Sennheiser HD660S Speculation

Even considering it's Jude, I highly doubt it's measurement error. Look how nicely the treble lines up in Jude's plots - that would be the first thing that gets affected. On a dummy head you will get slight changes in the 1kHz area with positioning errors, but usually they won't be as big.

I do think it makes sense that Senn went more towards a Harman tuned midrange - at least from the graphs. Personally I'd like more 2kHz than stock HD650 and a tiny bit less 1kHz, not the other way around, but that's the way the target is. Also darker than stock HD650 means I'm most likely not interested in them at all.
I'm sure in 10 or 15 years big companies like Sennheiser will be able to think for themselves again. This is just the FF/DF target all over again.

I highly doubt they'll sound that similar to the HD650 in tone. The differences between the graphs are pretty massive really. More than 3db in the midrange tuning.

Also people please stop masturbating about these Jude graphs. This thread is just horseshit by now anyway, so I'm digging myself out of my grave to visit. I'm sure we'll get a nice thread in a few weeks. Personally I don't think they'll sound worse than the HD650 like @ultrabike does. Worse than the HD600, maybe. Lower impedance doesn't mean higher distortion just because the HD558 has higher distortion.

I bet the driver potential will be higher in the new phone. Add some mods to fix what Senn has done to the FR and you're pretty much golden if a super HD650 is what you're after. That is if a 5% improvement is worth buying a new headphone to you, which I bet it is for many people.

 

People spend more than that for less than a 5% improvement in reality anyway.

 

USB nervosa anyone?!

 

I mean, a lot of people paid almost double the Gungnir Multibit's price for the 5-10% the Yggdrasil gives them. This is a hobby, after all. A lot of people keep applying this metric to the purchases. Most of us already spend over $600 for the hd650 + a decent setup as a "starting package." May as well spend the most you can to get the most enjoyment out of it.

Hell, I'm still looking at that Yggdrasil thinking "Man, I know the differences are small in reality, but that little extra the Yggdrasil gives might just be worth it over the Gungnir Multibit" despite that walling off quite a few amplifier choices (like the Kenzie Encore, Taboo IV, Aficionado, ect) to keep on that $5000 budget (which includes headphones) I set myself for my upgrade in February. Though, a Raggy or Dragon Inspire IHA-1 with the Yggdrasil isn't too much of a compromise over a Gungnir Multibit + the amps I listed earlier.

 

Interesting that one is from a "Joshmorr". Is this you, @JoshMorr?

 

Someone linked that to me earlier today. Not me, but I'm flattered that I have an impersonator. What are the odds of two sennheiser fans with same name?

If they wanted a review I would have gladly made up a better one in return for a review sample! Hd660s better than sex with a super model. Hd660s changed my life for the better. Hd660s helped me save 15% on my car insurance.

 

I never had sex with a supermodel but I'll reckon at least some of them, if not the majority, are really boring in bed. New quality headphones are always exciting.
New quality headphones always change life for the better.
If you spend more time with your headphones, you have less time to spend on/in your car, hence less need for insurance.

It's true. All of it.

 

There´s an interesting comment by a Sennheiser ambassador (Evshrug) on the Head-Fi.org HD 660 S thread:

"The HD 660 S will also be a hugely educational headphone for those that own or have heard the HD 650, because the latter is such a common reference point between enthusiasts. They were both designed to have essentially the same frequency response (tonal balance), but even so, the HD 660 S clearly sounds like a different headphone anyway. An objective lesson in how frequency graphs only tell part of the "story," and I think reviewers will learn to describe timbre, impulse recovery from note to note (which affects PRaT if you've seen that acronym before), and other aspects of sound in addition to the tonal balance.

I'm excited! The art of reviewing and the progress of audio gear are linked and feed into each-other, and music & gaming audio are advancing and becoming more available to explore than ever before; this is a great time to be an enthusiast!"

In other words the HD 660 S should be quite different compared to HD 650 in most technical aspects other than frequency response. Obviously not really a big surprise considering the driver benefits from more than 10 years of cumulative R&D though.

I´ll be checking out of these HD 660 S threads until I have one in my hands, shouldn´t take that long anymore...

 

The HD700s driver isn't 10 years old yet.

 

That may be, but who knows when the R&D on it started...

 

Considering how much effort they put into the HD700 housing and pads, I'm thinking somewhere between "not much" and "oh shit, did we accidentally get the Beyer signature development plans?!"

 

EDIT: I just realized this is not a new product from Bottlehead...

Not sure if this belongs in this thread, but just saw this in my inbox:

 

I think the Gen5/Eitr has effectively made that go away for most people for now.

 

You would think.....but there are people out there putting all kinds of decrapifiers in front of Eitr and claiming better sound quality.

I am content with my HD650's for now....I will wait for these things to be in the wild for a while and hear impressions before I get to excited one way or the other.

 

Same here. Seems like a ridiculous amount of hype built up already

 

I will wait for the HD66x. And pick up the HD8xx while waiting.

 

Someone tell me where Sennheiser said anything about the the HD660S being a replacement for the 650. Maybe I missed it. I'm sick of this headphone already and I haven't even heard it.
I will paraphrase what I hypothesized earlier. Gobble Gobble. Until then I am moving on to other things. Like open enrollment for my health plan.

I'm usually not this grumpy, if you have ever met me in person.

 

I think this stems from the following line in the Sennheiser HD660S ad copy:

“The successor of the legendary HD650 excels with the improved performance of its new transducer design.”

That’s straight from the Sennheiser website. Of course “successor” could be interpreted multiple ways. But in light of the Massdrop collaboration on the HD6XX, it has some speculating that the Sennheiser branded 650’s may be going away.

 

I believe it was from me, @Ringingears . When it came up again, I wondered if I had misunderstood the meaning of "successor" so I looked it up on a few online dictionaries. Looks like I didn't misunderstand. (Of course Sennheiser could be misusing the word. That would be nice.)

I can vouch for @Ringingears not being cranky by nature.

Edit: @monacelli beat me to it. (Although I am not finding multiple meanings for "successor" in this context.)