Sennheiser HD650 Love (Appreciation Thread)

@SKiring, dynamat mod done (from Marv's photos). Brief observations: Sounds "louder" (probably clearer) with bass definitely tightening up. Thought I'd never say this but this is definitely sounding clearer than the HD 600 (unmodded though).

 

@cskippy Any idea if this felt/foam mod would also shift the bass boost lower on a Dynamat modded HD650?

What kind of foam did you use?

 

I'm sure it would. I tried two different types of foam. One was an artist sponge foam from Michaels the Royal & Langnickel Artist Sponge 3 pack. The one that I ended up preferring was some dark grey open cell foam that was used as a protective cover on a mic case.

 

Here is the result of an inverted Carbo Tenore Tip Large? that was inserted stem into port.

Inverted Carbo Tenore Large Tip Stem into driver by Chris Riley, on Flickr

The results are quite similar and the Spectro is also pretty good with a touch more "bloom" around 2-3kHz.

inverted black wide bore Spectro by Chris Riley, on Flickr

My mods have a slightly cleaner Spectro and frequency reponse:

R HD650 quarter mod back foam removal cotton and foam in back felt ring and felt cover in back by Chris Riley, on Flickr

R HD650 quarter mod back foam removal cotton and foam in back felt ring and felt cover in back Spectro by Chris Riley, on Flickr

 

Great complement to HD800 -- relaxing to hear.

Can anyone link to a trusted YouTube (if any) instructions to modifying one for me? I am stupid and clumsy with my hands.

Thank you.

 

@eddypoon for a clean cut removal. That's really the hardest part, coin mod is just putting a coin in the center of the foam and cutting around it with a knife and Dynamat is cutting the Dynamat to the size of the many different shown showcases.

 

Alright, I NEED other peoples opinion on this, does anyone else use these balanced?

I just recently purchased a balanced amp which also accepts SE too. Going back and forth from SE to balanced is kind of startling with the 650s. Running them balanced completely changes them. They sound like a completely different headphone to me. Treble is much more apparent, lower mids are more forward, and the mid bass hump is gone. Does anyone else have experience with running them balanced?

Is there any measurable difference?

Any input would be appreciated because the differences that i'm hearing are not subtle at all.

 

It all depends on the amplifier. More power = more control over the driver

 

This headroom DBHA seems to be quite powerful. More powerful than my H10 which I wasn't expecting at all. Low gain at 10 o' clock is as loud as I can go without pain.

 

That's really odd, now I'm weary of whether this amp was worth it, cause I'm running it SE. To my surprise, I'm either having hearing issues without being aware of it or this liquid carbon is really struggling with the HD650s- everything gets much better definition on high gain, and I have to crank it up quite a lot, like past 12 o'clock. So that definitely makes me curious whether I should try a balanced cable. I actually bought these because I couldn't suppress the urge to try them anymore heh, and I was really blown away by how they make vocals shine. Even bass doesn't seem as bad as some people claimed, I could indeed use much more low-bass, but it's not as I imagined, it's definitely there, just not that energetic; they seemed significantly different at the store I've auditioned them in, I think these newer drivers are better. So I decided to keep them. Now I've been thinking a lot about using the dynamat mod to check if the bass gets better.

 

Just found this build a graph tool on headphone.com and they have measurements of a balanced 650. Here is a comparison between balanced and SE with a 20db dynamic range http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=0&graphID[]=583&graphID[]=853&scale=20

Here is raw with the same DR range http://graphs.headphone.com/graphCompare.php?graphType=-2&graphID[]=583&graphID[]=853&scale=20

I don't know how old these graphs are so for all I know these could be the black drivers haha. I still find thses very interesting to look at though.

Here is the tool for anyone who wants to look at it http://www.headphone.com/pages/build-a-graph

Any thoughts?

 

I have a feeling that the differences shown in those graphs come down to driver variation in conjunction with inherent measurement variability.

 

I definitely didn't do a clean coin mod. Used scissors to try to etch out the circle and ended up slightly jagged haha. It did its job though...

 

I would suspect differences in sound between SE and balanced would be because of the amplifier itself. I would also suspect most SE/balanced amps sound best from their balanced connections. Just stick a 4 pin XLR male on the end of a stock HD-650 cable, and throw a female XLR 4 pin on the TRS end, then you're set to listen balanced or SE. The Neutrik connectors are dirt cheap; go green to 1, copper from green to 2, red to 3, copper from red to 4.

You're literally spending maybe $10/connector, plus the time it takes to solder it up. @fraggler is also a cable master, if you're afraid of the soldering iron.

 

When I said the HD650 is better than the th900, lcd3, T1, HE6 (in some sense) and all Grados, and the modded 650 is 100% lostenable, my friend actually laughed at me and continued to enjoy his HE1000. Later on he told me the hd650 is low-end due to its price. "For those newbie."

 

Leave him be with his 3k$ phones. You're better off not arguing with those who blindly believe that price is correlated to performance.

 

Price and performance correlate, but only to some extent. Denying that it does is foolish.

 

Thank you for your input, I appreciate it. I think my initial impression about the treble was a little skewed. I was using the odac with the amp and it definitely added more brightness to the sound. Now that i'm using the internal dac it's no where near as bright. I still stand by everything else I said though. Definitely less midbass and vocals are more forward.