Sennheiser HD650 Love (Appreciation Thread)

Maybe the Customer Service Reps work from home and want to take care of inquiries before the TV commercial is over, or something...

 

Hey, fellas. I completed modding this evening. Sounds pretty good! A few minutes later I noticed one of the drivers had crumpled inward. I don't know how the hell I managed to do that as my fingers cannot get in there. I made the mistake of forming a seal when blowing from behind it and it reformed with a snap, tearing it. Strangely not as audible as I might have expected though.

The drivers are marked as June 2012. Do you guys think it'd be okay to replace one driver and run it on pink noise for 200hrs, or should I be replacing both drivers together?

Cheers

 

Get both to play it safe. Driver matching is excellent for HD650.

 

Thanks it kind of occured to me from having owned Paradox Slants for a few years. I noticed when I twisted the hair bands on those I got a bit more clamping
force. But it becomes more obvious on the 650's because of the angle from center. I like the difference!

 

I picked up some HD650's for the first time, a couple weeks ago. I always wanted a pair but they were to expensive, I got these new on amazon for 315$. My previous headphones were MarkL modded Denon D2000.

Im pairing with a Jotunheim, and I really enjoy these headphones, I was suprised how much they changed with break in. I've ran about 250 hours of Pink noise though them now. They sounded pretty muddy at first, that went away around 85 hours, and then around 150 hours the treble opened up a bit. Im a pretty big skeptic of cables, break in, and general voodoo, but there was definitely a change. I'd bu suspicious of people who listen to them right out of the box and then start modding them without a proper break in time.

The modding talk is interesting, but Im not sure it's needed with Jotunheim, I do plan to re-terminate to balanced this weekend, already got the XLR jack sitting here, just haven't got to it yet.

I still like my D2K's, but these do offer a really nice, non-fatiguing sound that you can just listen to for hours. The D2K's are more lively, and I feel have a bit better bass (witch is their strong suit) modded, but the Mid-range of these 650's is oh so sweet.

 

If found them to become a bit warmer as the pads have compressed and conformed to my head. The treble has remained treble-y.

 

Just finished that retermination (stock cable to Neutrik XLR). Nice improvement across the board with Jotunheim, everything's just a little better. Clarity/Resolution, and slightly cleaner bass. This is with Jotunheim and it's balanced dac.

Of course, way more power! I could max the volume knob on high gain before with some classical, don't think i'll be doing that now.

 

Thank you. Unfortunately in the process of de-crumpling I actually tore the diaphragm. I was gently blowing into the hole behind the driver and carelessly made a seal with my lips. Creating way too much pressure, and reforming the diaphragm with enough force to tear it in two directions.

A mistake that one can learn from and avoid in future. What really aggravated me is not knowing how it crumpled in the first place.

 

OK everyone, I want to talk about pads for a minute. I suppose because the stock pads provide such excellent tuning, there's not a whole lot of information out there regarding alternatives.

My HD650s have been getting a bit long in the tooth, and I decided I needed new pads. For the last 6 months or so I've been stuffing things (I settled on melamine foam) underneath the pads to distance the drivers from my ears, which helps with the bass bloom. Unfortunately new, original Sennheiser pads are prohibitively expensive where I live.

So I ordered a couple of pairs of cheap ebay pads. Long story short: They're rubbish. The material is not so bad, but there is just no padding and they compress just about as much as my old, worn pads. But that doesn't mean they can't be fixed.

Things you will need:

1. Crappy HD650 pads from ebay or elsewhere;
2. Sony XB700 pads (also from ebay - expect to pay $10 or so)
3. Small, sharp scissors;
4. Needle & thread.

First, the fun part - destroying things. What we want to do is remove the foam from inside both sets of pads, ideally without destroying the Senn pads. For the Sony pads, just go nuts.

Make a small incision across the top of the pad. Do the same on the opposite end. Be careful as it's easy to cut the inside material that faces the baffle, and you want this to stay intact because it's going to be the load-bearing part of the pad when you sew it up.



Gently pull the foam out in two bits. Once you see the quality of the foam you won't feel bad about taking to the pads with scissors, trust me.



Peel the pleather off the Sony pads to remove the memory foam, then go ahead a chop it up into small pieces.




Take your time stuffing the Sony foam bit by bit inside the Senn pads. It will all fit and although it will be a bit lumpy at first it will even out over time. Then, carefully sew up the incisions. I hope you paid attention when you did crafts at primary school.



And you're done! Nice new(ish) memory foam pads for your HD650. Nevermind that they look ugly.

Bonus step, for those who have done the traditional foam removal and dynamat mods but want to further reduce the midbass bump like Marv's KISS mod: take the thin front foam that came with your crappy ebay pads and (loosely) stick it behind the driver.



For me, this does a really good job at smoothing out the lower frequencies and bringing up the subbass just a touch (although I suspect that the increased subbass may be due to the memory foam being less permeable than the stock foam and so forming a better seal). I definitely prefer this to my previous attempts at jamming the tiny foam circles back into the driver vent.

I'm still amazed at the results I'm getting from the 650s, they really are the headphone that keeps on giving. I only wish I had a stock pair around to compare.

 

I kind of hope that measures horribly, just so I'm not tempted to ghetto up mine. Any chance of getting your HD650 measured? Subjective impressions are fairly useless without a good sense of reference with that individual, or I'm an idiot. It's one of the two.

 

You really need something like measurements or a second hD650 to really see if it's better because you came up with it and thought it was great, so it is, or it's actually rubbish and destroys everything good about the HD650. <--This came out harsh but you get the idea.

