[RuiPP]

@Rob80b
Sorry the off topic, what's your favourite (Sennheiser's) in-ear headphones?
Thank you.

 

[vaibhavp]

Life's complicated..lol...after my hiatus with head-fi a few years back I picked up the HD700s which in turn replaced my HD580/600s, AKG K701s and my Grado SR325is as IMHO for my preferences the 700s covered all the bases making the rest redundant.

The 800s came and went as well as the AKG K712s..but the 700 were finally replaced by the 800S ...still wanting a secondary phone the Audeze LCD2.2s came in for a short visit, fell in love with the base but where did the cymbals go? and horrible for head banging : ( .....joined the original Massdrops HD6XX on impulse which ousted the LCD2.2s..at least their sound was better balanced and they stayed on ones head : )... although better but like my HD580/600s before them their laid back somewhat forgiving signature really wasn't my cup of tea although I liked everything else about them.

Well impulse got the better of me and another pair of 700s returned to the fold as were a pair of Massdrop AKG 7XXs…these two were much preferred over the HD6xxs, so those went…the HD700s didn’t get much head-time as the 800S were that much better…so they went…..I know….but then I thought I’d give the 650s another try, if everyone is right I must be wrong right . : ( no ….just not for me, if only they had a bit more life to them, tighter better defined base and a slightly more open soundstage they would be perfect.

Fast forward to last fall..well what’s this…a possible successor to the HD650 but with the 700 driver…YES,,,,lol….end of story (for now).

ps...What about all the other alternatives out there...well...life is complicated.

Reading this thread recently has made me wanna get 660s.

Though if i am sensible, my budget could better spent elsewhere.

One question to you, why only sennheiser hps have you tried? Is this why life is complicated?

 

[Rob80b]

@Rob80b
Sorry the off topic, what's your favourite (Sennheiser's) in-ear headphones?
Thank you.

Not my preferred listening device but I did indulge a little bit and have the Sennheiser IE800, a pair of pair NE800M and Momentum ie.

 

[Rob80b]

....

One question to you, why only sennheiser hps have you tried? .....

There are other headphone manufactures? Seriously though it's like most things in life...I'm still wearing Levis after how many decades?...
Actually began back to the early seventies when starting my many years in Electro-acoustic music production and recording... for monitoring purposes I always gravitated, still do, to companies who also specialized in recording equipment....trusting manufactures of microphones to get the output at the end of the chain tonally correct..
So needless to say AKG and Sennheiser have always been part of my roster... we also had Audio Technica, Fostex, Beyerdynamic..etc, etc.
With the plethora of companies who have jumped on the personal listening bandwagon.. checking out the numerous boutique type manufacturers is beyond my available time and resources..but there are obviously many out there...even the boutique "cable maker" AudioQuest has garnered praise and recognition with their NightHawks...and the list goes on.....????

 

[kiromn]

Guys i have two questions.
First is it there sound improvement with balanced over unbalanced.
Second is it worthy (in terms of sound quality improvement) to change the stock cable with some silver plated cryo treated meteorite forged cable for the 660s ?

 

[Rob80b]

Guys i have two questions.
First is it there sound improvement with balanced over unbalanced.

That my friend is a can of worms...but an extra dB from the balanced output can be fairly persuasive.
But from experience unless there is a lot of cross-talk between channels due to the common ground, once levels are matched the difference should be negligible to nonexistent.
Unlike the benefit that balance cables offers by cancelling possible noise between electrical components or noise magnified by an active transducer/generator such as a microphone this does not apply to a passive device such as headphones.

Second is it worthy (in terms of sound quality improvement) to change the stock cable with some silver plated cryo treated meteorite forged cable for the 660s ?

Another can of worms...I know folks love to have removable cables but personally I would love to see a hard wired copper connection from the source, amp and headphones as connections between metals are one of the biggest culprits responsible for producing micro-tonal distortion and grain by interfering in the electrical continuity of the signal, unfortunately this approach is totally impractical in the real world.

 

[pietcux]

Guys i have two questions.
First is it there sound improvement with balanced over unbalanced.
Second is it worthy (in terms of sound quality improvement) to change the stock cable with some silver plated cryo treated meteorite forged cable for the 660s ?

