HD 650 vs HD 700 Review

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by techboy, Mar 10, 2016.

  1. Hrodulf

    Hrodulf Prohibited from acting as an MOT until year 2050

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    Well, we'd f**k less with the FR, if mfg's would churn out less sucky phones. As for HD600/650 it sometimes baffles me how it is so that no other mfg has made anything that's as neutral as these phones. And judging by some of Sennheiser's later headphone releases, even they might've got lucky with these.

    I know that head-fiers like to bash speaker dudes about how cans offer that room uncoloured sound for a fraction of the price of good speakers. Yet headphones usually have far grosser and more unpredictable tonal inaccuracies than the majority of half decent speakers. You've done your fair share in speaker building, you should know!
     
  2. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I know. I guess I'm also coming from a speaker EQ/XO network point of view where my philosophy is to keep things simple. Passive EQ at speaker level output can be destructive if it's taken to the n-th degree. I love it when some speaker manufacturers advertise their 78 component EQ/XO networks in their speakers. That's about 70 more components than is found in a SET amp. Haha.
     
  3. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I've gotta feed these neuroses of mine somehow...
     
  4. ultrabike

    ultrabike Measurbator - Admin

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    There are a few things equalization might have a hard time dealing with, and they apply both to headphones and speakers, in perhaps somewhat different ways.

    I came to these realizations slowly actually, but they sort of make sense to me.

    1) Reverberation: This is IMO closely related to transmission line reflections. They do have a frequency response counter part, but it's far buried in the sub-bass. We should be tone deaf to some of these issues. But we will hear them in the form of echo. At some point, a reflection stops messing around with tone and becomes reverberation. Equalization can deal with these issues. But it would have to be a fairly large filter. Perhaps larger than practical.

    2) Placement: Tone and Reverberation may exhibit severe spatial dependencies. Meaning, where in the room you are hearing your music, or how you put your headphones right now vs. a few minutes ago. This will have the effect of moving notches and peaks and even tone. Correcting one point in space to perfection may have sub-optimal consequences some place else in space. Most equalizers are 1 dimensional. Speakers and headphones are 3 dimensional. I'm usually happy if I get a large "sweet spot" with roughly similar tone so that fixing one location fixes large sound field (which may be one of the reasons I like omni-directional speakers)

    3) Non-linear distortion is something an equalizer will have a very rough time to fix.

    That said, there is a lot an equalizer can do to improve the sound of our rigs. I use it all the time with my bedroom speakers, and may eventually use it in may poor excuse of a home theater.
     
  5. Rex Aeterna

    Rex Aeterna Friend

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    i only use eq for simple things for correction or personal taste preference sometimes. eq usually though are only with subs mostly for corrections cause if i have to eq down any top end and treble as well i'll call it a day and get rid of the headphone/speaker. i can live with natural roll offs but peaks in certain areas can be a different story on my part and would rather eliminate the problem completely unless i had no choice but, to do a temporary fix.

    i never found the hd650 offensive and probably one of the few nicest of headphones ever used. i still plan on getting one, one day after i slow down on other things and projects. the hd700 is another story. i noticed it bright metallic top end from first listen and midbass was bit warm and not as clear as it should of been. yea people can claim i wasn't amping them correctly with bazillion watts or so since i gave them an audition off my older crappy samsung phone.... even hd650 out of my phone i was able tell right away was technically better and much more smooth and even response. never found the hd650 dark sounding, had enough top end and air and it's bass was pretty good and lot better/cleaner than the hd700...... if op loves the hd700's, then it's cool. everyone has their personal taste and likes.
     
  6. therealjay

    therealjay New

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    This is a good point. My brother has loved his pair of QC15's more then any headphone I've owned and I've owned quite a few that are considered good/great. He's not an audio guy by any means but he's sat down and listened before and I believe him. I think it's got a lot to do with the fact that he likes the active noise cancelletation but so what. Everyone has their thing.

    After a while I stopped teasing him about it because really who am I to say otherwise. There is a decent segment of people who seem to really like the 700s. Good for them.
     

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