OFFICIAL: Massdrop Sennheiser HD6XX

boy am I lucky.
I was planning to place an order on amazon tomorrow for this and I find this massdrop.

almost 6000 in less than a day? wow.

 

@TwoEars , I wish I was in LA. Lived there for 28 years and couldn't wait to leave. And now, the SBAF meet is the first time I have felt like going back. What my ears will miss...

 

Which is unfortunate, as I still don't know of a headphone more comfortable than the HD800, with cup openings that large and lower susceptibility to sealing issues.

 

Absent this holy grail, a $200 headphone as capable as the 650 is a pretty radical statement given the amount of upward price pressure we've been seeing in the past couple of years.

 

Are the mounting structures responsible for the soundstage?

If the HD800 drivers could be placed into a 6x0 like enclosure and give us a 650 with better technicalities but retains the current 650 soundstage, I would buy that. I seem to recall someone here, maybe it was Bill, tried something like that and didn't get great results, but I suspect the driver would need to be retuned for that to work.

 

Intriguing. Has anyone tried to opposite? That is to say HD650 drivers in HD800 enclosure? I think the angling of the drivers and extra space could be interesting go try out.

 

Having been initially somewhat disappointed at the release, taking a step back and contemplating about it has led me to the conclusion that the HD6XX represents a wonderful opportunity.

The HD650 has been looked upon generally, only up until recently with SBAF proliferation, as a 'weak-link' amongst the Sennheiser lineup. I must admit that I once owned the HD650 briefly through a trade, only to sell it after a couple of weeks plugging it through utter crap (in hindsight) upstream gear, then reading a couple of HF posts confirming my findings that it sucked.

I do not consider it a surprise that the decision to select the HD650 as the base mode for the Massdrop x Sennheisser collaboration was made in at least some small part due to the SBAF efforts.

This is where the opportunity arises. Having recently purchased the HD650 again and listening to it through the Vali 2 / Jot, I'm absolutely sure an enormous part of audio enthusiasts have yet to / are going to appreciate such excellent sound at a reasonable price point.

SBAF, despite the efforts of HF mods, isn't exactly a well-hidden secret. HFiers certainly know of SBAF's existence. And it is plainly obvious that the Momby -> Jot -> HD650 (Vali 2 does a great job as well) pairing was originally advocated by members on here. Best part of all, it's a very affordable combo, cheaper than the cost of a single pair of Ultrasones / Audezes. Because it's affordable, that makes it accessible. Even cheaper still, now that the HD6XX is bloody $200(!).

Taking SBAF out of the picture for a moment, at the very least, a much larger group of audio enthusiasts are going to come to the realization that the marketing spiel on HF is somewhat of a (expensive) myth. With a little luck, it will also force other manufacturers to rethink their production / price-setting philosophy. Stop with the price escalation shit.

$200 is the new benchmark.

 

i want same and with just a little more extended high octaves . Every time i change to new earpads and headband pad i get much tighter bass on hd650 and it last for 5-6 months, its not perfect but really good and i don't need more for many recordings. Also when i tried some cheap Chinese earpads that are more hard and not as much comfy as original earpads and have smaller inner hole/circle, with those 650 have even tighter sub bass.

 

HD650 was never the weak-link of Sennheiser lineup. It is the strongest link. Just ask how many people actually like non-modded HD800 here.

As our wise Uncle Erik once said, HD650 is the window of a user's setup. If it sounds veiled and and muddy, it is the setup not the headphones.

It was always always de-facto top sound until crazy super expensive headphones appeared.

I heard and own a lot of expensive headphones, but in the end I always go back to HD650 no matter what. LCD-2v2 non-fazor and perhaps Elear are only ones that could be considered as upgrade from HD650, but even then they are not really ideal by any means.

 

Sadly not enough people on HF are willing to trust their ears when faced with herd consensus. And the herd consensus on HF is that more $ = more SQ. Notice that Jude was very careful to compare the HD6XX (and by extension the 650) as a better alternative to Beats, hardly an audiophile wet dream and something he knows his readership disparages on the daily. The truth is the 6XX will best many of the headphones that get pumped on that site as the second coming, but if Jude were to acknowledge that then that dries up a lot of revenue. The whole video, Jude kept stressing that the 6XX is the best headphone in the world--at the $200 price point. Granted, he does acknowledge its scalability and resolution and does point out that it will play well with high end gear, but the fact it that he's framing it as a Beats competitor and as a budget headphone.

And we all know the only thing that's budget about these is the price.

 

@TwoEars Not really - what you actually need is to hear a modded HD800 with tubes. SD-mod + sbaf mod + copper cable + tube amp is the way to go if you ask me. Stock HD800 with SS amp can be a pretty painful once you get tired of the soundstage and detail.

what tube amp would you recommend beside top ones EC,DNA... something up to 1500$E

 

Exactly! But up until recently, you'd have found on HF that the HD650 was considered a weak link, inferior to the HD600. At $200, many people will opt for the 'HD650' by virtue of being cheaper than the HD600. Sure, not all of them will scale them properly, but many more will.

I might be wrong here, but based on myself and a handful of local friends in this hobby, none of us actually considered getting the HD650, not when the HD600 was superior by HF consensus, but more importantly because we trusted the typical HF narrative that more expensive = better headphones were out there.

The 650 was $350+ up until now. Still cheaper than most headphones, but IMO not cheap enough for people to take a risk by going against the grain.

At $200, the HD6XX can now truly be classified as a budget headphone. The barriers to entry are lower. Sure not everyone will come round to the truth, but people whom actually listen to music rather than engage in gear-fi will.

It's a great platform to start. There's no denying that the 'pull' of HF is gigantic at the moment. No one product can immediately and significantly diminish it. But if there's 6000 more people within 12 hours more compelled to give it a shot... that's nothing but good news.

 

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.or...erbaf-cheap-tube-amp-guide-1200-or-less.2796/

 

Well, I hope you're right. I'm also surprised to learn that the 600 is considered superior to the 650 on HF, a sentiment I've seen more than one person echo in the HD6XX thread today. I do hope Massdrop can open some eyes.

 

I think that's a fairly common semi-contrarian opinion. The darkness of the HD-650 was always kind of a sidegrade in the first place -- yeah, you get more bass, but you gave up more natural vocals. I honestly think that if they'd released the 650 at the same price as the 600 and billed it as the bassier-but-darker alternative (like the ER-4p/ER-4s), you'd see more people openly preferring the earlier headphone.

(Although that said: I had heard for years that the HD-600 and HD-580 were basically the same headphone with different construction quality, so my world is turned upside down by Marvey posting the charts showing otherwise -- it's actually the HD-580 that I kinda-preferred to the HD-650, so now I have to face the possibility that I might actually find the HD-600 too bright.)

 

I respect HD650, but I've never enjoyed it. Yeah, it is somewhere between veiled and shelved—even with mods and tubes, &c. It'll sound grand then, like an image of the cosmos; but it'll still be darker than everyday life, rather like the cosmos. I use an HD600, even though it's a little forward. You know why? Cuz it's not fuckin' veiled! But I've told plenty of guys to get HD650 anyway, if I think they'd like it more. There's no such thing as "truth by consensus." You have to learn your sonic preferences and those of the others involved in order to make a cogent recommendation.

 

Nicely written

 

wtf is up with the dislikes lol