Son of HD650

But for those of us who have bought HE-6 with speaker amps and LCD-3F, which amplifier should then be paired with HD650 to bring them to their potential? I'm seriously considering to sell all I have to listen to this "hype" on HD650.
Cause im going the speaker route instead, but want to haev some headphones aswell...

 

That's... okay, look, people saying that the 650 remains a great value at $400, and that you can get great sound without spending four figures on a headphone, are absolutely correct; people saying that they're better than the best headphones of today are... well, they're overselling their case substantially. I say this as someone who loves Sennheiser's headphones, and has had them as my reference for decades (bought a pair of HD-580 in 1998; sidegraded to HD-650 in 2005). They're great headphones, and easy to recommend. But modern planars have some huge advantages over them -- the LCD-X sounds enormously more authoritative in the bass and also less veiled in the treble, in my experience, with only comfort and cost as downsides.

Before you sell off everything you own, take a listen first. I'd be surprised if you still wanted to after that, but who knows, people have all kinds of tastes.

(And yeah, the caveat to the above is that apparently new 650s are better than the ones I've listened to for the last decade. I'm idly curious about how big that difference is, but I find it extremely difficult to imagine that it's significant enough to change the fundamental nature of the things.)

 

It's a fair change going off memory, and I'm really, really digging them this go around. I've owned lcd2 and lcd3 (both first editions), but it's been long enough that I'm can't be absolutely sure of my impressions...saying that, I think I'd take the 650s. I haven't heard the lcd-x, though I really would like to.

I actually find the lcd's more comfortable than the hd650 contrary to what nearly everyone says. If the cups on them were a bit bigger I might feel differently - a bit claustrophobic on my ears.

 

I will continue to use the HD600 as reference when trying new cans, but I love the large-speakers-attached-to-head effect of the LCD-X. For me the latter is still more enjoyable overall, but it's nice to be able to switch things up every once in a while.

 

Is that LCD2 from Zach? If so that's my pair that I modded to be less bright. It's the weirdest LCD2 I've ever heard.

 

Re the veiled treble, that's why I referred to the 650 as a sidegrade of the 580 -- the 580 (and I presume 600) had an open airiness to it that the 650 just didn't. The more-present bass of the 650 was enough to make it a net win over the 580 for me, but it was always a trade-off. This is the part that I am most willing to believe modern 650s are better at, though -- I mean, the 580 was better at it, so it's obviously achievable! -- so if you've only listened to newer ones, maybe it's not there any more.

As far as the bass goes, the 650 was good for classical music, but with pop music, it was lacking the proper weight in the bass. The NAD HP-50, for instance, has so much more bass that even though it was even more veiled/congested than the 650, I ended up preferring it for pop music, and would plug in the appropriate headphone depending on which type of music I was listening to. (For classical music, I'd only tolerate the HP50 if I were in a place where open headphones weren't appropriate.)

But the LCD-X has bass that outdoes the HP-50 in every way -- it's much more tightly controlled (I never thought the HP50 was just a thumpy basshead thing until comparing it to the LCD-X, where suddenly I was able to get a lot more of the musicality of bass notes -- the pluck of strings, the impact of a drumstick) and has a kind of impact that the HP50 can't match. And so the 650, which doesn't even have the bass of the HP50, isn't in the same discussion at all.

(Although what I will say is: The LCD-X made me think a lot worse of the HP-50, because it showed how sloppy and thumpy its bass was, and in doing so made me think better of the 650's lean-but-not-sloppy bass.)

And again, this isn't a slam on the 650. It's an excellent headphone (especially if modern ones are able to make its treble more 580-like). And certainly someone should hear it. But I wouldn't go selling off a bunch of orthos because someone on a forum said they thought the 650 was better than them, because at least to my ears, it's very much not.

 

After making my comments above, I was curious as to whether measurements would show anything that would match up to my experience, so I took a look at Inner Fidelity's measurements, and huh, yeah. The 580 rolls off the bass (down 5dB at 40Hz, 10dB by 20Hz); the 30Hz square wave has a good initial impulse before it fades away to near-zero as low frequencies disappear. The 650 keeps the bass a bit longer, but rolls the treble off faster.

The HP50 actually boosts its bass (up around 5dB at 30Hz) and rolls its treble off significantly faster than the 650. And if you look at its 30Hz square wave, the squdginess of it points toward its sloppiness in the bass. So yeah: relatively sloppy, but much bass-heavier.

The LCD-X is flat to 35Hz or so, then drops a few dB and is flat past 20Hz from there. The treble isn't quite like either the 580 or 650, but at a loose visual comparison, seems to be kinda between them. And its 30Hz square wave is very well defined and controlled.

So... huh. It's actually almost disturbing how closely those measurements track what I hear. And I think they definitely point to both the strength and the weakness of the 650 -- it's a great headphone within the context of its limitations, but it definitely has those limitations.

 

Unless our lexicons are wildly different, I cannot agree on the point of "authoritative". If there is any area that Audeze headphones surpass dynamics (all dynamics) it's heft and authority. My LCD 3 can be likened to the rhino, in the zoo that is my collection. It runs fast and tramples hard (albeit clumsily at times). Comparitively the HD800 is a gazelle and the HD650 a moose (or other sub-ton mammal).

I've been roped, allured and ensnared by the HD650 no less than you have, but to say it punches with more authority than an Audeze, I'd have to be beguiled.

 

LCD2, LCDX, LCD3, none of them ever had authoritative sound in my book. While they always had a good amount of bass quantity, especially down real low, the bass never had the impact and snap of other headphones I owned. For instance, when I compared the X to the 560 at the time, I thought the 560 hit just as hard, if not slightly harder, in the mid-bass, while having less bass quantity overall. Having a fast, solid transient attack and a healthy amount of treble aids in the perception of snappy and authoritative response as well.

 

The HD 650 bass is perfectly fine for acoustic instruments, downtuned guitars, and kick drums. Maybe you could get a little bit more rumble for stuff like hit people hardcore punk downtuned distorted bass but it's not really that bad. Nothing like the HD 540 which starts roling off at what? 200hz or something? You have to remember that most modern compressed 7 db of dynamic range if you're lucky pop crap mixes/masters have no bass unless it's a sample.

The Hifimen all felt like they had linear bass but treble problems while every Audeze I've personally heard was muddy. The Fazors all have plastic closed can timbre and dig into your ears. Then you must take into account the fucked up imaging on most Audeze headphones from channel imbalances. I'm one of those guys who can't hear a pure center stereo image (it's always ever so slightly left or right) so major channel imbalances drive me nuts.

 

I literally cannot recognize the headphones described there, despite owning both of them. Like, the #1 most obvious difference, the thing that instantly jumps out at me with the LCD-X, is how much more impactful the bass is, the visceral slam that the 650 never, ever provided.