[Sigmaaa]

Looking at the graph, he treble doesn't seem to be tuned down, it's about the same, only with a boost in the 5kHz area, where the HD650 were lacking, so it's really improved. And the bass seems about the same too, only the midbass seems a bit reduced. We will see comparison graphs soon...

I've got some 5 year old HD650, so I'm really interested It's a matter of time untill a cable snaps or some piece plastic breaks so I'm strongly considering a HD660S for upgrade/backup, to use them in paralel. I've tried this move with the HD700, but they were an utter fail, plastics crackling in the earpads, treble peaks, bass with the sound of an empty barrel. Got rid of those. Yes, they had a little more resolution and treble detail than HD650, but the drawbacks were terrible. And the price too high for what they were offering.
The paint that doesn't chip off in the first cuple of months (wow, took them long enough to figure this out) and the 5kHz boost over the HD650 are the main selling points for me compared to the HD650, the rest seems about the same, which is good, there's no reason to change a good thing. Maybe a little more boost in the 10kHz+ area, but c'mon, all headphones in the market have worse weaks spots, frequency wise and otherwise.

 

[Me x3]

Looking at the graph, he treble doesn't seem to be tuned down, it's about the same, only with a boost in the 5kHz area, where the HD650 were lacking, so it's really improved. And the bass seems about the same too, only the midbass seems a bit reduced. We will see comparison graphs soon...

Not really, that's only because it's matched that way (HD660S louder overall relative to HD650)
Match those graphs at 1kHz or 500Hz (as usual) and you'll get what I'm talking about.

 

[Mani ATH 87]

Does the new 660S use the same cable as the 650? It looks the same in the photo. I spent a little bit on custom blue dragon cables for my 650, so not needing new cables would be a nice thing for sure.

Also, I wonder how the 660S will scale with gear compared to the 650. The 650 is known to be one of the best scaling headphones, so it will be interesting to know if the 660S scales up a lot as well.

They definitely look interesting to me, and there isn't a significant difference in price between these two.

One of the biggest questions for me as someone looking at headphones in this range is how these compared to the new Audeze LCD2 classic. One of these two headphones will likely be on my Christmas list.

 

[Levanter]

They definitely look interesting to me, and there isn't a significant difference in price between these two.

Considering you can get the HD6XX for $199, the price difference is quite significant

 

[leeperry]

that surely explains the 6XX sale ^^

 

[DavidA]

Looking at the graph, he treble doesn't seem to be tuned down, it's about the same, only with a boost in the 5kHz area, where the HD650 were lacking, so it's really improved. And the bass seems about the same too, only the midbass seems a bit reduced. We will see comparison graphs soon...

I've got some 5 year old HD650, so I'm really interested It's a matter of time untill a cable snaps or some piece plastic breaks so I'm strongly considering a HD660S for upgrade/backup, to use them in paralel. I've tried this move with the HD700, but they were an utter fail, plastics crackling in the earpads, treble peaks, bass with the sound of an empty barrel. Got rid of those. Yes, they had a little more resolution and treble detail than HD650, but the drawbacks were terrible. And the price too high for what they were offering.
The paint that doesn't chip off in the first cuple of months (wow, took them long enough to figure this out) and the 5kHz boost over the HD650 are the main selling points for me compared to the HD650, the rest seems about the same, which is good, there's no reason to change a good thing. Maybe a little more boost in the 10kHz+ area, but c'mon, all headphones in the market have worse weaks spots, frequency wise and otherwise.

How interesting this hobby is, the 4-5hkz peak of the HD600 is what bothered me while the higher peaks of the HD700 are just fine, bass of the HD650 is a bit muddy while the bass of the HD700 goes lower and is better defined to me. But I would still like to hear the HD660S to see what they are all about. FWIW my HD650 doesn't get much use since I've found other headphones that sound better and don't need an amp, but I still keep it around as a benchmark/starting point in comparisons.

 

[DecentLevi]

To me, that frequency response makes it look more like the midrange of the HD600, the treble of the HD650, and a little added sub bass. If that's true, I see this being more of a HD600 successor.

