General Headphone Audio

Rroff said:
I see Crinacle bought themselves the HE 1s though the previous Orpheus I find more interesting.
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I saw that video...I guess it is tax deductible for him/his business.

I just could not do it for personal reasons otherwise, no matter how good they are. Knowing what I can get in terms of speakers system/room treatment I can get for that kind of money, or even 1/4 of that kind of money.

edit - Where is my amp Royal Mail?!!

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I upgraded my Sennheiser HD660S to Audeze LCD-2 Classics, which I am absolutely loving. They are a bit on the heavy side, but I love the sound quality, plenty of bass and punch where the Sennheisers were more on the refined side.
 
Minimalistic23 said:
The AliExpress sale is bankrupting me. Ordered a F11 R2R and dm13 cd player for the office and tempted by the Supermix4s.
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haha, I have only ordered a £5 basic dongle dac to put in my Tech pouch to use with my iPad as it is only a fiver. But also a couple of stick on flip out wall headphone hanger/stand.

(I did buy a lens hood and grip for my camera though)
 
Just learnt tonight there's another new Sennheiser HD 5xx model; the HD 550 (link to their product page). Won't link to Youtube videos but there appears to be a few video reviews launching. Not had a chance to take on board the exact differences between the 505 and 550 but it sounds like it might be a tuning preference choice between the two. Like the 505 may be great for gaming.

£249.99 so a bit more than the recent HD 505 (£230).

The naming convention is all over the place with the 5-series now, but Sennheiser told DMS/Headphone show at CamJam from now anything ending in '20' is closed-back, '05' or '50' neutral leaning and ending '60' are warmer sounding. Which makes me wonder if there are more new models coming at some point.

Two other observations; the 560S at £99 is a steal and has headphone band padding that looks better to me (i.e. stuck on the outside with a fontanelle recess like the HD6x0 series).
 
Raymond Lin said:
Too many variations of a similar design…I don’t think I’ve even been tempted to try anything else since I got my HD600.

Re amp, I spoke too soon.
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Ouch, sorry. Custom fees are a pain.

Re: the 550's. The way they appeared so quickly and so secretly after the 505 is odd to me. I think the UK prices are just bad when compared to the existing 560S and 600/650. Shame because I think many of the qualities that the 505/550 are on point.
 
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Had the USB socket fall out of my SMSL Sanskrit 10th MKII DAC, had to make do with a Suca Audio DAC-Q5 for about a month, it wasn't too bad but my Sennheiser HD 650 weren't getting their full potential out of it. Put some money together for an SMSL DO100 Pro, was very happy with the sound, downside I felt the headphones were now outclassed. I do like the Sennheiser sound and have had various models since the 1990s, pulled the plug on an open box HD 660S2 for a sizeable reduction in RRP.

The 660S2 seem to be a Marmite choice for people, I absolutely love the SMSL/660S2 combination, very revealing, musical, they seem to have the effect of "slowing" down the music and making everything distinct. I have seen reviews that sat the soundstage is lacking, I have no problems with positioning the right ear, the left needs a tiny tweak or 2 to create a great sense of depth. Was listening to The Travelling Wilburys Cool Dry Place last night and heard a member of the group clearly make a comment, must've heard the track 50 times at least in the last year, and have never heard it before.

Only problem is with a poor source, the combination will not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, after listening to CD and FLAC Spotify sounds awful on even the highest quality. Have just signed up to a 60-day trial of Tidal to see if it is any better, for a couple of golden nuggets it is worth a try.
 
Took delivery of the headphones on the left this morning.
They will be going back. Dont get me wrong, they are good however I bought them just to compare to the open version that ive had for years as all the reviews online say that they sound more open and natural than the open pair.
By default that does sound to be the case, but that looks to be because there's about a 10db swing between them at around 125hz, the open been boosted by 5db and the closed dipping by 5. With a bit of eq to bring them both to the middle at that frequency it appears the rest of the tuning between them is basically the same. But the closed ones then sound like a closedback while the open sound open and seem to take the eq better because of this.

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Angst said:
Took delivery of the headphones on the left this morning.
They will be going back.dont get me wrong they are good however I bought them just to compare to the open version that ive had for years as all the reviews online says they sound more open and natural than the open.
By default that does sound tonbe the case, but that's because there's about a 10db swing between them at around 125hz, the open been boosted by 5db and the closed dipping by 5. With a bit of eq to bring them both to the middle at that frequency it appears the rest of the tuning between them is basically the same. But the closed ones then sound like a closedback while the open sound open and seem to take the eq better because of this.
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What other headphones do you have? I guess these are your favourite?

I have noticed something today, if I place my hands over the outside of my Edition XS, it changes the sound DRAMATICALLY, my hands don't even need to be touching the grill, it can be an inch out, palms wide open and I can hear a noticeable difference. If I cover it with the cups of my hands to make it "closed back", the bass goes and everything falls apart. Whereas if I do the same with the HD600, it sounds 95% the same.

p.s. The Bass boost feature in the XA-02....found that it makes the HD600 much more fun to listening to, it gives it more body, more texture in the bottom end of a track. Not too much but actually a nice little bump.
 