• Balanced is not necessarily better than unbalanced. If your source is great, it does not matter.
• The Sennheiser stock cable is legendary, indestructible and gets the job done, by being a proper cable.

 

[Mike F]

Another can of worms...I know folks love to have removable cable but personally I would love to see a hard wired copper connection from the source, amp and heaphones as connections between metals are one of the biggest culprits producing micro-tonal distortion and grain by interfering in the electrical continuity of the signal, unfortunately totally impractical in the real world.

So true, and not something which I believe most people know. The fewer connections the better.....

 

[Mike F]

Guys i have two questions.
First is it there sound improvement with balanced over unbalanced.

I think it's important to realise that on an amp which has a balanced design (has a balanced output), balanced will always sound better, simply because if you listen to it through the single ended output you will only be using (and gaining the benefit of) half of the amplifier. That much at least is true.

 

[Rob80b]

I think it's important to realise that on an amp which has a balanced design (has a balanced output), balanced will always sound better, simply because if you listen to it through the single ended output you will only be using (and gaining the benefit of) half of the amplifier. That much at least is true.

I could be wrong but unless one has a true balanced differential design throughout the signal chain there will not be any benefit, in fact even with a true balanced configuration as long as there is no obvious cross-talk it will make no difference to the headphones themselves.
There was a excellent post years ago on the topic.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/balanced-vs-single-ended-poll.576339/#post-7830520

I voted single-ended. One of the major engineers at Benchmark is on record as saying the benefits as oft' advertised simply don't exist....
........
5. There is another cost incurred by dual-active headphone amps that is not addressed. Headphone amps should have as low of a source impedance as possible. If you are using two amps to drive a channel, you are doubling the source impedance. This will cause the headphones to suffer in frequency response, distortion, and ringing.
........

Now that's not to say as I haven't experienced one yet, that the current Daps incorporating the newer 6.35 mm / 4.4 mm Pentaconn shipped with Sennheiser's 660S and IE800S for example wouldn't offer an improved performance but logic would lead me to believe there shouldn't be..but I'm not always right.

 

[Mike F]

I could be wrong but unless one has a true balanced differential design throughout the signal chain there will not be any benefit, in fact even with a true balanced configuration as long as there is no obvious cross-talk it will make no difference to the headphones themselves.
There was a excellent post years ago on the topic.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/balanced-vs-single-ended-poll.576339/#post-7830520

Well as you said, Rob, that really is a can of worms (which I'm sure nobody really wants opening up here). All I can say is that when comparing the single ended outputs on my HDVD800 to the balanced, the balanced do sound better. And not just louder, but better - tighter more controlled (and seemingly a bit more extended) bass, better soundstage width and depth, and better resolution of detail. The difference is not night and day, but it's clearly audible even when carefully matching volumes between SE and balanced.

 

[DavidA]

@Rob80b, that is one interesting journey with various headphones you have gone through and I think I'm starting to do the same since I've started to sell/give away some of mine but haven't got to the point where I've repurchased the same headphone yet.

 

[donlin]

Well as you said, Rob, that really is a can of worms (which I'm sure nobody really wants opening up here). All I can say is that when comparing the single ended outputs on my HDVD800 to the balanced, the balanced do sound better. And not just louder, but better - tighter more controlled (and seemingly a bit more extended) bass, better soundstage width and depth, and better resolution of detail. The difference is not night and day, but it's clearly audible even when carefully matching volumes between SE and balanced.

I had the HDVA600 for quite a while and it was noticeably better balanced. However, the Moon amp I currently have is not balanced and I liked the way it sounded better than the balanced Sennheiser amp with the HD800s and HD650 that I had at the time I bought it.

 

[Rob80b]

I had the HDVA600 for quite a while and it was noticeably better balanced. However, the Moon amp I currently have is not balanced and I liked the way it sounded better than the balanced Sennheiser amp with the HD800s and HD650 that I had at the time I bought it.

But..but.. but all amps sound the same.....

 

[Mike F]

But..but.. but all amps sound the same.....

And all headphones..............