Sennheiser HD650

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by Jeangenie, Sep 27, 2015.

  1. iDesign

    iDesign Almost "Made"

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    There is also a subtle difference in the physical shape of the upper and lower housings (forks) which now appear to have distinct angular edges. By comparison, legacy versions of the HD600/650 have smooth/rounded housings. As pointed out by other members, the placement of the Sennheiser logo, vertical ellipsis, and packaging/box have been updated. Finally, the "L" and "R" letters have also been removed from the headband.

    I'm pleased to see they changed the color of the HD600.
     
    Last edited: Sep 28, 2019
  2. Scubadude

    Scubadude Almost "Made"

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    I have old skool 600 and 650 and see zero compulsion to get the facelifted models. Timeless design if you only need a lick of paint after 25 years to make it look fresh again. I'm quite fond of the kitchen counter-top HD600 look but not many share my enthusiasm.

    Best news is that they invested in new tooling for these so the rumours of culling them are false after all.
     
  3. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    Are these new versions still made in Ireland?
     
  4. monacelli

    monacelli Friend

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    To the best of my knowledge, they are building them at a new factory in Romania. See here for more info: [Link to Sennheiser press release]. IIRC, @Hrodulf said the Sonarworks guys found some measurement variations in the early Romanian batches, but they got sorted out and started measuring the same as the made-in-Ireland variety [link to previous thread].
     
  5. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

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    I thought I remembered reading they were going to shut down the factory in Ireland and move all the production to the new Romania plant, but when I googled for confirmation nothing came up. I could have sworn I read in some Irish newspaper of layoffs, oh well.

    It's cheaper to manufacture in Eastern Europe so this is purely a cost-cutting move on Sennheiser's part. At least they aren't discontinuing the 600/650.
     
  6. FlySweep

    FlySweep Friend

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    Had the HD650 no less than 4 times in the past.. and I've got the HD6XX now. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember the HD650 having thicker plastic, no? Perhaps it's my nostalgia, but the HD650 felt sturdier in hand (not implying that the HD6XX is flimsy, though).
     
  7. Ice-man

    Ice-man Friend

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    I agree but it could be completely psychological given the price. The hd6xx always looked and felt cheaper to me.
     
  8. Jerry

    Jerry Friend

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    I have both. The 650 is better-built and feels more expensive than 6XX.
     
  9. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    I’ve been curious about the 650 for a while and ordered a 6XX to see what all the fuss is about. Now that it’s here, little comparison seemed like a good idea. Most of the below comments were from listening on the following equipment but I did try out a Magni/modi stack and a FIIO Q5, which definitely confirmed the 6XX scales quite a bit with gear.

    Equipment
    Source: Tidal
    DAC: Bifrost2
    Amp: Lyr3 with a decent tube for detail, dynamics and imaging

    Compared to a couple similarly priced headphones I have floating around (HiFiMan HE400i, Audio Technica ATH-MSR7):

    The 6XX loses out to the 400i on detail and bass, lacking bass depth and clarity and clarity of mids and treble. The 6XX has much better timbre, sounds more musical and has a deeper headstage which makes it a much more pleasant listen.

    The MSR7 has more detail than the 6XX too, but with a razor sharp treble. It’s a little like listening to broken glass falling on the sidewalk. The bass is comparable to the 6XX but the MSR7 imaging basically sucks.

    Overall, I’d say the 6XX is extremely competitive in the $200 market, thanks mostly to no major flaws and placing musicality ahead of raw performance. Not surprisingly I don’t think it really competes with my Elex, Aeon Flow Closed or Clear, but does work just fine with OTL tube amps, so now I get to do some experimentation.
     
  10. Claud

    Claud Living the ORFAS dream

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    I own HD 600, 650 and 660S. Now a days, When I want to hear them I usually grab the 660S or the 600. The 650s ain't getting as much love.
     
  11. will_f

    will_f Friend

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    Thought I’d add a follow on comment after having the 6XX around for a while. Long story short, they’ve grown on me. Their musicality and easy going nature make them a great choice when I’m not interested in really concentrating on the music. The sound lacks ultimate detail and the bass isn’t super tight, but they sound really euphonic.
     
