[Gilly87]

They use Cirrus DACs, too. My 5S has the best audio quality straight to most of my IEMs (especially the more sensitive ones; my LG Nexi had a more powerful amps, so they sounded a bit better with TF10s and dynamics once bestowed with the proper hacks) of any phone I've tried.
 
Quote:

It can be confusing since iTunes gives everything in 256kbps, AAC format. But the iPods and iPhones etc can also handle full resolution from cd rips and other sources, and in various coding formats, such as Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF.

 

[The_Terminator]

I recently entered the HD650 camp after years of using other cans including the HD555. I was nervous about a number of items because of what I read here at head-fi.
Statements such as (I'm paraphrasing):

1. The HD650 are 300ohms, so you won't get any sound out of an iPhone.
2. If you manage to get any sound, it won't be loud enough even at 100%.
3. The HD650 is 100% required to have an amp or it will sound like trash (if you can hear it at all)
4. etc.

 
Well, I must be the luckiest guy in the world, because I can plug the HD650 into my iPhone6 and it sounds wonderful and lovely. Not dull or lifeless at all. I have to listen at 70%-80% of full volume, but that's more than enough for most music. I can bump it to 100%, but honestly, I would never listen that loud for that long. Maybe I just got a different iPhone than everyone else.
My laptop (HP Elitebook) has great onboard sound. No hiss, music is punchy and dynamic. They rock the HD650 on 30% volume and less. The amp is not an absolute necessity.
 
I have no doubt that various amps and dacs will improve things, but for anyone wondering, you can tremendously enjoy the HD650 straight out of the iPhone while you take the time to carefully select your other components, if you feel they are necessary at all.
 
Check out this link from Benchmark Media. I find that what he wrote is consistent with my real world experience plugging straight into the iPhone:
http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/news/14017381-headphone-impedance-and-sensitivity

What happens if I connect my studio-quality headphones to my iPhone?

The good news is that high-impedance headphones will never overload or damage a portable device. Battery life may be increased, distortion may decrease, noise may be decrease, and the SNR may improve. The bad news is that the maximum playback level may be too low. Bottom line - if you have a pair of high-impedance headphones, try them with your portable devices. If the playback level is loud enough, high-impedance headphones should improve the overall sound quality of your portable device. But beware, the maximum playback level may be too low when driving high-impedance headphones from a portable device.

Enjoy the HD650. It's a wonderful headphone. Cheers!

 

[sinnottj]

  I recently entered the HD650 camp after years of using other cans including the HD555. I was nervous about a number of items because of what I read here at head-fi.
Statements such as (I'm paraphrasing):

1. The HD650 are 300ohms, so you won't get any sound out of an iPhone.
2. If you manage to get any sound, it won't be loud enough even at 100%.
3. The HD650 is 100% required to have an amp or it will sound like trash (if you can hear it at all)
4. etc.

 
Well, I must be the luckiest guy in the world, because I can plug the HD650 into my iPhone6 and it sounds wonderful and lovely. Not dull or lifeless at all. I have to listen at 70%-80% of full volume, but that's more than enough for most music. I can bump it to 100%, but honestly, I would never listen that loud for that long. Maybe I just got a different iPhone than everyone else.
My laptop (HP Elitebook) has great onboard sound. No hiss, music is punchy and dynamic. They rock the HD650 on 30% volume and less. The amp is not an absolute necessity.
 
I have no doubt that various amps and dacs will improve things, but for anyone wondering, you can tremendously enjoy the HD650 straight out of the iPhone while you take the time to carefully select your other components, if you feel they are necessary at all.
 
Check out this link from Benchmark Media. I find that what he wrote is consistent with my real world experience plugging straight into the iPhone:
http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/news/14017381-headphone-impedance-and-sensitivity
Enjoy the HD650. It's a wonderful headphone. Cheers!

 
Exactly my experience too! My HD650 sounds pretty nice out of my tiny Sansa Clip as well. 
 
