General Headphone Advice

My answer would be no only because you use the phrase clear upgrade. Despite the other gear I have the HD650 is still a steady fixture in my listening rotation and I wouldn't consider anything else I have necessarily better. They may have better technicalities such as staging or imaging but there is something about the HD650s tone that makes it sit with the flagships. One direction that I might recommend is going towards the LCD-2s. They're different which is to say that the LCD-2 will have some more treble response, extend deeper into the subbass areas with less of a midbass bump and not be as forward as the HD650s but they're similar flavors and the LCD-2 does do better in terms of imaging and staging. One thing to take note of is that my impressions are in context of the pre-fazor ones.

 

I should also add that comfort/weight is a big concern for me, so the Audezes are pretty much all out.

 

Hd800's have taken some knocks for their FR in the last several pages, and I think it is important to keep some perspective on this point relative to HdXX's.

Here are the pros and cons as I see and hear them with regard to FR, as depicted by the comparative graph below. Hd800's actually have the narrowest (i.e. best) amplitude range of the three. They also have, by no small margin, the most sub bass - which many of us tend to further boost knowingly or unknowingly through amps with a greater than 0 output impedance. The 6khz peak is admittedly an annoyance to many listeners, but SD, cork and other mods (and combinations of the same) can greatly alleviate this. Further, and critically, the Hd800's peak is not within the range of fundamental frequencies of acoustics instruments (e.g. top notes on a violin are around 3khz) - so it impacts timbre, not perceived loudness. Calling them "facetweeters" is thus a total misnomer in my view.

Hd650's, the darling of SBAF, are for obvious reasons a wonderful but dark sounding headphone by comparison. Again, most of the aberrations on the curve are happening outside of the range of acoustic fundamental frequencies - so not a loudness issue! The big dips at 5.5k and ~10k are going to have the opposite effect from hd800's - diminishing/deemphasizing the perception of timbre/overtones in this range (which are, based on their phase and magnitude, what allows us to tell one voice or instrument from another.) Also, at least as I hear them with the mainline, deep bass rolls off sooner than depicted below as compared to hd800's. Still wonderfully pleasurable for me and forgiving enough to give a hifi treatment even to badly recorded music. I will never sell my pair even though Hd800's have been my primary headphones for 5+ years.

Hd600's are less dark than Hd650's, but have two major flaws on the FR curve that make them less desirable (to me) than the above discussed headphones. First - they have a significant spike at 2.5-3khz - which is within the realm of fundamental frequencies for some treble instruments like violins. Having performed with and in a lot of live orchestras in my past life, I personally don't care to have treble instruments suddenly get 5db louder, during playback, as they go up the scale on a run. Ouch. On the other end of the graph, the bass roll off is just too early. Good luck hearing, for example, the amazing low B flats sung by the basses in Rachmaninov's vespers (~58hrz) with these as compared to the other Sens. The bass is the foundation of any chord (some choirs double up on basses for this very reason to enrich the overall sound), so this is a major loss in many genres of music and not just an issue for bassheads. All that said, I still find them to be very pleasing headphones and would take them over just about anything else on the market aside from what I consider to be Senn's better headphones.

 

Is a modded hd800 or hd800S brighter than the hifiman he560?

 

This is so true. As a listener of orchestral music who have had time with the hd800, i find myself thinking "these violins are not having much of an impact on me" because of the 1k to 4k scoop. The HD600, on the other hand, often annoys me just a little with the shout (the peak at3.5k). Only the HD650 present all instruments equally, which is to say none are de-emphasized in the fundamental regions, if perhaps a little bit emphasized/shouty(nowhere near HD600 level though) I don't think timbre is that dependent on fr, since real life exp has shown me that we can tell which instrument is which despite the fr of the heaphones/speakers/earbud/etc. What matters to me is having the timbre range(4k up) not be offensive, which the HD800 fails at because of the 6k resonance. That's why for me, the 650 are still the best when it comes to neutrality, period.

 

VS modded HD800 I hear some shout in HD650 that sometimes annoys. Also high treble is no less forgiving on modded HD650.

@sorrodje
Subjectively, if you sweep a tone generator over the 3,5k dip, do you hear it, if so how severe it feels?
I don't hear it, at all. I hear a slight, like 2..3dB bump centered around 2,7kHz. From 500Hz to 5k it's otherwise roughly the same intensity to my ears, subjectively. 1kHz and 3,5 kHz feels the same intensity wise.

 

Either you've gotten used to HD800 or you're just sensitive to that region. If HD650 are shouty then I don't know how you'd react to the HD600

 

This pretty much exactly describes what the stock HD800 looked like with my in ear measurements with the old pads, with the exception that I get a 5kHz peak with my in ear measurements and that the huge peak was at 6.5kHz rather than 6kHz (depends on the condition of pads). With the newer pads (which have the spike at 6.5kHz rather than 6kHz) I also get recessed upper mids from 1-3kHz (by about 3-5db). I also never get good bass extension on any of my in ear measurements. I wear glasses but that didn't change the measurements much, if at all. What's also interesting is that my left ear measures differently than my right ear: I get more of the 5kHz peak on the right side (IIRC).