 

Oh yeah, I'm fully aware that my sound impressions mean nothing to anyone without context.

This was a comfort mod more than anything else really. And I think it does a fine job at that. The fact that I'm now using stiffer pads and therefore the driver is sitting further from my ear is just a bonus. I hear the effect of this as lowering the midbass bump, as per solderdude's pad measurements, but as you point out I've no way of confirming it.

I guess the short point is that if anyone's got spare memory foam lying around it's not that hard to do a little surgery and make up some new pads. Total cost is around $20USD and I think it's worth a go.

The rationale of putting foam behind the driver was to further tame the bass without losing the benefits of the dynamat and the removal of the tiny foam circles. I'm not 100% convinced this has worked how I hoped, but it's not like I can't just take it out again.

 

I've had my HD650s for just over a month now. They are my second open back headphone purchase after the HD598s. I can honestly say that I enjoy them even more now than when I first started using them. Whether that be from breaking in or just getting used to their sound signature, not sure. Probably a mix of both. I can wear and listen to them practically all day without any discomfort of fatigue. The Modi Multibit & Vali 2 drives them very well and I look forward to seeing how they scale whenever I get higher end DACs & amps. The HD650s have earned a permanent spot in my collection as I acquire more headphones.

 

I acquired the HD 650 today, and I feel like I'm home. I can't believe I'm saying that because I couldn't stand the HD 650 the first time I heard it. About seven years ago, I attended a Head-Fi meet in Chicago, and I was appalled by the sound of the HD 650, like, "How the hell can people listen to this?" Bloated bass, treble rolled off to nothingness, transients as slow as a tortoise...you get the picture. Just to put things in perspective, that meet was also the first time I heard the HD 600, and I loved the HD 600. Now granted, I was just getting into personal audio, and my first true exposure to decent headphones (as in better than cheap earbuds) was the Grado SR125 driven from a vintage Yamaha receiver, so I was probably accustomed to an overly bright sound, but man, my feeling of disdain for the HD 650 that I heard that day has stuck with me all these years.

Fast forward a couple years, and I got sucked into the Head-Fi Flavor of the Month black hole. I bought a Headamp GS-X mkII, an Oppo BDP-105, and a Grado PS1000...and I couldn't stand to listen to the system that I had constructed. I was so frustrated with myself and disappointed by the overall experience that I stopped listening to music for a while. I sold the GS-X mkII because I couldn't stomach the feelings that arose when I looked at it and realized how much money I had spent on it, and while the Grado PS1000 continues to give me similar feelings, I've hung onto the headphone up until this point because I didn't have a clear sense about where to pivot.

I've hung onto the Oppo for its video capabilities, and to its credit, I have to say that it opened my eyes to the importance of having a quality DAC. As much as I can now point out the flaws of DS dacs, to its credit, the Oppo gave me a good taste of what quality music reproduction can sound like when you step up from crappy computer sound cards and 15-year old DVD players.

After much research and much to the credit of this forum, I was placed on the righteous path of the Schiit Yggdrasil, and then eventually the Jotunheim followed...which is the long-winded way of saying that I could not ignore all the recommendations to try the HD 650, particularly to pair it with the Jotunheim and to see how well it scales with quality sources.

I can't believe how good the HD 650 sounds on my head tonight. Veil? Nope. Bloated bass, treble rolled off to nothingness, transients as slow as a tortoise? Not here. These headphones are quick and agile. They resolve an incredible amount of detail. They offer a nicely layered soundstage with instruments positioned relative to each other, as opposed to just being flattened on a plain. And tonally, they sound oh-so-right. Listening to "Every Morning" by Keb' Mo', it sounds like there's a real dude with a real acoustic guitar in front of me. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

tl;dr: Buy the HD 650.

 

Hello everyone,

I am new to sbaf. I am a new hd650 owner. I tried to do the mod as shown in the first page of this thread. But it is not clear to me in the picture which part of the plastic was removed from the driver or the back baffle. I have dynamat in my hand but I also want to know exactly where to apply it. Can anyone help me using another picture?

Thank you very much!

 

Not sure if you saw this, maybe you'd want to first attempt the KISS mod instead:
http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/hd650-kiss-mod.3440/

 

Sounds like you are doing the original HD650M mod, @Yuheng Du . If so, take a look in this post.

 

No specific reference here to another post...just ongoing fiddling. If you have followed my posts you know I am fairly relentless. Idle hands etc.

I have been all about killing and smoothing resonance. Ridiculous amounts of such in my heavier than normal 650's.

Well now I'm doing the opposite and taking a page from the monks at Shun Mook.

Sympathic positive vibrations. Read their stuff about mpingp ebony and their treatment of and with it. I have s few of said discs from years ago when we occasionally sold these devices.

You may think it crazy...but they argue from physics on their site. One disc oriented as I remembered on each side stuck just above the earcup where headband joins. They stamp their signature symbol on them to allow that. Used dynamatt goop.

Muhaha...crazy like a fox. I have been told I wax lyrical by other SABFers...no cussing intended...! So I will not. I also refuse to take those small black hockey pucks off.

Yes they do make a difference. Let the monks explain it. I prefer to just listen.

My Frankenheisers look nuts, or bolts,...but man do they sing!

Will post picture at some point.

Just having fun while waiting for a new Oppo Dac to arrive!

Happy Listening!

 

Some point is sooner than I anticipated. Here I am!!!

With Frankenheiser as someone here endearingly named them! Why not!




!