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Angst said:
Took delivery of the headphones on the left this morning.
They will be going back.dont get me wrong they are good however I bought them just to compare to the open version that ive had for years as all the reviews online says they sound more open and natural than the open.
By default that does sound tonbe the case, but that's because there's about a 10db swing between them at around 125hz, the open been boosted by 5db and the closed dipping by 5. With a bit of eq to bring them both to the middle at that frequency it appears the rest of the tuning between them is basically the same. But the closed ones then sound like a closedback while the open sound open and seem to take the eq better because of this.

aTmlI0R.jpeg
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Unless you need closed for specific reasons 9 times out of 10 open back will usually sound better by quite a margin.
 
Raymond Lin said:
What other headphones do you have? I guess these are your favourite?

I have noticed something today, if I place my hands over the outside of my Edition XS, it changes the sound DRAMATICALLY, my hands don't even need to be touching the grill, it can be an inch out, palms wide open and I can hear a noticeable difference. If I cover it with the cups of my hands to make it "closed back", the bass goes and everything falls apart. Whereas if I do the same with the HD600, it sounds 95% the same.

p.s. The Bass boost feature in the XA-02....found that it makes the HD600 much more fun to listening to, it gives it more body, more texture in the bottom end of a track. Not too much but actually a nice little bump.
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Currently just these, I have owned the hifiman he500's previously and loved them but they were just too heavy and I was scared of them failing on me.
I also owned the hd650's for years but eventually moved on as I wanted something with actual sub bass.
I've also owned things like the audio quest nighthawk, mr speakers maddogs, fostex thx00 and th610, Phillips fidelio x1, and a bunch of other hifimans like the he400i's etc.

The bass boost feature is definitely made for something like the hd600's that are naturally lacking it, how does it compare to a software eq?

That hand thing might be to do with the driver size maybe, the planar drivers are much larger.

Things change I've changed said:
Unless you need closed for specific reasons 9 times out of 10 open back will usually sound better by quite a margin.
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Yea that has been my experience so far aswell which is why I was intrigued by constantly reading that the closed back version of these sounds more open than the open pair. And I do see why that's the case with the stock tuning, it genuinely does.
 
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I haven't played with any EQ yet, and honestly, I don't think I will. I kinda either like how things sound or I don't. I have other headphones that I gave away after a while because they are just not my cup of tea, rather than try to fix it with EQ, I just accept they weren't for me.

edit - I am flipping between these 2 at the moment...I think the XS is more comfortable, bigger ear cups are nice, less clamping force.

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Currently converting the lounging area of my gaming room so that I can use it with my PC. I was so focussed on getting my screens setup that I forgot about sound and that my DT990s won’t reach. So I’ve ordered a well shielded 5m extension cable.

I may also see if my Turtlebeach 700s will connect.

In future maybe I’ll look at wireless options. Wouldn’t be against ditching the sound card anyway. I certainly would if I added a 5090 down the line.

Things change I've changed said:
Unless you need closed for specific reasons 9 times out of 10 open back will usually sound better by quite a margin.
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Agreed, I’d struggle to go back in my gaming room where external noise isn’t an issue. The soundstage is just impressive on open back.
 
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A lot of closed back headphones sound congested for gaming unfortunately. Otherwise I'd use my Sony MDR-10RC for gaming as they are so light on the head but the soundstage really doesn't do good things in games with them :(
 
Raymond Lin said:
I haven't played with any EQ yet, and honestly, I don't think I will. I kinda either like how things sound or I don't. I have other headphones that I gave away after a while because they are just not my cup of tea, rather than try to fix it with EQ, I just accept they weren't for me.

edit - I am flipping between these 2 at the moment...I think the XS is more comfortable, bigger ear cups are nice, less clamping force.

0Nfi43u.jpg
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Will be interesting to see what your overall preference is between these two headphones, HD600 are timbre kings, one of my favourites, but they are poor on soundstage, imaging, and bass quality, I think both those headphones compliment each other in that they excel at different things.
 
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Interesting the HD 600 getting brought up again as it does. Now I've owned the HD 650's for a year, or more, and I've realised that I probably overvalued soundstage a little. And particularly for gaming where although certain games do benefit from it, the strengths of the HD6x0 mean that it does the other things so well that I tend to not worry about the lack of soundstage. I think also the HD6x0 the strong left/right imaging means picking up on directions is sometimes easier on them, albeit not nuanced. But for gaming other headphones are obviously better. But last night I hadn't listened to music for a few weeks on headphones and used the HD6XX's with my iFi stack and they just melted onto my head again. So smooth, textured and comfy. Going to make it hard for me to even think about trying something else although I might one day.

I've never really liked bass so the lack of sub-bass never bothered me, but I appreciate that's being subjective. The iFi Can's bass does work wonders in this regards of adding sub-bass to the HD6x0.
 
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