  12. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    Clarity out of my HD6XX is much better with my Shortest Way 51 amp compared to the HeadAmp Gilmore Lite Mk2 amp I had.

    They're still limp in the lower bass, but midrange clarity/detail (what's the difference?) is pretty pretty good.
     
  13. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    Clarity is the sense of music being presented in a dark background, i.e. lack of noise or murkiness in the soundscape not present in the recording. Could also be a matter of tonal balance, e.g. Focal TH-900 with the lower-mid dip robbing instruments and voices of "body".

    Detail is... detail. More clarity gives the impression of more detail, but in my experience there is a difference. HD650 never sounded clear to me, but could be upstream/my taste in music. Definitely excels at detail for the price though.
     
  14. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    @Stuff Jones @Lyander Hmm for me, the best way to define clarity is "lack of veil." Stock HD650s often get criticized for sounding veiled and it feels like the music you're listening to have a layer(s) of curtain getting in the way of "live" sound. Mods like JAR or KISS can help lift some of the veil along with lively-sounding amps like SW51+ or 3F help lift even more veil off the HD650, but I don't think it fully unveils it IMO.

    Detail goes hand in hand with clarity. There are headphones that have excellent resolve that basically gets hindered by lack of clarity, which seriously weakens its detail retrieval ability.
     
  15. ChaChaRealSmooth

    ChaChaRealSmooth SBAF's Mr. Bean

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    Details is essentially resolving ability. This is easy to mistake with some headphones; some headphones have macrodetail where it shoves everything in your face, but actually isn't as resolving/detailed as another. The HD650 is a prime example of not being excessively macrodetailed; it actually has incredible resolution, but isn't really that impressive-sounding since the details are in a sort of gray background (plus wooly bass, slow transients, etc). Something like a Focal Clear sounds much more impressive on the details (and I think is actually a touch more resolving than the HD650).

    I'd agree with clarity being more of another term for blackness/lack of veil. How "clear" it sounds. This can influence how a headphone is heard in terms of detail because it can be hard to hear beyond the veil.

    Although really what we're doing here is being too pedantic on abstract terms used to describe our auditory experiences, so it means shit.

    I'd actually say the details are all present, but it's hard for people to get past the "grayground/veil" of the HD650. It certainly gets in the way of it sounding immediately detailed.
     
    Last edited: Mar 25, 2020
  16. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    I had a significantly longer post typed up because quarantine sucks and I'm close to literally bouncing off walls, but for the sake of brevity I'll just say that I don't quite agree detail is directly beholden to clarity and is more attributable to resolution. Still get where you're coming from though, @tommytakis.

    Just to be clear (hah) is "resolution" defined in this context as an inherent characteristic of a transducer system with "detail" being individual or collective instances in recordings that are subjectively experienced as a result of that resolution?
     
  17. ChaChaRealSmooth

    ChaChaRealSmooth SBAF's Mr. Bean

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    I believe so, but be careful not to be a pedant. You don't need to confuse yourself too much.
     
  18. tommytakis

    tommytakis MOT: E.T.A Headphones

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    no you and @ChaChaRealSmooth are right, it seems my explanation for detail lacked both ...detail and clarity (ba-dum-tzzzz) Frankly, I don't think I should have commented while being half-awake lol please excuse my poor write up for detail, I should have fleshed out my thoughts more and proofread before posting. But yeah, clarity does not hinder or directly impact its resolving ability (as you and @ChaChaRealSmooth stated) It seems I was confusing apparent detail and actual resolution/microdetail/plankton. Consider me officially school'd!
     
  19. Stuff Jones

    Stuff Jones Friend

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    @tommytakis, @ChaChaRealSmooth, @Lyander, @everyone

    What about creating a thread with crowd/SBAF sourced descriptions or definitions of sonic characteristics? It could either be editable by anyone, like a Wiki (is that possible), or one person could be responsible curating member inputs.

    Would be nice to have shared SBAF language for describing sound.
     
  20. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    WHAM!
     

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