I understand that I wont be getting the absolute best from it, but in my experience, a supposedly 'hard to drive' headphone like the HD600/HD650/DT880 250 Ohm still sounds better out of an iThing than a lesser, but easier to drive, headphone does.

 

[Jimmy24]

  I recently entered the HD650 camp after years of using other cans including the HD555. I was nervous about a number of items because of what I read here at head-fi.
Statements such as (I'm paraphrasing):

1. The HD650 are 300ohms, so you won't get any sound out of an iPhone.
2. If you manage to get any sound, it won't be loud enough even at 100%.
3. The HD650 is 100% required to have an amp or it will sound like trash (if you can hear it at all)
4. etc.

 
Well, I must be the luckiest guy in the world, because I can plug the HD650 into my iPhone6 and it sounds wonderful and lovely. Not dull or lifeless at all. I have to listen at 70%-80% of full volume, but that's more than enough for most music. I can bump it to 100%, but honestly, I would never listen that loud for that long. Maybe I just got a different iPhone than everyone else.
My laptop (HP Elitebook) has great onboard sound. No hiss, music is punchy and dynamic. They rock the HD650 on 30% volume and less. The amp is not an absolute necessity.
 
I have no doubt that various amps and dacs will improve things, but for anyone wondering, you can tremendously enjoy the HD650 straight out of the iPhone while you take the time to carefully select your other components, if you feel they are necessary at all.
 
Check out this link from Benchmark Media. I find that what he wrote is consistent with my real world experience plugging straight into the iPhone:
http://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/news/14017381-headphone-impedance-and-sensitivity
Enjoy the HD650. It's a wonderful headphone. Cheers!

 
You're definitely right that the HD 650's can be used by itself connected to the your phone or desktop computer. There was faulty information being spread a while back when I purchased them saying that an AMP was needed to drive these cans. The truth is you don't even need one and they actually sound pretty decent coming from 256 kbps itune quality music. 

A wonderful headphone indeed, cheers to you too. 

 

[Solrighal]

Not sure if you read my previous posts Zorrofox. I was merely suggesting the crack as a suitable amp for the HD 650's. I was also stressing the fact that the best route to purchase his headphone was to try out different ones first before purchasing them. that would be the ideal way to go.

To your point about needing a DAC for the Crack I think you made a highly premature comment for someone who doesn't own the Crack. I can tell you that the by itself it delivers so much clarity, detail and soundstage that the O2 and ODAC never gave me. Realism is a big thing here. From my personal experience with the combo it never gave me the lifelike qualities that the Crack offers. As for noise levels there are none. A desktop computer will give you a slight hum but i don't get noise on either my iPhone or laptop. To need a DAC especially since you've never heard the crack is nonsense.


James

 
You seem to have taken my input personally. It wasn't meant to read that way. I have absolutely no doubt that the Crack helps make the 650's sound wonderful. It's on my list. However, to state that a DAC is somehow surplus to requirements is clearly nonsense. Unless we're talking analogue here there has to be a DAC right at the head of the chain, that's a given. The DAC supplies all the information that the Crack then amplifies in order to drive the headphones. Given that you're spending so much money on headphones and amplifier does it surely makes sense to ensure the source (DAC) is as good as you can afford?
 
You've heard of the 'garbage in, garbage out' theory I presume? The saying originates in the world of computers but we oldies rather wittily applied it to the analogue chain back in the early 80's. The most important part of the system was the turntable, then the amp & then the speakers or headphones. The best transducers in the world can't put back what isn't there to start with, can they? Trust me, Linn wouldn't be where they are now if it hadn't been for them standing the hi-fi industry on it's head with their LP12. I used to sell them.
 
What is also true though is that the overall character of the sound is affected more by the speakers or headphones. The Crack is just a valve amplifier like all the rest but it's designed in such a way that it's sonic characteristics just happen to work very well when paired with the HD 650 (and others). Whether this was by design or a fluke I have no way of knowing. Like I say, it's on my list. I'll find out one day. Trust me, add a better DAC and the sound will only improve. DAC's do sound different, although in my (admittedly limited) experience not by much.
 
