Senneheiser HD660S Impressions

Yeah. Stuff that measures flat at listening position sounds bright. This is why I keep citing B&K or the 1db downward slope / octave at listening position.
Usually flat speakers measured on-axis will end up awfully close to the targets above at listening position in a moderately treated room (carpets, furniture, correct distance from walls, and high enough ceilings will suffice).

Flat studio monitors can be a bit trickier because we are nearfield. Room treatment may be more necessary. But correct toe in, distance to walls, and correct application of trim switches will get us there.

 

They are being shipped off to Ultrabike this weekend. Then they go on the loaner program.

 

Groupthink, echo chamber, biased, etc. I've heard it all before. At worst they translate into "I am pouting because consensus SBAF opinion disagrees with me". At best, they are accusatory rhetorical techniques so that we become more accommodating of different views.

It's been years now and I still do not know why some people expect SBAF to be an egalitarian forum like HF where everybody has an equal voice.

The SBAF forum is merely the public face of a secret society.

 

I underlined what I find controversial on this post.

Many established members here have listened to a wide variety of speakers. Many measured on the spot by the members themselves. Such speakers sounding and measuring with relative neutral responses, and with enough discrimination by the listener to properly correlate listening experience with measured performance.

I can say with a high degree of confidence that the HD800 is nowhere near a neutral headphone. It's too bright and analytical.

I can also say that a Revel Salon will sound like shit in a small room. I'm not just talking, I listened to this speaker on a small room. It's too big of a speaker for a show room and it requires space and room treatment to sound good. Smaller monitors may have less of a problem in certain show rooms.

Furthermore, recent releases of Michael Jackson material are utter crap. I remember evaluating a DAC and telling @LFF that it was shit, only for @LFF to tell me to skip the Michael Jackson recent release and listen to better music (EDIT: It wasn't mine BTW, believe it or not it was what the guys where using to demo their DAC). It was horrid. I cannot imagine listening to such shit at high volumes on an HD800.

I also think that many headphones, such as the HD700 were not intentionally designed with treble peaks. They are testament of the lack of proper engineering and increase on misguided marketing by established audio companies. They are mistakes, and I believe the birth of the HD660S, using drivers from the lack luster and poorly received HD700 speaks volumes about this.

As far as "Intellectual Echo Chamber" (group think), f**k that. Calling the HD800 an analytic beast is not group think. I mean common, even Sennheiser released the HD800S to deal with this f**k up. The mod was not enough to deal with the issue. You need to redesign the whole damned thing.

 

I don't feel the HD700 driver is bad. But I don't think it's special either. I think the main problem with the HD700 and the HD800 has a lot more to do with the housing. Note this is what many mods target.

I also don't think the HD660S are a mistake as a release. Just too pricey for what they are considering the existence of the HD6x0 lines. Price aside, I'm biased into thinking the HD660S are better than all of the HD5x9/8 cans and many cans from different vendors. But I don't see how they are an upgrade to the HD6x0 cans Senn already offers.

LOL! No. I don't think it did.

Consider Beyer cans. They have the 60, 80, 150, 250, and 600 ohm versions of the same can with cheap plastic, not so cheap metal, and heroic metal housing.

Senn seems to have the HD5x8/9 cans which are micro tuned versions of one another at 32 ohms (I think). The HD660S seems like the 150 ohm version, and the HD6x0 are the 300 ohm versions. Both HD6x0 and HD660S offering relatively less distortion characteristics, and the HD6x0 having the benefit of matching well with some high impedance amps and maybe having the ability to scale up with higher end equipment. What would make sense to me is to see something like what Beyer did which might make it easier for the customer to understand what they bought, and see some of the differences justify the price.

For example, Beyer charges a little more for the higher impedance cans and depending on housing bling.

Instead HD660S is moar expensive cuz it's the next new thing out. The nomenclature is also very confusing relative to Beyer.

 

This is true. In fact this is demonstrated on the HD6x0 and the HD5x8/9 lines. While I do not consider the HD5x8/9 garbage, they have IMO lower quality drivers than the HD6x0 and perhaps even the HD660S. They offer lower impedance which are easier to drive from portables. But they suffer from higher distortion characteristics. Some of this issues are not solved by the housing. One needs a better driver.

I wish Sennheiser would have come up with an improved housing for the HD800. The notable thing about the HD800 is that it offers lower bass distortion while maintaining great extension and behavior in the treble areas. The housing was a cluster-f**k though.

 

No can do. Looked at prior posts and HD660S topics are interwoven in some of the what is neutral discussions. If "offtopic" posts are extracted, the context and flow of some the posts here will be lost (and vice versa).

This seems to be a popular thread, so it's a good place to re-emphasize that SBAF is indeed a secret society and not an egalitarian paradise like HF were everybody is right in their own way. I am not saying the SBAF is right on an absolute cosmic level as defined by God and the Pope, the Force, the First Ones, etc. but I am saying that SBAF is right for the members of the secret society. It's all relative. SBAF does not proselytize. It does not want to grow. It does not define number of unique visitors per month as success. in fact, probably the opposite. October was like the Month of Dotards. New registrations will likely close.

 

Regarding cleaning up threads. One could move things around. But remember this is not managed like Head-Fi where the mods rain down and start making posts disappear, send "Hope you agree even if you don't understand" PMs, thread ban folks left and right, and so on.

Too much of this ends up with cryptic posts that belong nowhere.

I agree we should focus on HD660S impressions. But note how folks bringing their impressions bout the HD660S coming from an HD800, and calling an HD800 (or whatever other random can) the absolute reference of neutrality is a very important piece of information. Understanding where people come from and how strongly they feel about their sound preferences is IMO very important. It brings context to the impressions they offer. It also helps form up impressions relative to a particular can.

For example, if someone is crazy about the HD800, it makes sense that he/she calls the HD660S or HD6x0 veiled, boring, and so forth. It helps everyone that have experience with the HD800 to form crude relative impressions.

It is also possible that the HD800 fan will call it the absolute reference and starts making "group think" claims. It cannot always be helped. Things like that will be called though.