[wazzupi]

i dont know man the B&W cm series sounds good to my ears i've auditioned them before but I haven't heard any non mainstream brand of speakers. I guess I'm going to have to go searching for a local place.

 

[ac500]

> i dont know man the B&W cm series sounds good to my ears i've auditioned them before but I haven't heard any non mainstream brand of speakers. I guess I'm going to have to go searching for a local place.
 
And to prove my point, swap "B&W" in this sentence with "Beats" (not to say they're equally bad, but just to prove a point of logic):
 
> i dont know man the Beats by Dre series sounds good to my ears i've auditioned them before but I haven't heard any non mainstream brand of headphones. I guess I'm going to have to go searching ...
 
Pretty scary isn't it? We as humans are so susceptible to marketing that we buy the popular choice because it seems good and it's popular, without thinking to compare with non-mainstream options that may be vastly better for a lower price
 
I do know for a fact that you get hugely better value in the non mainstream speaker manufacturers. Some more mainstream makers produce speakers easily over $10,000 (even 2x, 3x, 5x that), and yet this little company makes a $2500 speaker set that beats them all - probably the best speaker in the world, more or less:
 
http://www.selahaudio.com/id216.html

(This is my next speaker upgrade when I can afford it )
 
All I'm saying is, just like headphones, you'll do really well to research before you buy. Do NOT "buy just because it sounds good", because that's what everyone buying Beats does. Without a frame of reference, it's easy to lose perspective and get scammed by these big companies like Bose, B&W, etc. (again I should say as a disclaimer B&W is vastly better than bose, but it's still not that good vs competition).

 

[CDewey]

I personally was never impressed with any B&W speaker for the price. They sound vastly better than Bose, but that's not saying much.

If you're as interested as speakers as you are in headphones, please do the research. Almost everywhere I read, people say B&W is a pretty bad deal for the price, and my experience confirms this. We make fun of people buying Beats around here - please don't make a similar mistake and buy B&W unless you are REALLY sure that's what you want. Try to audition first.

For example, I auditioned a Totem tower next to a B&W speaker costing much more. The Totem blew it away by such an insanely wide margin, it literally is like the difference between a Sennheiser HD 650 and Beats Solos. In fact a Paradigm speaker costing 1/5th the price even sounded better than B&W. 

Sorry, but I had to say it. Obviously, trust your ears and listen for yourself at a local shop - and if you really like it, then buy it. But make SURE you try the alternates first - otherwise you'd be making the mistake naive headphone buyers do when they buy Beats or Bose.

Always audition audio if you can. Trust your ears. I get to listen to amazing systems at work (martin logan clx, focal Scala utopia, canton reference, b&w diamonds. My favorite is 802diamonds.

 

[grokit]

Sometimes it's Sennheiser themselves :blink:
When I got mine for $340 plus $50 iTunes card that's an effective $290, that has to be the lowest of anybody's price to date for brand new with a US warranty. Maybe there's a loophole for cross-promotions.

I'm fairly sure it is NOT sennheiser themselves. If dealers found out they'd have no more dealers.

Your price was stupid good. I couldn't buy them from my own store for that. I'd have to go dealer accomodation to do better.

Yep, straight from Sennheiser USA's website, with a black Friday coupon code.
Got tipped off through this thread

 

[CDewey]

Yep, straight from Sennheiser USA's website, with a black Friday coupon code.
Got tipped off through this thread

Oh ok. I thought you meant sennheiser was selling to amazon and let's amazon basically sell for cost, and tells their dealers to live with UMRP. If that were the case dealers would drop the sennheiser line like it had a disease. Lol

It was just an extremely short lived black Friday promo. Grats to the folks that took advantage!

 

[Keevs]

I've auditioned a number of speakers. From PMC, Dynaudio, Usher, Sonus Faber, Epos. And to my ears, and for my budget, I liked the B&W CM5. And I still do after hearing more systems. But that's the beauty of audio. So much flavors to suit individual tastes.

 

[FER-URUGUAY]

Quote:

I received my HD650 yesterday from amazon fr. This sound amazing 

, much better than my HD595, but the clamping force of HD650 is like hell to me, I can wear my HD595 whole day but  I could only wear HD650 for half hour, my ears hurts.

  I am sure this has been asked many times, but I will still ask: how do you  guys solve this issue?

How much did you pay (total cost) for them in Amazon France?

 

[FER-URUGUAY]

1. Mad Lust Envy

Prices fluctuate all the time on Amazon. Has nothing to do with the HD650. I've seen the price of the DT990 change from $224 to $379 in the same day, and back down to high $200s... it just happens.

 
It is curious that the HD650 fluctuate in a $100 span, but meanwhile  the HD600 are fixed in the same price 

 

[longbowbbs]

Quote:

 
I'm curious to hear how the 650s sound with a Denon AVR-1712 home theater receiver, which is my primary home unit, fed by a MacBook running iTunes and Bitperfect (among other things). My HD 239s sound great through the AVR, substantially better than through portable sources, including my MacBook itself, so I figure the HD 650s will deliver a big upgrade, without overwhelmingly outclassing the AVR, even if the AVR is not the ideal match for the 650. 
 
There's not much commentary out there about driving headphones with AVRs, other than a few vaguely ominous allusions to afterthought design and parts allocated to the AVR heaphone section. I figure if the headphone section can apprehend a decent fraction of the AVR budget, then that's equivalent to a cheap dedicated headphone DAC/amp combo. Probably a bit short of a Dragonfly or Magni/Modi combo, but better than plugging directly into the MacBook. And of course I also use the AVR to drive my home theater, so a quite reasonable trade-off.
 

Welcome to Head-Fi Aerocraft67!  As they say, apologies to your wallet!
 
I have a couple of Denon AVR's and they work nicely with the 650's. I do prefer a dedicated amp, but the Denon's will suit you fine with your new 650's.
 
Congrats!

 

[thinh4u2]

Hmm, I bought my hd 650 from amazon for $399 - 10% - $50gc = $310. Sent them to my house but am currently out of town, so I'll play with them tomorrow. I read that the E10 isn't strong enough of an amp to drive them. Anyone have any suggestions for a budget amp dac that can drive them well?

 

[Mad Lust Envy]

Magni, E9K?

 

[Insilin1i]

O2/ODAC and the Schiit Modi/Magni, though I have no experience with the latter so I can't really comment on if they are any good.

 

[Speakerphile]

Quote:

Yep, straight from Sennheiser USA's website, with a black Friday coupon code.
Got tipped off through this thread

 
 
As Wazzupi said, this was a coupon code intended for Best Buy employees as a dealer accommodation, and not a black friday code.  That's why it was killed so quickly.  You got a great deal, though we likely won't see that again!

 

[MattTCG]

Quote:

Magni, E9K?

 
+1 good suggestions for those on a budget. 

 

[wazzupi]

Quote:

 
 
As Wazzupi said, this was a coupon code intended for Best Buy employees as a dealer accommodation, and not a black friday code.  That's why it was killed so quickly.  You got a great deal, though we likely won't see that again!

yep ^.