What's the most overrated can?

[iridium7777]

Focal Bathys...

they seem to be hyped to no end on youtube reviewers until you realize that Focal gave those out at an invited event to all of them.

even if you look past that:

- they HISS, they HISS all the friggin' time.
- you can't turn off ANC off
- ANC actually sucks if you're buying them for ANC
- sound increments, at least on iOS, are extremely poor. you go from 0-20-75-100% volume, or it feels like that.
- at least on my head, they were incredibly uncomfortable and had really bad clamping force.

i only picked these because of how much they cost and how much of a hype they have. if these were $200 i'd probably leave them alone.

 

[bagwell359]

BHC has a high output impedance, which is going to raise the bass on most headphones, including the HD600. It basically acts like a 1-2 dB bass shelf under about 500hz.

Agree mostly, I found with the BHCs that the raise wasn't notable until 150 Hz, and really did help under 80 Hz. I hate tubby mid-bass and at least with my 600 & BHCs its not, but, the OG BHC has a more notable rise.

Still on my Rag 1 and Rag 2 the 600 seems threadbare of harmonics in the mids and highs, and that the BHCs brings well known recordings to me to be less artificial and more harmonically correct (yes THD is a good deal of the reason). The V-281 and 550 are the only SS amp I have heard that does the 600 well, although there are obviously others.

As for the 650->S2 i do find these to have well too much midbass/lower midrange - and to lower low male voices too much. There is a not so subtle sense that someone has their hands semi blocking the mics recording mids at times. I owned the 650 first, and it was gone as soon as I heard the 600. I don't hate them, just avoid them.

After finally hearing the JAR mod of the 600 and 800 - the hype is well justified. The JAR 800 I heard on a DIY Aegis at a Schiit meet beat a pile of expensive cans, it was in the same class as the ZMF Caldera open and a Stax X9000, the 600 not that far behind.

 

[chesebert]

Focal Bathys...

they seem to be hyped to no end on youtube reviewers until you realize that Focal gave those out at an invited event to all of them.

even if you look past that:

- they HISS, they HISS all the friggin' time.
- you can't turn off ANC off
- ANC actually sucks if you're buying them for ANC
- sound increments, at least on iOS, are extremely poor. you go from 0-20-75-100% volume, or it feels like that.
- at least on my head, they were incredibly uncomfortable and had really bad clamping force.

i only picked these because of how much they cost and how much of a hype they have. if these were $200 i'd probably leave them alone.

Mistake 1: trusting YouTuber and other influencers
Mistake 2: blind buy
Mistake 3: expecting good sound out of BT cans

 

[Runrunsmithfly]

The flaws of the HD-600 are: lacks low bass impact/volume, images poorly, doesn't do dynamic contrasts that well, has two bright spots in the treble (one notable, the other not so bad). So those who like genres outside of well recorded acoustic music won't likely care for it, as we see here. It also is difficult to drive to its best - OTL amps and SS amps with lots of current at high impedances (v281 for instance) is what is needed.

However, the timbre of midrange acoustic instruments such as piano is stellar and wipes the floor with non PEQ'd cans of all sorts - many much more expensive and newer. It also has the charming character of not adding things that are not there - so the fatigue factor is quite low, assuming what it does not do well is a requirement of the listener.

I don't listen to mine very much, but, for what it does well, it is very good. Like it or not, it is an important headphone in the history of high fidelity headphones over the past 30 years. I am looking forward to the Schiit Valhalla 3 due out on May 1st - $499 for an analog only all tube headphone amp for high impedance headphones, as well has a switch that allows it to drive planars (we'll have to see how that works).

I did not know about the Valhalla 3. I've been using my Valhalla 2 for a long time now and never felt the need to change. I'll check into the Valhalla 3.