Been using my 598 a LOT lately over my K601. The K601 doesn't give me that front row like experience, but almost close to that. My preference of headphone to listen to all comes down to what music I'm listening to at the time. My poor K702 still is on my head about only 10% of the time. I usually take it off because it just doesn't sound as natural as my K601. I guess i'll need to burn it in more..I'm only at about hour 80.
Well, I almost nearly killed my HD-598 today! Oops! I was sitting here doing some work and getting bored. I remembered I had a spare 1/8" plug I could use and had some Belden Starquad wire left. Previously I did some testing with interconnect cables and that's the only wire where I felt I could tell the difference. In fact I was quite positive of it. I think it's the same stuff that Blue Jeans Cable uses for their mini-to-mini interconnects.
As I was soldering the wire onto the ultra tiny soldering spot of the 598 I must have slipped or something and a piece of the board turned all white! Uh Oh. I was sure I killed my headphone. It's as Sennheiser wanted to say to me "Don't do it!" when soldering a new wire to the driver. Those voice coil wires are exposed and right next to the soldering area. Nice!
Well I put everything back together and everything still worked. The only negative is that this Belden Starquad is thicker and the cable is now somewhat like a snake. I still need to open everything back up and hot glue the wires in place.
I think it's safe to say I prefer it to Mogami, but at this point I'm still trying to figure out the differences, if any. For some reason the soundstage seems bigger. Sound seems more clear than the Mogami. I think the Mogami added a tad too much bass, but maybe not.
No more HD-598 cables for me, I figure next time I'll probably kill it for real and I don't want that.
BTW this may seem hard to believe, but it's easiest to tell the differences between cables in games. Recorded rain is also good for some things like testing soundstage. On my K702 I feel like I'm actually stuck outside in the rain and surrounded by it.
EDIT:
Somehow this new cable appears to be making my HD-598 a little more aggressive. It's now not quite as smooth and non-fatiguing as before. I'm hoping my ears were just tired to begin with. I must be crazy, because how on earth am I getting the impression of better imaging and a more accurate (and larger) soundstage? How's that possible for a new cable? I've experienced this more than once before. I'll give me ears a rest and see how it goes tomorrow. My guess is that it makes the upper mids appear to be slightly more forward. Too forward of upper mids and my ears throw a fit, but luckily this is rare. I doubt just a new wire could do this, so I'm going to hope it's just my tired ears. Probably is.
BTW it's amazing how easy it is now (after upgrading to ANY new wire) to pick up recording hiss and pick out the garbage tracks. On my HD-650 even with a good cable it was still fairly difficult at times.
No way ever you could any longer call the HD-598 grainy or not clear sounding. This is the whole reason I sold my HD-650. Still not as good as picking up all those subtle details in a recording as my KRK KNS-6400, but I just want to enjoy to my music and not analyze it.
Also...Cyril Morin soundtracks on the HD-598 are quite impressive. I need to buy the "Samsara" soundtrack.
Haha, this is amazing. There's this reference track I use where there is 5 metallic sounds that are very faint on the left. Only on a few headphones can I count the number of sounds. On most "decent" headphones it's only 3 of them that's heard. Even on the K702 or K601 I can only hear 3..or 4 if I'm lucky. On the KRK I can hear all of them. On the HD-598 with Mogami I could only hear maybe 3 or 4 also, but now with this Belden I can hear at least 5 as clear as day. It generally sounds like garbage on Sennheiser headphones and I don't know why. It sounds best on bass light or thinner sounding headphones and I don't know why. A headphone with too much mid-bass and the song is ruined also or it gets too congested. So I guess my point is that the Belden definitely has me hearing stuff I never heard on the Mogami for sure. Belden?! Huh?!
EDIT 2:
A day later I tried the Belden 1192A again and it once again fatigued my ears within 15 minutes. I guess since the HD-598's mids are already forward as it is, that cable didn't help. If you want the most detail and the clearest sound, get the 1192A. I also had this very weird (if not impossible?) impression that it seems to make my music more accurate to how it was recorded. I kept being reminded of the soundstage being more like that of the K601. Singers if they sounded distant, were definitely that way. It did offer the hugest soundstage. I know how this is hard to believe, but the 1192A made my HD-598 almost sound like a studio monitor. What..the heck?! Ok, one with forward mids, but there sure was lots of detail.
I removed it..I take back every single thing about a cable changing a headphone's signature. It's most definitely possible, but not totally transform it.
I ended up recabling it a third time with Canare L-4E5C. I normally don't like Canare, but maybe it's not as bad as I once thought. It does seem to add the most mid-bass I've ever heard in a cable.
BTW I wanted to believe cables don't sound like anything since they're "just copper", but now I can't really believe this. Each and every one has sounded different to me, which really stinks.
I read this huge PDF file of reviews of Instrument cables and the Cardas got some really good ratings. The Canare GS-6 also did. Mogami is supposed to be quite neutral, but it didn't rate very highly. Maybe the Cardas isn't really snake oil after all
Too bad it's so hard to find in bulk.