And just for the record, just because I don't own a component doesn't mean I can't comment on it's quality. I can read and everything I have read about the Crack is good.

 

[Solrighal]

   
You're definitely right that the HD 650's can be used by itself connected to the your phone or desktop computer. There was faulty information being spread a while back when I purchased them saying that an AMP was needed to drive these cans. The truth is you don't even need one and they actually sound pretty decent coming from 256 kbps itune quality music. 

A wonderful headphone indeed, cheers to you too. 

 
This is nonsense. There's a massive difference between getting headphones to an acceptable output level and driving them correctly. They sound awful out of my portable devices. So bad I'll use my Q701's first and that's saying something.

 

[The_Terminator]

   
This is nonsense. There's a massive difference between getting headphones to an acceptable output level and driving them correctly. They sound awful out of my portable devices. So bad I'll use my Q701's first and that's saying something.

Well, nobody can tell you what sounds good to you, so you correctly need an additional device to drive them properly in a way that appeals to you.
It isn't nonsense though. I've used my HD650 with iPhones, iPads, Microsoft Surfaces, Dell workstations, HP workstations, a 20 year-old A/V receiver headphone out, and speaker out, and they sound wonderful with all of them. Engaging, punchy, dynamic, etc. and certainly loud enough.
 
Like I said earlier, I have no doubt that they will sound better/different with various dac/amps, but they are not awful without them in my real-world experience.

 

[kman1211]

This is nonsense. There's a massive difference between getting headphones to an acceptable output level and driving them correctly. They sound awful out of my portable devices. So bad I'll use my Q701's first and that's saying something.

That is true, I think the only thing my headphones sound decent on that's portable is my iPad mini 2, everything else including my iPod touch 5th gen don't sound all that good. Considering how picky AKGs are that is true. They can be such a pain to work with.

 

[Solrighal]

 
eheh, I bought the 650 on a whim, I saw the price to be lower than in my memories, boom, bought it. no need for it, not even thinking that I would wish for a fullsize headphone 3mn before.
then 10mn later I thought " no desktop amp, no dac. F me, I only have a pico slim to drive a hd650... and I called myself with a few bird names". then followed some hours of googling for specs, I looked at a few brands I had heard of. most of the time the specs were incomplete, like no clear output impedance, or THD with a percentage and nothing about how it's obtained...  when you have great specs you're so proud you tell all about them, so to me "forgetting" some stuff = crap product/dishonest people.
then I found more specs than I could dream of on the odac/O2. checked the values for the hd650 but it was easy, nwavguy had already done the job for me. I bought an odac/o2 for that one and only reason. available specs... since then I've learned that amp manufacturers were shy people, and that it was usually very effective to simply ask for the specs I want in an e-mail instead of wasting my time on their websites.
now if I was a little bit organized and able to think before I act, I would probably have ended up with the exact same process. headphone first, then source. if I already have several headphones/IEMs, then I will get an amp that goes with most of them obviously(enough power, enough gain, but not too much to avoid some sad volume setting problems and channel imbalance, or some lousy background noise), so headphone first.
and if I have nothing, as I firmly believe the headphone to be 90% of the sound differences (it's the low-fi part of the system, so the one part that changes the most), I will still focus on finding the right headphone with the right signature, and only then I will look at the headphone's needs.
 
so even if I wasn't the stupid compulsive shopper that I am, I would still probably not go as you recommend.

