[Solrighal]

Excuse me, but does Sennheiser admit that the new 650s sound different from the old 650s?

Not in so many words but the promo literature did change to something along the lines of "good for modern music". Make of that what you will.

 

[upstateguy]

 

Excuse me, but does Sennheiser admit that the new 650s sound different from the old 650s?

Not in so many words but the promo literature did change to something along the lines of "good for modern music". Make of that what you will.

 
Sorry to disagree but if Sennheiser actually changed the sound of the 650s, they would have given it another name like they did when they went from the 600s to the 650s. 
 
What some ad-man wrote in the promo literature doesn't mean a thing. 
 
650s were always good for modern music.

 

[Solrighal]

   
Sorry to disagree but if Sennheiser actually changed the sound of the 650s, they would have given it another name like they did when they went from the 600s to the 650s. 
 
What some ad-man wrote in the promo literature doesn't mean a thing. 
 
650s were always good for modern music.

 
I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Sennheiser did change the driver (to the silver version) and they did change the accompanying blurb. As I said, make of that what you will.

 

[mikoss]

Edit: Nvm I'm just going to google this myself lol.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

   
I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with. Sennheiser did change the driver (to the silver version) and they did change the accompanying blurb. As I said, make of that what you will.

 
+1 This isn't really up for debate. Whether the sound changed dramatically is a question, but the driver absolutely got updated.
 
Hell look at Audeze. The LCD-2 has had three versions so far but it's still the LCD-2. It's kinda like cars, same model just it gets updated now and again. 

 

[Solrighal]

Everything is up for debate.

 

[castleofargh]

  Everything is up for debate.

I disagree!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[Liu Junyuan]

Excuse me, but does Sennheiser admit that the new 650s sound different from the old 650s?

No need to ask to be excused. We aren't in a line.

Companies periodically make "tweaks" here and there to their gear. A company particularly notorious for doing this is Audeze, beyond just the shift to fazors. Some companies never release this information publicly These tweaks usually affect the sound. Sennheiser, being a relatively stable company working with drivers less in their infant stages (like planars are), tends to do this less than other companies. I am a little busy to do research now, but many have subjectively reported a change in the sound. Yes, I realize other factors can destroy any subjective validity here or other objective factors like pad wear, driver variation within runs, can also be at play. If you want to continue to be skeptical, thats fine. Or feel free to ignore me.

Best,

 

[DDDamian]

@DDDamian, did you also ran HD650 on the Gustard H10?
Also, how much does it cost on Massdrop deal?

Glad the pricing question was answered already. To me that's a fantastic deal for that amp. I would highly recommend it at that price.

I haven't plugged the 650's into it yet but will do so later tonight and let you know. I've changed quite a bit of gear lately so in fairness to my Audeze comments earlier it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Will report back if it's a good match for the 650's a bit later.

 

[upstateguy]

 

Excuse me, but does Sennheiser admit that the new 650s sound different from the old 650s?

No need to ask to be excused. We aren't in a line.

Companies periodically make "tweaks" here and there to their gear. A company particularly notorious for doing this is Audeze, beyond just the shift to fazors. Some companies never release this information publicly These tweaks usually affect the sound. Sennheiser, being a relatively stable company working with drivers less in their infant stages (like planars are), tends to do this less than other companies. I am a little busy to do research now, but many have subjectively reported a change in the sound. Yes, I realize other factors can destroy any subjective validity here or other objective factors like pad wear, driver variation within runs, can also be at play. If you want to continue to be skeptical, thats fine. Or feel free to ignore me.

Best,

 
Audeze is the worst example you could possibly bring up.  Audeze headphones have been a work in progress since their inception.  I feel bad for the people (read Audeze beta testers) who got stuck with models that lost their value because of the all too frequent model changes.  Sennheiser, OTOH, is a stable company and does not do this.  They may have changed various parts venders but they have not changed the way their HD650 sounds. 
 
I think you pretty much covered the concept regarding subjective reports of differing sound as being from objective factors like pad wear, driver variation, clamping factor, etc. (including all the expectation bias' and placebos)
 
And btw, did you say, "subjective validity"?  Now there's an oxymoron if I ever heard one..... 

 

[Anathema123]

Good to know and thanks for posting. Love that album. What amp do you use? I'll be getting a Project Polaris. -Future HD650 owner.

 
A very basic FiiO E9, for now. The Feliks-Audio Elise ( http://www.feliksaudio.pl/ ) is on its way.

 

[JacobLee89]

   
Yeah mate, I take your point. However the power requirements of the 650 aren't linear as their are peaks & troughs. I only found this out once I was using an amp with masses of power. When I went back to the O2 it became clear that something was wrong. Please understand that I'm not talking of tonality here.  That's entirely subjective & I can see why some might prefer the O2 and I have no argument with that. But the Project Ember took the music to a whole new level for me, so much so that I just couldn't go back now.
 

 
I completely mitigated an important detail of my O2 which might be the reason why I sounded so eager to just slap a filter behind it: I forgot that my O2 is modded for boosted output, so my opinion of the O2 right now is skewed at best.
 
I don't have a stock O2 to compare to, but the resulting mod I built  (designed by AGDR) has made my HD650 sound more musical (pending confirmation of brain trickery). Given that the mod itself costed me more or less £90, which in itself costs more than the O2, maybe it wasn't a wise decision. The tinkering however, was at least fun.
 
