Sennheiser HD660S Speculation

Yes, I agree with your reasoning.

That said, it is really down to trust, and you normally never trust a corporation. At least Sennheiser is family-owned, not publicly traded.... We know what happened to AKG.

 

Well it definitely wouldn't have taken much to do that.

On the other hand, I wonder if someone could educate me on why the HD 580, 600, 650 are still the best headphones after over a damn decade for anything remotely close to their price range. Considering how much testing and development goes into headphones for any company and how much they try to advance and expand on their technology, I just don't get why we've waited for this long for a headphone from the same company that possibly could be just a sidegrade.
Were the 6xx series that much of a unicorn where nobody could replicate or advance on what they did?

 

When a head of R&D changes, usually the sound signature also changes via new head of research department. Probably after HD650 release there might had been leadership changes on R&D department.

Sennheiser obviously went for "super detail" in 2009, and obviously it did not bond well for majority of the people, but they did not realize it right away.

As I said earlier, Sennheiser is a very conservative company (see Massdrop HD6XX debacle). It took them almost a decade to realize that they went wrong direction. Thus suddenly we are having things with "S" to correct the mistake in very late fashion. First trying to make warmer HD800, and now trying to get on HD650 hype wagon.

But at the same token, Sennheiser's mistake also allowed a lot of small companies to exist, such as Audeze, MrSpeakers, Massdrop, etc. I honestly do not think if Sennheiser had released actual HD6xx successor and still dominated the field, I would not think Audeze actually could exist against Sennheiser. People really wanted warmer-sounding headphones, and LCD-2 literally took the entire segment of people who just wanted an upgrade version of HD650 (which included me.)

Also, without such small companies, Massdrop's Audiophile section would not be so big as today.

You gain something and you lose something. You lose something, then you gain something. While it is frustrating for me that I still have to wait for the true successor of HD650, at least with those frustrations we now have far more interesting headphone industry.

 

Shpongle & excess alcohol is not a good mix. Also my wife's just informed me that the carry-out I bought from the pub last night cost me €50! And so it's back to bed for me.

 

Ouch! Sleep well.

 

No music works my brain as hard as Shpongle does. The neighbours love it.

 

Shpongle is great, i made a girl nauscious a couple years ago with it. She was pretty heavily baked and it was a bit too much for her.

 

Yup, been there many times.

 

Combination of nauseous and unconscious can be lethally dangerous!

Shpongle: negative at first, but it is growing on me. Saved me a google... I honestly thought it might be the latest word for the latest substance!

 

I bought the new Robert Plant album, Carry Fire, the other day but only had a real chance to listen to it today. It's good. Very good.

 

Nice.

His stuff has been really good over the last while. I like his Raising Sand record with Alison Krauss quite a bit. I will try the Carry Fire record.

 

Don't know much about CC since apparently I'm the real old fart around here. I not only predate CC, but I predate "New Math" (anybody here remember https://www.google.com/search?q=new+math+song+youtube&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari). So I'm afraid I'm a product of the old school of drills. I can't say that from the outside I think much of the babel that I heard coming out of new math and now CC but that may be a factor of my educational background.

I will say, however that I've found after numerous years of teaching adults that a teacher needs the freedom to teach a subject in a number of different ways since not everyone learns in the same way. If a educational method restricts teaching methods to one single "best" path, I think it's inevitable that it will fail a significant number of students. Unfortunately, to be able to teach the same topics in a variety of ways calls for skill and knowledge which I suspect doesn't describe a percentage of elementary instructors.

Speaking for myself, I really didn't learn much from individual teachers until I hit college. I'm one of those freaks who absorbe better from books than lectures and started absorbing books very early.

Rob

 

Oh do I remember "New Math". 3rd grade. 1964. My math grades went from A's to C's. Luckily my Mom's friend was an Air Force teacher and taught me the multiplication tables and some "outdated" math. Parents had to take special classes so they could help us. It was so bad that the District dropped the program after only one year. I got lucky. I always wonder what would have happened if they had stuck with it. I sure would not be teaching physics or chem.

I hate the one size fits all approach. Guess I am a rebel, but I try numerous ways of approaching a topic. See which one is working for that group of students. Sometimes you have to do some one on one instruction. When did we forget that approach? Seems we just go around in circles.
I suspect many of my colleagues do the same thing I do. You just have to not get caught using the incorrect methods.
Old fart rant over.

Where are those damn HD660's for some measurements Sennheiser? Get on the ball.

 

Well if they are going to be in any way negative, you can be certain he won't post them. I was actually surprised he said some people might want to "keep looking". I think that's how he put it.

 

LOL yeah, man.

Seriously, I guess it's just that Senn is not giving us much to be excited about here. Or at least... it may just be that I'm less excited reading Jude's measurements of the headphone.

Yeah, I know FR is not the whole determining factor, and yeah, I know Jude and some others who heard the headphone think it does sound better (and you know I have no bias against Jude personally) but... this thing doesn't look like it has the "improvements" I'm looking for in terms of FR, and that's already somewhat of a turn-off. If anything, I'm actually seeing some correlations between the unimpressive FR and their impressions, which... doesn't help at all.

Senn needs to get off their horse and just make an HD850 already... with that FR for mids and a bit more extension for bass and treble. Now that would be exciting.

^ the above section is also pointed toward those who say "but you haven't heard HD660S yet." We're making educated guesses based on our experience with measurements, and based on what little information we have currently. Again, the key point is this: HD650 measures like it's a bit V-shaped compared to HD660S. Just kinda try to imagine that and you'll see where we're coming from.

Anyway, @ultrabike, I guess we both can agree that the next best thing we can do for now is either dream about an HE60/90 clone, or just go out and buy one for ourselves. I'll be sure to hassle @n3rdling about it every now and then. Until then, I guess my 580 and Porta Pro will be good for a while yet.

 

Oh ye of little faith! How dare you doubt the Dear Leader!

https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/10018663.jpg

 

This is something we all would like to see.