear no signs that it is having any trouble with the 50ohm HD595s, the bass is tight and has real impact. With my Xin Supermacro IV I have added extra buffers to drive more demanding headphones and the sound is much the same. Unamped they sound quite different and very lifeless although the same overall sound signature remains. I'm also using CDs or lossless files as source so encoding doesn't come into it for me.

With the exception of the HD555, this sound signature is different to all the other full size headphones and IEMs I have heard. I do like the HD595 but often they don't really do it for me, especially with rock. Maybe "muffled" isn't the best word to describe what I'm hearing but the treble/upper midrange is very laid back/underemhpasised in general compared with other headphones I own or have heard. The soundstage also feels somewhat artificial and distant to me. This signature seems to work very well with some of the classical and acoustic music I have. I can certainly understand others liking that signature over a wider range of genres but I definitely don't think these headphones are going to sound great to everyone.
 
Sep 7, 2006 at 9:37 AM Post #28 of 42
GoStones, I've not tried any lossy formats like mp3 with my 595s myself but I expect the flaws in 128Kbps and other low bitrate mp3s, etc would be rather clear with these headphones, they are quite revealing. Having said that, I expect most quality headphones will do much the same, my Shure E500s certainly do.
 
Sep 7, 2006 at 10:32 AM Post #29 of 42
Depends on music style IMO. I quite liked the 595 for Kate Bush, Tom Waits, Vivaldi or alike. But they were a catastrophy for any music genre that was bassier or "harder".
 
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