Sennheiser HD650 Love (Appreciation Thread)

What are you impressions with the drawer liner vs the foam pads?

nvm I just read about it.

 

Hahaha, i'm sure you'll figure something out.

 

Took the plunge and ordered two inserts. Crazy how different brands have such varying prices for their parts. $10 for two inserts, while I probably couldn't get a lollipop from Sennheiser for the same price.

 

I think I missed where the rug liner was described. Is it just a flat sheet in on the front of the driver? Hole cut in the middle? What does it do?

 

The little triangles sticking out around the driver hole are the drawer liner:

 

Do you have to order 1 or 2 of that item in order to get 2 pads?

 

You need to order two.

 

They ship damn quick: mine got here yesterday.

 

Fullcompass does ship friggin quickly. I ordered mine like Wednesday, and they already came in. I'll be interested to seeing how the sound changes.

 

I've had it in for the past couple days. Not prepared to say much more than "I like it" just yet. IMO quarter modding the thicker AKG foam isn't optional. No quarter mod in the AKG foam made it sound like the upper mids were further away...which to me seemed a bit sub-optimal.

At the same time, I can't help but think that the AKG foam would probably be boss in the HD600, given the location of its slightly annoying elevation. (I don't want to call it a peak. It's not *that* bad.)

 

I received the K240 foams today and gave it a shot. The foam is circular so you have to cut a bit around the sides to get a good fit in the HD650. And yes it is thick as hell and a bit hard to make the cuts look clean using xacto knife or scissors. Anyways, first I tried it normally with no coin mod, and the sound was waaay too dark and muffled, I was having Nighthawk flashbacks. Didn't spend much time with it like this.

Tried the coin mod on the K240 foam, and it was a marked improvement. The sound is somewhere between stock foam and stock foam w/ coin mod in terms of treble quantity / detail / air. Sounds pretty good, but I still felt I was missing some treble dynamics, the sound just wasn't as engaging in comparison to stock foam w/ coin mod... Still sounds nice but thought it sounded just a bit too laid back and muffled.

I like dark headphones and often end up attenuating treble on my other headphones, but the stock foam w/ coin mod is pretty much a goldilocks pairing with the HD650 in my book. These just sound so f'ing good.

 

So I did a few mods to my HD600 over the last few weeks iteratively, and I'm really satisfied with where I am now.

First I removed the foam from the back of the driver. This had a noticeable impact on the treble, it made it harsher but did help clarity slightly. When I say slightly, it really was very slight. After listening for a while, the negatives definitely outweighed the positives, but I kept it like this for a while (with the spider cage still intact).

Next, I applied some Dynamat that SKiring graciously sent me (thanks again!). I used the pattern in his post, but I screwed it up a bit because I applied the Dynamat on top of the cage instead of removing it first. It had a marked impact on the bass response, making it a lot more present and punchy. However, the effects on the tonality and high/mid/low balance from the weird little echo chamber I'd created were quite bad. I kept with it for a little while to make sure that I really was noticing that big of a difference, and I definitely was. After a while I removed the around-the-cage Dynamat while keeping the rest, which removed the nastiness it introduced.

Next, I removed the spider cage, since I'd read multiple people here saying that it helped reduce treble harshness caused by removing the foam. It did just that, it removed that extra 'bite' of harsh treble that was introduced when there was a cage and no foam. It was a great change and the first one I started to feel really happy with.

Then, after a while with that, I put new Dynamat around the back driver, leaving 3-4mm free space around the center. At this stage, I had some nicely improved low end, while still enjoying the high end. However, SKiring also suggested getting some AKG K240 foam and replacing the stock foam with that, so I ordered some.

Once the K240 foam came in, I cut it a little around the edges and swapped it out. The difference wasn't amazingly noticeable at first (outside of the slightly reduced ear space inside the cups as a result of the thicker foam), but I'm definitely noticing a difference after a few days with it. The HD600 can be pushed to a higher volume without feeling as harsh or assaulting on the ears in the high-end (something I'm sensitive to), which is great. It made them slightly more dark without taking away much. Not sure if I'll keep this one long-term, since I can't help but wonder if I've lost detail in the process. Luckily it's easily reversible so I can just swap out the foam again. For now, though, I'm really enjoying my modded HD600. Improved bass texture and presence, a little more laid-back, and a slight bit darker. They still sound musical and natural with everything here in-place, which is great.

So in case anybody was wondering what would happen if these mods were applied to the HD600, now you know! I'm going to add some pictures in a bit.

 

Thanks for that @take , I'd been looking for more impressions of mods on the HD600 rather than the HD650... I'm a little leery of messing with the high end response, seems ya kinda went back and forth on that yourself tho it worked out in the end.

From what I can tell some of the mods are independent of each other, I'm thinking of just starting out with the dynamat to kick up the bass a bit... Guess I better start saving pics of all the different ways people have arranged their damping!

 

I'd call adding dynamat mass-loading since you're not really reducing any reflections by absorbing energy with foam or other absorbing material but rather adding mass to the headphones in order to reduce bass distortion, hence improving the tightness. I'd recommend adding dynamat to the driver itself (the lollipop) instead of the area around since that would be the area that vibrates (distorts) the most.

 

I have a problem. Every other headphone within reach sounds weird or boring in comparison to the 650m. It makes me feel bad for those headphones, now unused and unloved.

 

Here's a picture of the back mods:

Yeah it's pretty clear what each of them do, even if it takes a little time listening to figure out the difference. Glad I could help! Messing with the high end is definitely tricky, especially on the HD600 vs HD650 which have less room for adding high-end energy.

Maybe you could take a look at the picture I posted above, and explain if that's what you were imagining I did, or what you would have done differently? I'm not sure what you mean by "the lolipop."

 

The lollipop is the driver mounted onto the headphone enclosure with 4 tabs. You can even see the tabs in the picture. All of your dynamat is on it, with the exception of the two pieces at the top. I believe Tyll has removed the lollipop on both the HD6x0 and HD800 for repair and put them back. Here's the image of both of them:

 

I didn't like dynamat on my driver when I tried it.