 
I didn't go as I recommend either

 
Hindsight's 20:20. I was just trying to save someone some money. My first serious headphones were Sennheiser HD 595's. I loved them at first but the excitement wasn't there after a while. They were 'pleasant', nothing more. Then I bought the Shure SRH840 and things got better. The mids were lovely to my brain. But they had other issues. Too big and really not secure on my head. I decided to stick with closed cans and bought a pair of V-Moda M-100's. You'll laugh but I liked them. I still do. They're lousy at acoustic music though and I listen to that more than anything else. Back to the drawing board and I saw Amazon drop the price of the AKG Q701. I bought them and learned three things. At last I had 'hi-fi' headphones. I also learned that I have a problem with the artificially enhanced treble that is so prevalent on a lot of modern headphones. The third thing I learned was that I needed an amp. I bought the O2 based on the most extensive research I've ever carried out before a purchase. It didn't disappoint. The Q's came alive! Unfortunately I found out that the treble spike is inherent in the design of the Q701. So I had to get something better. I bought the 650's based on all the comments I'd read about the rolled-off treble. At the time they were over £400 on Amazon and that's way too rich for me. Eventually the price dropped to £300 and I bit the bullet. The contrast between the Senn's and the AKG's is striking. No need for blind comparisons here. The very definition of a night & day difference. I was happy with the O2 and the HD 650's.
 
On another forum I was kindly offered a loan of the Project Ember hybrid valve amplifier. Although I was convinced of the rationale behind the design of the O2 and equally convinced that a coloured amp was a 'bad thing' I've always wanted to hear a valve amp, if only for reference. Well, I didn't take the guy up on his first offer but then he asked me again just before Christmas and I thought 'screwit, go for it'. It arrived last Friday and it has shook the very foundations of all I took as read. It sounds awesome. Truly incredible. It's definitely coloured, probably by the valve, but it's amazing what it does for the 650's. I get all the same notes in just the same order but somehow the emphasis has changed. I hear nuances that I've never heard before. Occasionally I hear things I've never heard before. Not because the Ember is somehow adding detail but just that the detail already present from the DAC is being presented in a different way.

 

[Hal X]

I just received a used pair in excellent condition, silver drivers and apparently dated 2006. There's way more treble than I expected  

.

 

[Solrighal]

  I just received a used pair in excellent condition, silver drivers and apparently dated 2006. There's way more treble than I expected  

.

 
Welcome to the club.

 
Yeah, I don't think the 650 treble is rolled off but I do think that other headphones have it artificially enhanced.

 

[kman1211]

  I just received a used pair in excellent condition, silver drivers and apparently dated 2006. There's way more treble than I expected  

.

The HD 650 isn't really dark, it's quite neutral, it has a really clean and grain free treble, the treble is definitely crisper than that on the HD 600 to my ears. 

 

[Hal X]

   
Welcome to the club.

 
Yeah, I don't think the 650 treble is rolled off but I do think that other headphones have it artificially enhanced.

Thanks! Actually, I would have liked even a little more bass.. they seem very neutral to me, without any peaks, very clean. And damn sexy too! 

 

 

[lawrecedent]

Someone else said i should get the odac instead also. It is true just incase i may not like the hd650. As of now later this year im going to get the odac and hd650 because im not interested in the whole tube thing quite yet. So it will be a good start. Thanks for the input!

I'm relatively new to this game (only been buying headphones as opposed to iems for a year) and have tried many headphones before arriving at the HD650's. I have recently bought the Schitt Vali/Modi stack as my first desktop amp and am very pleased with the results. It's a lot cheaper than than the Bottlehead and Ive found it works great with all my headphones. I know there is an argument to be made that says you're just wasting your time and money going through lesser headphones/amps and you should just go straight for the best you can afford (I certainly felt this when I bought the UE Triple Fi 10's, my first "expensive" iems). However, by working my way through various gear I have learned an awful lot about the abilities of audio equipment, their strengths and weaknesses and most importantly what I appreciate most in a headphone and other audio equipment. I'd avoid going for something as specialised as the Crack until your sure that the 650's are for you and you want the best out of them. Before that, a more flexible set up that allows you to experiment with different gear might be a wiser choice. Half the fun is just trying different equipment and I've found that if I buy used I never lose money because I can always make my money back selling it on. Just my two Penny's worth. Good luck on your quest! There's loads of helpful folks on Head Fi who will help you on your audio journey, but I would view it like that rather than a final destination.

 

[donlin]

Whew, several excellent posts in a row. Things were getting pretty rough for a while there with all that iphone absurdity. Hopefully we've worked through that for a while.