I personally preferred the HD600 to the HD650 because I did not want the mid bass hump of the HD650. With the HD660S, I don't see that hump.

My two biggest complaints about the HD600 would be the resolution and the somewhat shallow pad depth. If both of these things are better on the 660, it may be worth buying (for me). I guess I'll just have to wait until there are more reviews/impressions out.

For me, I've come to prefer the HD-600 to the 650 for basically everything, except for a bright recording I'll go with the 650 to tame it down a bit. If I like the added treble extension / detail / impact of the HD-600, I wonder if I'd like the 660 S? Interestingly with Jude's post he notices more detail including treble extension, but according to the FR graph, the upper registers certainly don't look it. I've got a feeling there's so much the FR graph alone is not telling us in differences between those two.

Here's a FR graph (thanks to Headroom) of the HD-600 vs. 650, which to me does seem about accurate to how I hear it, but obviously there are more differences than a graph alone.

What I'd really like is a HD600 but with more bass quantity, yet still not the 'mid bass' hump of the HD650 and with faster 'speed'. I've been having to boost the bass by at least 2 DB to make things sound 'right' on the 600 lately.

 

[Paulo Abreu]

Does it include a cable/adapter for a balanced 2.5mm TRRS ? Thanks

 

[Sigmaaa]

How interesting this hobby is, the 4-5hkz peak of the HD600 is what bothered me while the higher peaks of the HD700 are just fine, bass of the HD650 is a bit muddy while the bass of the HD700 goes lower and is better defined to me. But I would still like to hear the HD660S to see what they are all about. FWIW my HD650 doesn't get much use since I've found other headphones that sound better and don't need an amp, but I still keep it around as a benchmark/starting point in comparisons.

The HD600 have a 3.5kHz peak, not a 4-5kHz peak, and yes, that's quite audible. The HD660S have a 5kHz peak, but a very small one, it cannot be considered a real peak, since is barely over the 0dB level, it's just enough to bring detail without overemphasizing, whereas the HD650 have a big dip at 5kHz, which brings down detail.
HD700 seems to have bothered a lot of people with its peaks, including me.
So, you surely won't be able to be bothered by the HD660S 5kHz "peak", but there's a small hump at 1kHz, that's likely to make the sound a little honky, almost all headphones have a 1kHz recession, so I'm a bit more worried about that than the 5kHz thing.
And about the graph being matched that way, I don't really know, we'll see it more clearly when comparison graphs appear.

 

[thefitz]

I think it was takato14 that did mods on the HD700 and came to the conclusion that it was the earpads that were causing that bleeding-ear ice-pick at 7kHz. Not a surprise that putting the HD700 driver in a more suitable chassis yielded good results.

For shame, as the HD700 was more comfortable that the HD800, which is incredibly comfortable. I wonder what would happen if you put an HD650 driver in an HD700 chassis?

 

[leeperry]

what would happen if you put an HD650 driver in an HD700 chassis?

A sheer waste of money.

 

[thefitz]

A sheer waste of money.

Unlike expensive USB cables and headphone cables, amirite?

You can't say "waste of money" with a straight face on this forum.

 

[Mark Up]

From what I see the mid-bass hump only seems so on the HD650 due to a bit less midrange and a lot less sub-bass than desired. If the sub-bass were brought up more, that wouldn't be an issue and they could bring back a bit of mid-bass too. I still bet a HD670 that is semi-open or an HD680 that is closed as well, with a pleather pad option could make up for that. Yes less open sounding, there are ways to mitigate that, but that would be a nice option and yes there are open sounding semi-open headphones out there.

 

[Demo3]

To bad they(the headphones) were not at this years RMAF, Sennheiser only had one table here this year instead of the corner booth of years past.

 

[Satir]

Owned HD600/HD650. Those were good for money. Problem for me is increasingly noisy environment from which I cannot escape at this point in my life. Closed head/earphones are requirement unless user has quietude which I don't. Noise cancelling headphones don't have best sound quality. Keep hoping Sennheiser will manufacture a real audiophile closed headset with their engineering resources they sure could, but afraid Sennheiser have conceded audiophile closed headphone market to others.