[JacobLee89]

  In all seriousness i inquired about the white vs black cloth differences and had a few people who have tried/owned both say there was no difference.   I have the black versions from ~2001 hence i asked, conclusion was its not worth changing.

 
The only thing I am not comfortable with my second hand HD650's are the worn ear pads. Funny how they cost almost the same as the driver capsules. Washing them did give some spring back though.

 

[MattTCG]

Washing does help. I wash mine two or three times a year. I got a replacement set in the drawer ready and waiting. I think that they were about $40 from B&H Photo. 

 

[whirlwind]

  Around 100-150 is good. 

Thanks.....they are sounding very well indeed....seller said they had around 40 hours on them.........There is some serious synergy going on with the MAD Ear....I am pretty dang happy at this point 

 

 

[voidandnull]

are HD650 a big improvement over K701?

 

[eimis]

^ I personally prefer bass port modded Q701 over HD650. HD650 have too much lower-mids, too little lower-bass and everything sounds a bit too "close".

 

[skeptic]

  are HD650 a big improvement over K701?

 
To my ears, and subject to your amplification, yes.  K701's are very thin sounding by comparison but do have wider sound stage than the hd650's.  By contrast, and as opposed to K701's, hd650's have a rich and realistic timbre, a very coherent but not compressed presentation, and a solid enjoyable bottom end.  
 

  ^ I personally prefer bass port modded Q701 over HD650. HD650 have too much lower-mids, too little lower-bass and everything sounds a bit too "close".

 
FWIW, I'm not familiar with the Q701, with or without mods, but I would be inclined to think that your view of the hd650's may derive in substantial part from your amp.  I'm not an O2 hater by any means.  Notwithstanding that I have a mainline and crack in the house, I listen to mine almost daily with my alpha dogs and plan to give the booster board a shot after finishing my wire se-se, but it is simply a bad match for hd650's, at least to my ears.    

 

[Jeff Moore]

   
Hi Jeff - the hd650's are very nice all-arounders as long as you're not looking for the last word in treble sparkle.  If you can conclude anything from the >1,000 pages of this thread (and the even longer predecessor hd650 thread), it is that a whole lot of us really enjoy these phones and continue enjoying them regularly even after investing in costlier flagships.
 
One word of caution in response to your post - I would research very carefully before choosing to invest your funds in a rsa dark star.  You can purchase the boards and build a very similar amp for a few hundred dollars (see http://www.head-fi.org/t/654371/eddie-current-diy-amplifier-monolith ), and many of the electrical engineers on these boards seem to agree that the dark star design just isn't that great to begin with (one, for example, describing it as: "Thousands of dollars for a gainclone in a fancy box with dodgy anodizing").  There are a lot of great flagship amps out there.  My sense, for whatever its worth, is that this just isn't one of them.  

Thanks, skeptic.  That sounds like good advice that I will heed when the time comes for the amplifier upgrade.

 

[rsbrsvp]

I'm looking for a headphone with a seductive midrange and controlled highs.  I already have a LCD-3 and it fits the bill.  Would the HD-650 also fit the bill.  How is it different than the LCD-3?
 
Which is more euphonic?

 

[MattTCG]

I don't think that it's a fair fight to compare hp's that 5x as much. 

 

[JacobLee89]

 
FWIW, I'm not familiar with the Q701, with or without mods, but I would be inclined to think that your view of the hd650's may derive in substantial part from your amp.  I'm not an O2 hater by any means.  Notwithstanding that I have a mainline and crack in the house, I listen to mine almost daily with my alpha dogs and plan to give the booster board a shot after finishing my wire se-se, but it is simply a bad match for hd650's, at least to my ears.    

I wouldn't say that with the booster board, the O2 would be a completely different amp, but just into one that is more "musically" capable. I may be inclined to say that it'll move from being a bad match. into a "reasonable" match (for the HD650s). Of course, my reasonings for the booster board is mainly due to me already having an O2, and that I'd have to spend over $300 ish for an alternative that may or may not give an audible improvement. I play this game real safe 

. 
 

  I don't think that it's a fair fight to compare hp's that 5x as much. 

At best you could probably compare it to Audio Technica AD1000x or AD2000x, which is near enough the HD650's price range, but that's a different sound signature altogether.

 

[Androb]

I'm looking for a headphone with a seductive midrange and controlled highs.  I already have a LCD-3 and it fits the bill.  Would the HD-650 also fit the bill.  How is it different than the LCD-3?

Which is more euphonic?

I think you should rather look at hifiman or something else, since I don't think there is a greater difference between hd650 and lcd-3 except lcd is a bit better. Hd 650 is an awesome phone tho for it's price but kinda ticks the same boxes imo

 

[pdrm360]

  I'm looking for a headphone with a seductive midrange and controlled highs.  I already have a LCD-3 and it fits the bill.  Would the HD-650 also fit the bill.  How is it different than the LCD-3?
 
Which is more euphonic?

  I don't think that it's a fair fight to compare hp's that 5x as much. 

 
Don't forget that the HD650s are more than 5x comfortable than the LCD3s.  

 

[whirlwind]

It is going to be a great weekend

 
 

 

[awsanderson]

yeah! my balanced cables from BTG audio showed up today, first impression...  Keep in mind this is also the first time I've been able to listen to the RSA Apache balanced... wow what a difference, more defined bass and better instrument separation.  Happily listening I'll check back in later.

 

[awsanderson]

on the Joe Banamasa front... he did a record with Beth Hart I have on vinyl and it's great, if you haven't heard it it's definitely worth a listen