Wow! Sennheiser HD 540 Reference are so good.

[IgorUA]

I have a very long history with these HD540 headphones. I spent a lot of hours getting them to sound good. I tried a lot of different possible modifications of all the foam seals and sewed probably more than 5 pairs of earpads. I guess I spent too much time on it. But today I can say that I finally have a thing that sounds just perfect for me. Everything I listen to in my HD540 Ref I 600Ohm headphones sounds perfect and I don't want to change or modify ANYTHING else.

But also I have no luck to buy normal HD540 Gold to be done with it. I bought one pair where I tore off the wiring that was stuck to the felt disk, then I bought a driver and it turned out that my working driver sounds somehow different from the one I bought, completely quieter. So I want to ask you, does anyone have a pair of 600 ohm golds lying around and can you sell it to me for not all the money in the world? Even in a bad external condition. Just make sure that the drivers come from the same set and are working. Thanks!

 

[2leftears]

I have a very long history with these HD540 headphones. I spent a lot of hours getting them to sound good. I tried a lot of different possible modifications of all the foam seals and sewed probably more than 5 pairs of earpads. I guess I spent too much time on it. But today I can say that I finally have a thing that sounds just perfect for me. Everything I listen to in my HD540 Ref I 600Ohm headphones sounds perfect and I don't want to change or modify ANYTHING else.

But also I have no luck to buy normal HD540 Gold to be done with it. I bought one pair where I tore off the wiring that was stuck to the felt disk, then I bought a driver and it turned out that my working driver sounds somehow different from the one I bought, completely quieter. So I want to ask you, does anyone have a pair of 600 ohm golds lying around and can you sell it to me for not all the money in the world? Even in a bad external condition. Just make sure that the drivers come from the same set and are working. Thanks!

Buying an HD540 Gold for then having to replace one of the drivers somewhat defeats the object of getting the Gold edition; one of the advertised reasons for the Gold's premium price (other than the gold trims, wooden box, different cable etc.) was the pair of drivers having been matched in the factory.

Never too sure how useful that really is anyway; humans' individual left vs. right hearing is often a bit different showing different peaks/troughs in sensitivity/hearing threshold etc. Somehow listening through headphones rather than just hearing ambient sounds makes that imbalance more noticeable. On some Sennheiser headphones (I have a few!) I swapped the imperfectly matched left & right capsules because it matched my imperfectly balanced left/right hearing better that way. Especially noticeable on sibilance related L/R balance issues.

 

[Grumpy Old Git]

Hi folks,

I've not reported in for some time, so i thought i should say a brief 'Hello' before i shoot off again (busy night for me!)
At the moment i'm listening to my HD 540 Gold's, the only pair of any of the 540 variants i own, and the best sounding 540 i've ever owned.
I have them running out of a Little Dot MK ii fitted with pair of 6H6pi Novosibirsk Nevz Soyuz tubes, and a pair of Mullard M8100 tubes fed from a Khadas Tone Board (MK 1).
The sound is AMAZING, deep controlled bass, lush midrange and sweet, clear, non sibilant treble.....and absolutely no lack of detail!

This shows that the HD 540's can sound world class on a modest budget, i've run countless pairs of HD 540's with various amps and DAC's that are far more expensive than this amp/DAC duo, but the HD 540's have always had great synergy with tube amps.

I have a JDS Labs Atom Amp+ and DAC+ Stack due in over the next few days, so i can compare/swap the two amps/DAC's around just out of interest.
I am tempted to pick up a Bottlehead Crack to try and squeeze that last drop out of the HD 540's.......My sensible alter-ego say's 'NO! The law of diminishing returns will bite your backside VERY hard!'.......Oh well.

Any way, must dash, i'll pop back in as soon as possible, good night folks!

 

[salaca]

Hi folks,

I've not reported in for some time, so i thought i should say a brief 'Hello' before i shoot off again (busy night for me!)
At the moment i'm listening to my HD 540 Gold's, the only pair of any of the 540 variants i own, and the best sounding 540 i've ever owned.
I have them running out of a Little Dot MK ii fitted with pair of 6H6pi Novosibirsk Nevz Soyuz tubes, and a pair of Mullard M8100 tubes fed from a Khadas Tone Board (MK 1).
The sound is AMAZING, deep controlled bass, lush midrange and sweet, clear, non sibilant treble.....and absolutely no lack of detail!

