Senneheiser HD660S Impressions

@Ringingears I was born in 1993, so hell yes 1972 is a long time, especially for a hobby as relatively nascent as headphone-listening.

My personal burn-in story involves a pair of cans I really wanted to love, and have discussed a few times before on this forum: the Grado RS1.

Those cans are sexy as f**k, and me being the not-so-low key hipster that I am (heck I use fountain pens regularly), I'd have happily kept them just for the eye candy factor and damn all other cans. Soundstage? Imaging? Hah, overrated. Yes, I actually thought that not too long before joining this forum early 2017— I'd drop-kick slightly younger me if I could.

Anyway, context was I was coming off Beyer DT880 250ohm, which were my daily driver cans for quite a while. I can't really listen to Daft Punk's Contact on them at louder volumes, but they did sound rather natural to me save for the treble being "off" in a way I couldn't quite put my finger off back then. Fast forward a couple months, they sounded as natural as breathing felt.

In come the Grados, and I'm drooling over the sexy wood (yes, yes, dick joke). Bass was supremely underwhelming after the Beyers, but I expected that, and rather liked the midrange on the RS1s enough that I kept em on as my primary cans for about... three or four months? The DT880s were collecting dust off on my bedside for the duration, the RS1s gradually sounded less weird to me and I began learning to appreciate what good points it had. Sure the soundstage was so bad that it felt like the channels could have been reversed and the imaging was so mushy it was like there were people playing woodwind inside violas and Jimmy Page was getting extremely frisky with John Bonham, but burn-in does wonders when you listen to a single pair of cans exclusively.

Eventually a friend came over and wanted to loan the Grados. I said sure, she could borrow them at work, I had the Beyers to fall back on anyway. Plug the Beyers back into my system and.... dafuq is this this sounds better??!?!?!???

Long story short (yes I'm rambling at this point— sorry), I eventually let go of the Grados because they were a bit too genre-specific and weren't quite THERE, technically speaking. The fact that I needed the money was another factor, I suppose, but the takeaway is that for the most part I'm a burn-in skeptic, backed up with my personal experience.

Addendum:
Kinda suspect I had unicorn Beyers since they're known for weird matching. Primary reason I'm tempted to build a nice measurement rig is because I wanna confirm that, and have a reference for modding. Eh, repairing my cans comes first (see post in All-Purpose Advice Thread, lol)

 

Mid 90’s I fell for another Stereopile review, and bought a pair of Grado SR-60’s. Thay sounded so much better than the mostly shiity sounding cans at the time that I listened to them for a few years as my primary can. That treble phooled me into thinking they were spacious. That changed when I got an amp that had a decent non-op amp headphone jack. Wow. A shock to the ears. Not a good one. I realized later that I just got used to the sound of the piercing hot treble. Went back to my old Koss Pro 4AA’s. 70’s era ones. Not the crappy ass ones of today. Bass, there’s bass in music! Headphones have come so far since the early days, sometimes I forget all the shiity sounding cans that came before. Guess that’s why the new Senns are such a disappointment to older guys like Tyll and me.

 

Hah, this feeling is known to us as well.

 

It's a pretty emotional event when Sennheiser releases a new headphone for some of us. The excitement, the allure of what's possible. We know what Sennheiser is capable of. A new headphone from them is an event in almost every sense of the word.

For us diehard fans of the HD 650, I think Tyll speaks for all of us. We were hoping to be wowed by Sennheiser. After all, we've been waiting decades for a 650 successor. A headphone we know and love.

That Sennheiser decided to go a different direction, and in a direction some of us may not agree with, it does create a bit of a pit in our stomachs. We've been waiting decades, and this is the next step, and maybe we don't like it as much. Considering how long it took Sennheiser to make the leap from 650 to 660, some of us might not be around to appreciate the 660 successor. Perhaps the next iteration Sennheiser will "come back to us", so to speak, but we are potentially staring down the barrel of a long wait for such a thing to happen.

It is a very emotional thing, and I think Tyll's response is completely justified. I think many people aren't viewing the review in a fair light, or are reading into it things that aren't there. He calls it a great headphone. He says he can recommend it. But the lump in his chest is there from the disappointment that this time, Sennheiser didn't wow him, and he's right that fans of the 650 will probably be let down.