If in any way I sounded like I was trying to preach my view as the one and only truth, I apologise for that.
 
My filtered amp doesn't have a dead silent background - it is noticeable at only uncomfortable volumes however - , so my interest was whether the active filter itself was redesigned to have improved upon that aspect. If it really is, then I would be very interested to see if plugging that filter onto *my* O2 would create a better synergy with this ODAC/O2/HD650 combination.

 

[DDDamian]

  I'm convinced the HD650 got its bad rap for being veiled, just because the MP3 was just beginning to become popular shortly after the HD650 was launched.  And everyone was plugging everything they had into those little devices.  And that includes 2 channel guys.  And we all know early MP3 players, then early iPods were low power at best.  And of course an HD650 will sound veiled on those tiny bricks...

 
Very true. It was also not far off the time when many upgrading their home systems for more digital models found the built-in headphone drives went from resistor-fed speaker taps to chintzy little boards with a couple of op-amps. The quality of headphone outputs dropped, crappy recordings and mixing became commonplace, and iDevices became the mainstream way to listen to music. Here we are, full-circle, trying to get it back. 

   
+1 This isn't really up for debate. Whether the sound changed dramatically is a question, but the driver absolutely got updated.
 
Hell look at Audeze. The LCD-2 has had three versions so far but it's still the LCD-2. It's kinda like cars, same model just it gets updated now and again. 

 
 

   
Audeze is the worst example you could possibly bring up.  Audeze headphones have been a work in progress since their inception.  I feel bad for the people (read Audeze beta testers) who got stuck with models that lost their value because of the all too frequent model changes.  Sennheiser, OTOH, is a stable company and does not do this.  They may have changed various parts venders but they have not changed the way their HD650 sounds. 
 

Yep - anyone buying planars over the last few years has been a test-subject for sure. It's an evolving outlier compared to dynamics. And Sennheiser has been in the game forever. All the more reason to trust your ears and demo where possible. At least the traits of the 650's are so well-known and documented, and the process so refined in making them, that it's a sure bet. Especially at current prices. To beat a dead horse: amping is so important to high-impedance cans and planars alike. They are not designed for iPods.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

   
Audeze is the worst example you could possibly bring up.  Audeze headphones have been a work in progress since their inception.  I feel bad for the people (read Audeze beta testers) who got stuck with models that lost their value because of the all too frequent model changes.  Sennheiser, OTOH, is a stable company and does not do this.  They may have changed various parts venders but they have not changed the way their HD650 sounds. 

 
Actually it's kinda funny with Audeze because you'll find plenty of people intentionally seeking out older models. The pre-fazor LCD-2's are in high demand I've noticed. I know I adored them and wouldn't want them to have changed at all, I just had to pare down my system a bit. 

 

[DDDamian]

@DDDamian, did you also ran HD650 on the Gustard H10?
Also, how much does it cost on Massdrop deal?

Okay, had a chance to plug into the Gustard, and here's my take on a few samples I know very well:
 
- the Gustard with the 650's is smoooooooth. In a good way and a not-so-good way depending on your tastes.

1. Listening to Adele and Natalie Marchant, the dusky female vocals come through beautifully (this is the gorgeous mids of the 650's so no surprise). The Adele was from a 24/96 vinyl rip which I know has some wow-and-flutter and a few pesky pops - none of that was the least evident.
2. Moving on to something edgier: Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds - Live at Radio City. A very good acoustic recording where the strings are very raw and edgy, very clear. Just enough bite in the strings to feel the quality of the recording - lovely sound but missing a bit of the bite this recording has loads of.
3. Guns 'n Roses - Appetite for Destruction: just not enough edge. Turning it up to try test the waters and the mid-bass bloom started to take over.
4. Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Mariko Sen Ju - beautiful violin, very good ambient. Soundstage was about as good as I've heard the 650's (which are quite intimate to begin with) once the orchestra kicks in. Not the 650's favourite genre (at least the full-on orchestral passages) but good timbre on the strings and a nice warmth
5. Yello - One Second - a little too polite once again - needs a bit more bite and edge.

 
How does it compare to the modded Crack? It doesn't really. From reading above you'll hopefully get the impression it was clean, smooth, warm, and oh-so-polite, but lacking a bit in detail and attack. In that way it is very much like the 650 itself. It sounds almost more tubey than the Crack with some warm Mullards. If I heard this from my Crack I would be happy for some music, but definitely rolling in brighter tubes for anything rockier, or faster, harder music. The Crack just seemed to swing the sharper transients better, whereas the Gustard smoothed them down, Kinda like the Appalachian mountains versus the Rockies - do you want to relax and enjoy the scenery or jump out of a helicopter and ski for your life.
 
With the Crack you have options to tweak, not so much the Gustard. You can roll op-amps, but I doubt with the same range of effect. The magic the Gustard brought to my LCD's just didn't rub off on the 650's. It's good, but not Crack-good.
 
I think this rambling has just confirmed something that's becoming a truism: for the 650's get an OTL tube amp with a high voltage swing (Crack, Ember, Woo, etc). For the planar world get something with large current flow like the Gustard, Cavelli, Lyr, Audio GD amps.
 
If you have to choose one you need to ask yourself: do I want only the 650's, DT880 premiums and other high-impedance cans (get OTL) or do I want a range of cans including lower-impedance cans, in which case the Gustard is great bang-for-the-buck.
 
Hope that helps, even if it's maybe not what you wanted to hear.