This shows that the HD 540's can sound world class on a modest budget, i've run countless pairs of HD 540's with various amps and DAC's that are far more expensive than this amp/DAC duo, but the HD 540's have always had great synergy with tube amps.

I have a JDS Labs Atom Amp+ and DAC+ Stack due in over the next few days, so i can compare/swap the two amps/DAC's around just out of interest.
I am tempted to pick up a Bottlehead Crack to try and squeeze that last drop out of the HD 540's.......My sensible alter-ego say's 'NO! The law of diminishing returns will bite your backside VERY hard!'.......Oh well.

Any way, must dash, i'll pop back in as soon as possible, good night folks!

Well, IDK about diminishing returns.
I just stood up from my desk, finished listening to an album, a well-deserved prize at the end of the day, and the Concero HP used as DDC, Soekris 1541 DAC and the Violectric V280 did not sound an exaggaration, just plain fantastic with the HD540 RG.

 

[2leftears]

This shows that the HD 540's can sound world class on a modest budget, i've run countless pairs of HD 540's with various amps and DAC's that are far more expensive than this amp/DAC duo, but the HD 540's have always had great synergy with tube amps.

I have found the HD540 (any of them) to be very forgiving re. the driving amp, as long as the amp can supply enough voltage swing. Very insensitive to amp output impedance as well. The HD540 series simply always sounds great.

The measurements shown in this article may be of interest: Sennheiser HD540 measurements (DIY-Audio-Heaven)

 

[sennsay]

I have found the HD540 (any of them) to be very forgiving re. the driving amp, as long as the amp can supply enough voltage swing. Very insensitive to amp output impedance as well. The HD540 series simply always sounds great.

The measurements shown in this article may be of interest: Sennheiser HD540 measurements (DIY-Audio-Heaven)

Those graphs are very interesting. I too have found that for the most part the HD540 Refs sound pretty good with any integrated amps, I especially enjoyed them with a Sansui AU2900 I restored.

 

[ArChaos]

Those graphs are very interesting. I too have found that for the most part the HD540 Refs sound pretty good with any integrated amps, I especially enjoyed them with a Sansui AU2900 I restored.

Right, I also use them with different amplifiers, among them vintage 70's receivers and they sound great with most of them (Pioneer SX-680 (and 5000) NAD 3020, Akai 8080...). Each one of them has it's own particular sound "flavor", but all sound at least good, even the 15Wx2 RMS SX-5000. I'm talking especially about timbre and sound signature, that really shine with these amps, and since they all have bass and treble controls all this thing about the the HD540 lacking bass impact is just inexistent.

 

[IgorUA]

Right, I also use them with different amplifiers, among them vintage 70's receivers and they sound great with most of them (Pioneer SX-680 (and 5000) NAD 3020, Akai 8080...). Each one of them has it's own particular sound "flavor", but all sound at least good, even the 15Wx2 RMS SX-5000. I'm talking especially about timbre and sound signature, that really shine with these amps, and since they all have bass and treble controls all this thing about the the HD540 lacking bass impact is just inexistent.

For me, there is no problem with the lack of bass on the HD540. I have as much or more bass than on my HD660. Perhaps you need to run the sound generator for many hours at about 30 Hz, because as soon as I bought my headphones, I had no bass at all. The material of the diaphragm must have become stiff over time. Also, when I installed the pads on my headphones, I added a few felt rings for density. The inner part of the pads is pressed slightly against the paper buffle and this adds bass and lower midrange, making the sound warmer.

 

[2leftears]

IMO the HD540 has no lack of bass. It has a very gentle roll-off, but not the excess bass hump that many other headphones do.

I think it is a perception issue, which also depends very much on listening volume. Very low bass as experienced from ambient sounds impacts the whole body, not just the ears. On headphones it only impacts the ears (well, some bone conduction as well but I won't complicate matters), and in an effort to to compensate for the lack of whole body bass sensation, I think many folks simply prefer to have their headphone bass levels boosted quite a bit. In short, when folks don't "feel" the bass their chest, they want to "feel" it in their ears instead. Each to their own...

But, when experiencing ambient low frequency sounds, if you train yourself to distinguish between the low frequency sound as experienced via the ear drums vs. that as experienced by the rest of the body (e.g. chest cavity), you come to realise that many headphones have significantly elevated bass levels. Not too many folks have learnt to consciously make that distinction and as a result find headphones like the HD540 to feel bass-light.