For what it's worth, here are the measurements (since everyone is now posting measurements here) of my modded HD800 vs HD600. The combined SBAF + SD mod didn't quite get rid of all of the 6kHz peak. I had already cut out a big portion off the plastic ring that holds the pads in place sometime last year or so. This with my new pads did the trick. All that then remained was some 8kHz emphasis + ringing, which I lowered by replacing the stock metal ring with a felt ring around the driver. The driver + felt is held in place by double sided adhesive tape.
Anyways, here they are:

Matched HD800 level to HD600 level (had to lower HD800 plot by 2.6db). Excuse the noise in the bass. As you can see, the bass extension isn't very good on my head. The small 2kHz emphasis on the HD800 is caused by the smaller pad ring. I managed to get the 3-4kHz transition super flat in the graphs but didn't like the result sonically, YMMV. Notice how both are extremely similar from 5.5kHz to around 11kHz, with the exception that the HD800 has a big dip at 8kHz. This is actually pretty bad ringing. This of course doesn't show up on my flat coupler measurements. I'm not sure if I hear it this way.

EDIT: See below, the mic capsule wasn't sealed off at the end for the upper measurement. I took measurements with the end sealed and attached it below, but will also put it here.

 

Overall, I felt you brought up many good points. This should be stickied somewhere. This discussion doesn't really belong to this thread, but here are my comments on each of them.

1. I am now using something (not glue, but it does seal it off completely I think (you can hear how it affects the sound with the mic inserted, sounds exactly like an IEM); something like blu-tack) to seal off the back of the eartip. I might try glue in the future. I actually didn't use this for the other measurement, so I'm attaching what the measurements look like now.

2. I am using small single flange tips. Those were the best tips of the ones that I had and I can reliably insert the mic so that it is flush. The wire which I am using is slightly too thick (24 awg I think), but I doubt that it affects the seal all that much, considering that my glasses (much thicker than the wire) don't do much.

3. LOL, I actually just got my hair cut today, so I get a good seal with STAX headphones at High End 2016. Hair is pretty short now. No idea how much this affected my measurements (Might take some more measurments and compare with my older ones to get an idea of how it changed the measurements. Also obviously listen to music, see if it sounds different.)

4. I did a DAC/AMP -> ADC loop and it didn't really affect the FR much at all. I think the phantom supply I am using is flat to 20Hz with the caps I use (there were measurements somewhere). Even then, with the same setup (I now use the WM61-A for all my measurements) I got a ruler flat response down to 20Hz with my (broken) RE-400 (channel imbalance) and about 1.5db of rolloff or so at 20Hz with my UERMs, so I doubt that this limits the measurements in this case.

5. I compared the WM61-A to my DBX RTA-M a while ago. I also measured all 10 of my WM61-A mics and am now using "matched pairs". I have no idea how good either mic is. I think they were pretty close but I can't really remember much other than that the WM61-A had less of a resonance at 15kHz. Based on this I believe that my WM61-A mics are authentic, but I really have no idea how to check. They have a small writing on the side that says "61D71".

6. I just think that -5db at 20Hz is realistic for the HD800. The newer innerfidelity measurements show pretty much the same thing. I might try it with the wider plastic ring under the pads, I think I got maybe 1db more bass at 20Hz with the stock ring but nothing major. Either my head is weird or your head is special and enables you to get flat bass with open back dynamic headphones.

I actually measured the HD800 and HD600 on mine and someone else's ears (L and R) in the past (but without the sealed mic capsule). I still have the file. Looking at the files, he had much better bass extension on the HD800 (indicating that my head may indeed be a weird shape that the headphones don't like) and the measurements generally looked ... different. Even higher peak on the HD800. His ears also measured very different.

Yes, definitely. I do use the in-ear rig whenever I feel that my flat plate coupler rig doesn't quite tell me all about the sound of a headphone (like with the HD800), but they should always be taken with a grain of salt.

And yes, this was also evident when comparing to my DBX RTA-M mic. A little higher noise (though nothing deal breaking) and higher distortion above 85db.



EDIT: I should've said this before (I think I did) but my methods for the IEM measurements are not finalized yet, so they should be taken with an even bigger grain of salt. When I'm done I want to make a thread to show how some common mods affect the HD800 measurements on my head. The measurements on my head better reflect what I hear than any other measurement method that I have, but, as I have said in another thread, they will never replace the flat coupler measurements for obvious reasons.

EDIT 2: Looked at my measurements between RTA-M and WM61-A: Looks like WM61-A had about 1db more bass at 20Hz, but otherwise identical to about 11kHz, where the RTA-M then had a bigger peak at about 14 or 15kHz. I only measured them to 20kHz but the WM61-A should theoretically extend way higher (problem is, I think both the HD600 and HD800 don't, HD800 driver resonance was at 38kHz I believe), since it is 1/4th inch. Maybe it doesn't.

 

It could also be that the HD650 has more bass extension than the HD600, or that your modded ones are special.

The amp used also obviously makes a big difference with the subjective bass impressions.

 

The HiFiman HEX and HE1k keep popping up as possibilities. Have there been extensive comparisons with the HD650?

 

Need some opinions on whats worth the money and whats good:
I'm looking for a set of closed cans that i can use at work/on the bus.. So far its a fight between the Audeze Sine/Senn Momentum 2 (over ear)/Oppo PM3. Eliminated the NAD HP50 because theyre ridiculous looking.
Comments would be much appreciated.