Sennheiser HD650 Love (Appreciation Thread)

Going back and forth between HD600 and HD650 I still just give the slight edge to the HD600, duo its treble and making it sound more open & airy.
As I understand the mods make the HD650 brighter, but as "bright" as HD600?

 

Not quite. The HD600 is a more neutral sounding headphone than HD650 in their respective stock forms but I consider the HD600 to be slightly bright at times depending on the recording. The mods make the HD650 brighter, but not as much as HD600. In fact, modded HD650 now sounds more neutral than HD600 IMO. Neither bright nor dark.

The modded HD650 is quite open and airy sounding, more so than the HD600. Plus, it resolves better and scales higher on TOTL setups.

 

Whats the thickness on the dynamat used?
I struggle to find it in Norway so I guess I might have to use something else!

Btw, have anyone tried to put the foam behind the driver back in place?

 

If you want I can ship more than you can need for about 2,30 in shipping. I've already sent a batch of 4 to other friends here, will gladly send you some. I have way, way too much since there was no smaller portion available.

 

Thank you for the offer! But i'll save you from the hassle of shipping all the way to Norway.
I managed to find a dealer that sells dynamat aswell!

 

Cool! I redid mine for it to be a bit cleaner: http://imgur.com/yvv9FcE

 

Does it matter which version? I dont wanna spend over 100 bucks...
The cheapest is the Xtreme speaker kit, 25x25cm

 

I had to pay 90 euro for the 3 piece Doorkit, not all of them are the same. 30 euro for 1 piece, but those weren't sold by any dealership sadly.

Really if you want just send me your address, I might be able to ship it before leaving to Germany tomorrow, it's just a letter I'd need to post and I can cut a good piece for you try out.

 

I have till friday to ship the HD650's back if I dont want them, so I dont have time to wait unfortunaly.

 

What you guys think? Even tho I slighty prefer the HD600 vs HD650 stock, is it worth to give them more time and mod them? Or will they never be like the HD600 in the treble

 

I'll try a fresh new pair of HD600's before I decide.
The HD600's I got are 14 years old after all...

 

I want a source for that foam all these headphone manufs use for filters. By the sheet ... and several thicknesses to choose from would be cool, too!

 

I haven't had a chance to hear any of the new flag$hip headphones, but the HD650 has got to be the absolute best bargain especially when it drops to $300.

 

I've found sibilance to be much more noticeable on some badly mixed/mastered (mostly Kpop) tunes, so have tried some drawer liner cut like the quarter-mod (helped a smidge), and then one layer from 2-ply TP covering the baffle+driver (helped another smidge). Would probably need another ply of TP to make those tracks really listenable but I don't want to lose clarity/resolution, which doesn't seem to have been affected, nor the upper treble (I only hear to 16k at most).

Someone mentioned using blu-tack instead of Dynamat, so I thought I'd try it while waiting for mine to arrive. Put it on in the same places as shown here and it makes a noticeable difference to the bass: tighter and more impact. Allows them to take EQ/bass-boost much better, but at the same time has me reaching for it less. I assume that Dynamat will be denser, so it'll be interesting to see if there's even more improvement.

Has anyone pulled their pads apart from the mounting ring by repeatedly removing them? It takes a solid tug to get them off and unless Sennheiser built them like a shit brickhouse, it seems they'd come apart after too many removals.

 

Just got a brand new HD650. Has anyone only removed the back foam or should the back foam removal be used in conjunction with the quater mod only? (they don't sell replacement foam in my country so I can't reverse the quarter mod)

 

I don't think anyone in this thread has removed the rear foam w/o first doing the quarter mod, but look at Solderdude's detailed analysis of HD650 mods: http://superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/sennheiser-hd650-love.44/page-12#post-19757

He measures the quarter-mod as increasing response ~1dB from 6-9kHz and also in the upper treble region (p. 25). Just removing the rear foam gives about 1dB increase in bass (page 31) and doing both gets you the bass while interestingly reducing response from 4-7kHz, increasing at 8kHz, reducing again from 9-10+kHz, then increasing again in the upper treble. Not sure how much these measurements actually mean as his stock HD650 measurements on p. 25 and p. 31/33 look very different between 4 and 10+kHz. This could be due to differences between measuring L (p. 25) and R (p. 31/33) channels, but the HD650 is supposed to have matched drivers. FWIW, purrin said he couldn't measure any differences with any of the mods.

I will eventually try removing the rear foam without doing the quarter-mod for the reasons I've stated above. I want to allow time to absorb the changes from adding blu-tack first.

I'd give the quarter-mod a try if I had a set of intact foamies to put back in if I didn't like it. I posted earlier some sources in the UK that'll ship overseas. Somebody also mentioned buying them from Sennheiser Korea.
http://superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/sennheiser-hd650-love.44/page-14#post-23923

 

I bought them from Sennheiser Korea because I live in Korea and they are Sennheiser's official branch office here. I think anyone can purchase those foam pad replacements his/her respective country's Sennheiser branch office or an official distributor.