The same happens in image processing. Give the average person a natural looking photograph to work with in post-processing, and most of them will think the colours look a little washed-out and boost saturation to levels which gives it a high-impact look, but are not a natural representation. Hence many default consumer camera settings give a bit of a saturation boost (many cameras have 'vivid' as the default image setting rater than 'natural', or whichever terms the particular brand camera may use).

 

[sennsay]

Right, I also use them with different amplifiers, among them vintage 70's receivers and they sound great with most of them (Pioneer SX-680 (and 5000) NAD 3020, Akai 8080...). Each one of them has it's own particular sound "flavor", but all sound at least good, even the 15Wx2 RMS SX-5000. I'm talking especially about timbre and sound signature, that really shine with these amps, and since they all have bass and treble controls all this thing about the the HD540 lacking bass impact is just inexistent.

Given the right amp and especially with a quality valve preamp, I've had stonking bass out of the HD540s, even when it's open and airy too. In my systems over many years, the best results have been with either an Elekit valve preamp or Trevor Lees multi-valve preamp from some years back, using the same highly upgraded kit amp I call KHA 1. I'm still using that amp this very evening, the input opamp(s) replaced with the superb Audio-gd Earth HDAM module. No valve preamp this time, I either use the Schiit Audio Magni 3+ amp as a preamp, at which it does very well and much better than the previous version (it's very transparent!), and an April Music Stello HP100 headphone amp, but in this case just as a preamp with two of the wonderful new Burson Classic V7 Pro single opamp modules. The new Vivid V7 Pro (stereo) module is in my FrankenZero DAC and is truly superb there. I'm not a fan of the Stello's power amp section, despite the good parts and the Mundorf caps in the circuit, it tends to flatten the SS, adds a thin silken texture/veil over the music and some of the sheer joy of life disappears. KHA 1+ HDAM is filled with life and music that takes you into the event and not watch it from a studio desk or from a few rows back. Pure delight and ballsy as all get out. Head and cans disappear using either the Stello (pre) or the Magni 3+(pre).

 

[Grumpy Old Git]

Listen to my newly acquired Bottlehead Crack with Speedball, I thought the Little Dot MKii was good but this moves up another level. Mind you, it should when the price difference is taken into account.

Detail, texturing, soundstage, depth, holography, ect. And that bass just digs that little bit deeper. Is this the endgame can/amp duo for me?
Most probably, and i guess i'm squeezing the last drop of performance out of the incredibly good Khadas Tone Board.

 

[Angel III]

Listen to my newly acquired Bottlehead Crack with Speedball, I thought the Little Dot MKii was good but this moves up another level. Mind you, it should when the price difference is taken into account.

Detail, texturing, soundstage, depth, holography, ect. And that bass just digs that little bit deeper. Is this the endgame can/amp duo for me?
Most probably, and i guess i'm squeezing the last drop of performance out of the incredibly good Khadas Tone Board.

The Kadas Tone Board offers outstanding performance for the price you pay.

 

[Grumpy Old Git]

The Kadas Tone Board offers outstanding performance for the price you pay.

Absolutely. Incredible value for money.

 

[atomLI631]

Im interested in picking up a pair of HD540s. I have a lead on a really nice pair of Reference 1 600Ohms, but the suller suggested that the inner foam be replaced since everything is original. Does anyone have a recommendation on what to use for replacement foam? I saw these on ebay. Would I use this for both sides? Also - any guides/videos to check out how its done? My understanding is that it could be a bit risky on such old headphones.

Also - any opinion on if I should skip the Ref1 600 Ohm and try to look for a Ref 2? I believe they are only 300ohm though.

 

[salaca]

Im interested in picking up a pair of HD540s. I have a lead on a really nice pair of Reference 1 600Ohms, but the suller suggested that the inner foam be replaced since everything is original. Does anyone have a recommendation on what to use for replacement foam? Also - any guides/videos to check out how its done? My understanding is that it could be a bit risky on such old headphones.

Also - any opinion on if I should skip the Ref1 600 Ohm and try to look for a Ref 2? I believe they are only 300ohm though.

Stay with the Reference I 600 Ohm version. They sound better. The inner foam is just under the pads. No biggie to replace them. Remove pads, replace foam, put the pads back.