HD600

SENNHEISER HD 600 >>> SACTHAILAND SILK CLASSIC 45 SE >>> VENTURE ELECTRONICS PRIME PURE DAC GOLD

 

Can you even can that a cable? Headphone ribbon?

 

Then it should be paired with ribbon headphones?

 

Somewhere buried either here or changstar, Marv posted some cables that were made with two thin wires held apart with packing tape in a literal flat ribbon config. If memory serves, he said they were the best sounding of the bunch at that time.

 

The headband of my HD600 was flat as a pancake and I decided to replace it with an HD650 headband. I then realized that I should probably replace the pads, too. I had some felt stuck to the underside of the stock pads that I wanted to peel off and it left a ton of sticky residue. Getting rid of that was basically impossible, so I decided to give the HE60 pads I had based on @Bill-P*s recommendation back in the day another shot (I wonder how he's doing now).

I remember I was very vocal about hating these pads back in the day, but I also remember that that was with the stock front foam*. Now without the foam and some back damping and more experiences, different references, etc I think they don't sound too bad. You have to really fiddle to get the ear placement within the pads just right or it will still sound off.

Generally speaking I find you have to wear them forwards and low on the head, just like what works best for many other headphones including the HD800. It's actually been a while since I last heard fresh pads, but from memory I'd say it's a matter of preference: Haven't taken any measurements, yet.

HE60 pad advantages:

• Comfort, my ears don't touch the metal mesh
• As expected the soundstage does become larger, especially quite a bit more depth
• Bass has more of tacitle feel to it. I don't think it's any more extended. though

HE60 pad disadvantages:

• I do think it sounds less natural overall. Tonal balance won't be as neutral
• Treble can be a bit prickly, however I think much of this is due to the HD600 driver and the way it's placed within the baffle

The way I have it configured now it would probably be too aggressive for many. But in the end it's a matter of system matching:
Motu M4 - Vali - HD600 (wired with tinned copper)
vs
Gungnir MB A1 - Ragnarok - HD800 (wired with silver)

(I also made a tinned copper cable, but it's the most microphonic cable I've ever experiencd.)

I kind of want to give the ZMF perforated lambskin pads a try at some point.

*To be more specific I heard a large, broadband dip centered around 1-2kHz and a bump in the 3-4kHz region. I don't think this is really the case anymore with my current config.

 

As mentioned in my profile post I took a gamble and just got some random HD600 pads off Amazon that looked good to me. I just wasn't happy with how the HE60 pads sounded. Too forward, way too much energy in the 3-4kHz region. Treble sharper than it should be. Turns out these pads fix that without too many negatives:



They don't sound quite as open, but so far I think it's a pretty good middle ground between the closed-in sounding stock pads and the HE60 pads which just sound wonky. Tonally they're quite close to stock, I'd say.
They also don't feel as nice and the foam is quite heavy. But overall they're comfy enough (I prefer the HE60 pads for comfort). On the plus side the colors match with the headband and the earcups, so overall they look more like they belong to the headphones.

At some point I will splurge on some ZMF pads. The measurements Zach took looked quite good to me and I'm sure they sound great,.

I attached the graphs. I matched them at 1kHz, but in reality the HE60 pads simply have less energy sub 2kHz rather than having more energy in the 4kHz energy. So in other words the HE60 pads make the HD600 less efficient and more tipped up.

EDIT: Link here:
https://amzn.eu/d/aeBw9T7

 

Nice thread. Having just acquired a set of HD 600 headphones, I enjoyed the read. Long time users, are the earpads that fragile that they need replacing every 6-12 months? They seem pretty firm on the new set I just purchased. That seems like a silly amount of consumables for something that so profoundly affects the sound signature.

 

For whatever it's worth it seems that the modern HD600s are outfitted with slightly differently-shaped pads that resist compression for much longer, so you needn't worry too much about that altering things too much any week soon. For whatever it's worth I actually find the HD600 with very broken-in pads to sound excellent, and serve as a great reference for "neutral" headphone voicing save for the bass rolling off relatively early-- it's still quite good enough for techno out of the Magni Piety-- freshly-padded HD600s are on the glarey and strident side, not much a fan of that, but your mileage may vary of course.

 

Well, at 55, old ears... Treble glare doesn't have much effect on me. ;-) Glad to hear about the pads. Thanks for the response.