Sennheiser HD660S Speculation

It was at some point in the day, apparently (I wasn't there. I'm in Cal). It may not have been there the whole day. They had it over to the right side. I guess without any announcement.

 

I checked with a dealer in London. Late October / early Nov release . UK pricing is £449.

I'll happily pay this if it is a clear improvement.

 

Back on topic. First I'm not sure about the whole hd700 driver thing or how I feel about that. Sennheiser tends to be pretty on point with their design so I'm not too worried.

I think it makes sense to revise the 650 and tune it for more bass. But that can be accomplished with EQ to a degree. The problem is that the quality of the bass remains a little wooly when bumped up with EQ. Pad rolling can also punch of the quantity of bass ALA Brainwavz hm5 velour pads.

The rest of the hd650 presentation is so good I'm not sure that I'd want to mess with it much. It still has some of the best most natural midrange in the game at any price level. For now, I remain optimistic.

 

..which makes the HD700 itself all the more mysterious. It makes you wonder what the story was with that getting out of the door sounding like that. Clearly, Senn are fallible too.

 

Friend of a friend of a friend who knows someone who works at Sennehiser says:

150 ohm driver so easier to drive out of phones

NOT HD700 Driver, new different driver

All speculation, nothing comfirmed, just passing along internet rumors

EDIT: I just realized I'm 2017 MTOC. Sorry for the noise guys

 

That's interesting, I'd always assumed that the harshness was all an awful mistake. Not sure what to think now.

 

When I was in RMAF, I was in a great hurry and did not visit Sennheiser booth. It seems it was a mistake.

Well, I will surely blindly buy it regardless.


Speaking of HD700, I hope Sennheiser should revise the model and make something like HD750, with fixed high.

 

That's it!

The $500 segment has a new king!

Oh, sorry ... wrong forum.

Was wondering what the play will be following HD6xx. Now I wonder what the new 600 and 650 price points will be.

 

Remember, folks, your HD650 won't suddenly sound terrible overnight just because something new came out. Deep breaths.

(Yeah right, we still want to know, just in case they absolutely smash it...)

 

Good to see Sennheiser finally taking a stab at a (hopefully) honest-to-goodness HD6XX series successor... Perhaps the ballooning nonsense that is is the high end headphone market distracted them from doing it sooner, but at some point, when a product you developed two full decades ago won't go away it's time to ask yourself why it was so good and what you can do to improve upon it without detracting from what made it so good in the first place. Here's hoping they don't screw it up

 

That's why I still have 580/600+650-I enjoy them all.

 

Has any SBAFer seen this yet? It doesn't count to me till that happens...

 

If Senn does indeed cut the impedance in half down to 150 ohms, does this mean that high-z amps that currently pair well with the HD600/650 may not pair as well with the 660S? Amps like the BH Crack etc...

 

That's the problem with speculation, until units are in the wild we won't know...

 

BRB flying to Germany

 

I do wonder why the leaked supposed photos and descriptions show just an updated HD650 instead of a new enclosure. Wouldn't this be the perfect time for an update on this classic design? Even the rumoured clamping force seems to have been unchanged or made worse.

 

Sennheiser seem to be very focused on manufacturing and cost efficiency. This way they can keep the tooling, molds, training, hiccups etc down to a minimum.

 

I dunno, I kinda see the appeal of keeping to the old 6-series aesthetic. If these are indeed a true refinement of the much-loved 650 (*really* hoping reports of a 650 with less bleh bass are accurate), then avoiding the new-design language of the 700 and 800 might be for the wiser.

Old look= the classic house sound; new hotness= maybe not the best treble balance.