 

I am a little disappointed to see some of the personal criticisms of Tyll Hertsen's review and process across several websites-- especially negative posts made by HD 660 S owners with post decision dissonance that are trying to justify their purchases. In the end, Sennheiser's marketing team and agency partners should have done a better job with the launch of the HD 660 S by clearly articulating the positioning of the headphone. Instead it was a confusing launch that left audiophiles hoping the HD 660 S was the continuation of a legend and at the same time Sennheiser tried to appeal to mobile users. Had Sennheiser more clearly positioned the HD 660 S, expectations would have set and there would have been no surprises.

 

People in this hobby are very defensive of their purchases... they take criticism of a product as criticism of their judgment, as a personal insult, I think.. Even the idea of "burn-in" was created, I think, to rationalize one's initial disappointment with an audio product when it doesn't meet their expectations...

I value Tyll's review.. The genuineness of his disappointment was clearly displayed and was the most effective part of his review. It dissuaded me from potentially making another unneeded and ill-advised purchase.

 

What was ill-advised IMHO was Sennheiser bringing this headphone to market in it’s current form and price. Really an unnecessary addition to their line. If they really plan on discontinuing the HD650, then this becomes one of the biggest knuckle-headed moves in recent industry history.

 

AKA the Sunk-Cost Fallacy. And it's not only $$, but investment of TIME and EFFORT -- all that time watching review videos, reading/posting in forums, etc.

Tyll gets many (if not most) of his cans as loaners and a few as keepers. I think he usually reports his results with honesty and integrity. Maybe (partly) because he sunk no out-of-pocket costs...who knows?!

About burn-in ... although I'm a believer, I don't think any amount will radically change the initial sound charac. of the product. Not sure whether any headphone manuf. conducts burn-in tests -- anyone know?

For other high-end audio gear, there are extensive burn-in testings/evals done. The results of which even make it to the product owner's manual of major manufs. E.g., my Paradigm speaker's manual recommends burn-in time before serious listening:
https://www.paradigm.com/support/faq.php

 

I think Sennheiser painted themselves into a bit of a corner with their numbering scheme. There is the 600 and 650. There is the 800 which was their flagship. Then they released the 700, as a "little brother" connection to the 800 line.

With this numbering scheme, there really isn't much room to move. I sincerely believe they think the 660 takes the best bits of the 600 series and the 700 series under one headphone, thus, it had to be some number greater than 650 and some number less than 700, thus, 660.

Perhaps this headphone shouldn't have been under the "HD" umbrella, although it's hard to see how that would make sense, since it is clearly in the "audiophile" camp along with the 650 and the 700/800. Perhaps it should have spawned a new line, but it doesn't seem special enough to justify that.

Marketing marketing marketing...

 

Sorry to be my smart-ass self..but I think the marketing department knew what position it wanted it’s customers to be in. Bent over, and paying up the ass for an inferior product.

 

Sure this might be "trickle-down" from the HD 700, but they didn't say of what.

 

I have not read every post in the thread so this may be repetition but, has anyone looked into modifying the HD660S to increase/change impedance? Is this possible? I thought that it may be.

 

It doesn't seem to be trickle down so much as trickle on...and it's not really a good idea to trickle on your target audience. Did they consciously disregard the audiophile community, or just hope to cash in?

I'm honestly not sure what they thought they'd accomplish with this release.

 

I'll wager a guess and say "make money".

I'll wager another guess and say that the true audiophile community - such as the folks here - makes up a small fraction of the greater "audiophile" (audiophool?) community, which is again a fraction of those who buy sennheiser products and make them the majority of their money.

So I can't help but think that while being disappointed might make sense, feeling somehow insulted or angry by sennheisers move here might not.

Even if they do discontinue the hd650, they'll probably bring it back as some sort of future release once demand has built back up.

 

Looks like Tyll has the 660S review up:

https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/sennheiser-hd-660-s-over-ear-open-headphones

 

Maybe this is just a scheme to sell off their stock of unsold 700 drivers and then they'll go back to selling the 650 again afterwards. I hope they're at least preserving the tooling for the 650.

 

Perhaps the HD6xx will be an ongoing Massdrop item. It wouldn't make much sense to have a $200 competitor to the HD660s, but the HD660s doesn't seem to make sense anyway.

And maybe the HD650 will not be discontinued. I don't know how many times Sennheiser has fueled the rumor that it was discontinued. I was wondering if it was true when a Rep from Sennheiser emailed me, early this year, that HD650 spares were not available since the HD650 was discontinued.

Sennheiser seems like a great company because of the HD650 and HD600 (and HD580). HD800 as well, though I have only read about them. (Yeah, I know there will be used HD650s available for many years. It will affect my perception of the company if the HD650 is a current model or something they used to make.)