Wives and ears

Recently upgraded from hd598 to hd6xx on crack.

Initial comparisons weren't entirely disappointing, but made me appreciate hd598 for the price as they didn't seem much worse - at the time.

Well, I had 2 awakenings tonight.

The first is that I sat for the first time listening with my wife, where we swapped these 2 headphones and agreed on point 2 below. My wife is a professional vocalist and instructor, so has a good ear. To date, this is the first time I've listened to great music on quality gear with someone else and was able to share that "aha!" moment. The fact it was with my wife, who typically has the opposite interests and hobbies as me, was the best part.

The second is that, holy crap, the hd6xx simply blow the hd598 out of the water. We agreed that the difference in detail is incredible. Details that stood out on 6xx got missed entirely on 598. My wife really noticed and liked the 60s & 80s flare on the song "feel it now" by Portugal the man during the appropriate chorus lines, but said she didn't get the same amazing vibes at all on 598.

I had posted earlier about initial disappointment with Crack before speedball. Speedball helped a lot and brought it up to par with my other amp, but it wasn't "better".

Well either the phones or crack or both needed a bit of break-in time or something, but wow.

Anyway, this combined with decent brandy has made for one good evening...

PS- the first "whoa" songs of choice was "This is Me" from the "the greatest showman OST"

 

Yeah, when you start hearing the decay of the reverb like you didn't before it brings a new dimensionality to the music. This song seems to get a bit distorted in the big parts though.

 

It's moments like these, I feel, that prove the HD650 (and by extension the rebrand 6XX) worthy of its stellar reputation. The fact that Senn are shoving it out the door to make way for the HD660S (which some agree is a downgrade in some senses) is really rather disappointing.

Well, as the HD600 is going to remain in production, time to see what can be done to match them to the HD650K. As for me, I've had a HD650 on loan for a while; I'm hoping my friend eventually forgets he lent me these, haha.

Happy listening! It's great that your wife is supportive of the hobby, though I'd worry about your joint account if this keeps up