Sennheiser HD650 Love (Appreciation Thread)

Today I manned up and applied the mod to my HD650 (sans Dynamat, I wasn't able to source the material where I live). With the foam disc behind the grill removed and a quarter-sized hole on the earcup side foam, I cannot put it in a better way then--to quote Marv--HD850. Less warm but less congested, less veiled, more open and transparent, wider soundstage, more lively, and overall a superior headphone across the board I could easily live with as end-game. I wonder why I haven't tried this earlier, it's fuckin' phenomenal. Yggdrasil + Zana Deux Super + modded HD650 FTW all the way!

 

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/free-11-hd6xxx-dynamat-mod-kits.800/ might help

 

You're a damn hero mate.
If @songmic lives in Europe and it's not feasible for you, I have 12 square foot because there was nothing smaller to purchase. I live in the Netherlands and will gladly send some over, if the shipping is feasible, else just add shipping.

Just added the Dynamat mod: http://i.imgur.com/S9DuK9P.jpg My subjective impressions: holy crap! Thank god for this, bass is more controlled, less bloaty, clarity is outstanding and yet the treble is so much smoother. I don't know why this works or how but I might try a full dynamat + cork mod on my HD800 now.

 

Found this at Custom Cable, and the part number for the foam only is 049789.
http://www.custom-cable.co.uk/sennheiser-hd545-hd565-hd580-hd600-hd650-inner-discs-pair-black.html
£5.09 a pair

Sennheiser UK seems to sell them individually for £ 0.50.
http://headphonespares.sennheiser.co.uk/hifi-tv-headphones/hd-545/foam-discs.html
Sennheiser UK's shipping is a bit more (£7.27 outside Europe), but at 50p each, I guess it still works out cheaper.

BTW, I couldn't find just the foam on Sennheiser's global site.

 

Why in Mr. David Mahler's article, HD600 sound best with "everything & anything", while HD650 with only some "jazz, hip hop, electronic"???

 

Probabaly because he forgot to add a few small pieces of tar+aluminium on the back of the HD650 driver ?

 

So I've had these home for a day now and am very pleased overall. First chance I've had to hear them in a quiet room. Now I see why all the talk about clarity, resolution and black background. Vocals are sometimes a bit forward and highs are about right for me. Sound is very engaging.

Bass is a bit woolly and I'm hoping that the Dynamat @philipmorgan is going to send me will tighten it up. Will wait until then to try removing the rear foam and decide if I want to expose the driver from the front. I'm used to the sub-bass of the ZMF Blackwood, so I found myself reaching for the bass boost on the micro iDSD quite often. Quantity is about right with the boost, but the tightness and impact can't compare to the BW (... Dynamat?).

I usually run the micro on Eco with IEMatch off, but power set to Normal and IEMatch to High Sensitivity (to get the volume knob past the imbalance threshold) seems to give the HD650s a bit more punch and maybe a touch more bass. Swapping back to the Blackwoods make the upper-mids sound closed-in and hollow, and the highs are rolled off in comparison to the 650s. But you gotta love that ortho slam!

Definitely Golden Schlong worthy.

 

He prefers elevated treble from listening to headphones too much and the HD 650 is one of the only ones that's slightly dark in the treble.

 

Just some quick thoughts ...
Have some experience modding other cans and speakers. IME, there are trade-offs: the sonic bennies are those some of you noted in this thread: cleaner treble, tighter bass, more image focus. The sonic neggies (IME) are: loss of slam, punch, PRAT excitement. I always find those two groups of sonic qualities a bit of a seesaw. I don't think the engineers at Senn, AKG, AT, beyer, et. al. were unaware of damping. That said, it would be cool to see the guts of a stock Orpheus!

 

How does one cut a perfect circle in that foam filter?

(P.S. I had the same issue with the felt mod for AKG-701)

 

Just finished performing the mod except the coin mod.
My initial impression is that the mod makes the overall sounds more precise, a bit more detail, more tightened bass and sound overall. The negative in my opinion is that it is a tad brighter and also the "lushness" is instead replaced by qualities mentioned. Maybe a bit more grainy(?) Maybe they have inverse relationship. I avoided the coin mod because I feared it might accentuate the brightness more. They are indeed closer to HD 800 and less become a complimentary phones. Perhaps if I had both headphones I wouldn't perform the mod so I can have that just laid back, smooth sound of 650 and microdetail of 800. If you want the middle of 650 and 800 I would highly recommend the mod.

Anyhow here's my Dynamat placement.

 

You should see my hole.

Er... Well, it's definitely not very nice looking, and it doesn't have to be.

 

+

 

I make my life easier and simply cut square holes. Heck, you can mark the corners and fold it in half twice and do it all in a single snip.

 

About that hole ... just carefully read purrin's OP... oh!!! so THAT'S what all that coin talk was about

Anyway, I recently posted on playing with the hole as a waveguide.
If anyone is willing to try something like the Signet tweeter waveguide ...


... and report their findings, you'll one-up purrin

Oh ... BTW ... you don't have to risk your OEM Sennheiser foam. Just use cheap Creatology felt (the thinnest type).
I'm not sure what pattern to use -- maybe a star (Changstar!!) or pentagram.

If it sounds pretty good ... you may even become a famous celeb (=Google autocomplete), like "Anax 800 mod". Even more so as there are many more 600/650 users out there!
Can you imagine ... your own celeb version of Sennheisers? ... like AKG Quincy Jones or Beats by Dr. Dre.
Imagine YOUR name ... all the $$ ... all the pool girls ... luxury cars.... social media madness ... and, one day, you'll be featured on MSNBC's American Greed
LOL!

 

You don't have to mass load those areas with Dynamat.

Common putty-tak or small self-adhesive felt tabs will work to some extent...



When I was at the local Michael's picking up Creatology felt sheets for my AKG, I also got some with adhesive back. From other projects, I have some adhesive-back copper sheets (very thin stuff). Yes ... Dynamat makes gear heavier. It's effective stuff because it's very tacky (so acoustic coupling is v. good). But that stickiness "improves" with age. I have some equipment I can't remove the stuff from w/o elbow grease -- a good thing to keep in mind if you're one day going to eBay your, uh, "unmodded" 650's

 

Quarter + x-acto knife

 

Being the OCD type of guy I am, I had faced the same dilemma at first. Using a scissor did no good for me, the circles all turned out ugly no matter how carefully I tried. I ordered about a dozen of these foam discs from Sennheiser Korea (I was able to buy them for approx. $1 apiece). After some trial and error, this is the best way I found. It's still not 100% perfect, but comes pretty close even for my standards.

1. Ironically, I found the US quarter of the so-called "quarter mod" to be rather too big. The 100 Korean won coin was closer but still not small enough. In the end, I found the 1 Japanese yen coin to be the ideal size. Its radius is exactly 1 cm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1_yen_coin

The 1 cent penny is the closest US coin that comes to this size.

2. Place a flat piece of cardboard on the desk (to protect the desk from being scratched by the knife), or any cheap expendable material that could subtitute as a flat surface. Don't use cardboard that is too rugged, otherwise it might ruin you from obtaining a precise cut. Place a piece of paper on top of the cardboard, and the foam disc on the top.

3. Place a 1 yen coin on the center of the foam disc, and press down on it so that the disc is firmly held in place. Then, use a small cutter knife to carefully cut around the perimeter of the coin. This will also result in the piece of paper being cut as well.

If you've done everything correctly, you will have a near-perfect circular hole that will be just big enough to reveal the transparent driver in the center while the metal sheath around it is covered with the rest of the foam disc. I was quite happy with the way it turned out.

I will try to post some pics later when I return home.