New Sennheiser HD490 Pro

[IAtaman]

I'm inclined to agree. I think it's also uncontroversial to say that it is irresponsible of Sennheiser to publish the measurement without disclosing this critical information in the first place.

I think their intention was not to publish measurements, but use graphs in their marketing material to appeal to the measurement oriented crowd. It has been a practice employed by a number of IEM manufacturers without any problems. Not so much for Sennheiser it seems. As I see it, what is happening is that we, consumers, are trying to reverse engineer an FR graph from marketing material and disagreeing among ourselves what can be told from these graphs and blaming the manufacuter for it. Maybe we wait a day or two until someone actually measures it?

 

[solderdude]

Ordered one, comparative measurements somewhere next week.

 

[jean-benoit]

I'm inclined to agree. I think it's also uncontroversial to say that it is irresponsible of Sennheiser to publish the measurement without disclosing this critical information in the first place.

I just hope someone with a decent rig does eventually get them. I'm not certain any of the larger review outlets will, as it seems Sennheiser has completely ignored them with this release. Many pro audio reviewers have released videos today about the 490 Pro, but nothing from Headphones.com, Crinacle, DMS, ASR, Joshua Valour, Zeos, Passion for Sound, or any of the other large headphone reviewers. Maybe because the "Professional" side of Sennheiser doesn't mingle with the audiophile consumer segment?

i find the video from the sonicstate guy much more interesting, than most of these "audiophile" youtubers.
they surely will get their hands on it soon.

btw: the HD490 is now available in germany

 

[solderdude]

It was officially launched yesterday and available worldwide.
The ones posting prematurely did not want to honor the agreement and probably wanted to get the most hits by being just a day too early.

These are intended for professional usage and not for consumers.
Usually this means sturdier and more flexible in swivel and tilt, different cables and they might not be 'accurate' but rather have an emphasis in the upper mids/treble.
A recess in the frequency response is less desirable than an emphasis so often these headphones have a slight emphasis in the upper mids/lower treble which will then lead to less 'sharp' sounding recordings.

 

[Noodles]

I'm very interested in these but don't want to spend the cash prematurely. Will wait for proper measurements as everything so far is not good enough.

 

[uwotm8]

I'm very interested in these but don't want to spend the cash prematurely. Will wait for proper measurements as everything so far is not good enough.

Same here I'd like to see oratory1990's graphs

 

[Dreamic]

From HeadFi thread

(650 looks pretty hot if it could handle bass boost)

 

[solderdude]

A slightly more U-shaped HD400Pro (HD560S) with a sturdier build it seems at double the price.
A brighter and better extended HD650 for the same price ?
Mine should be arriving today.

 

[jean-benoit]

just received mine – gotta say i am very very pleased with the sound/tuning of these headphones!

bought them on pure speculation, after watching the first video from sonicstate, and reading some specs.
i had the HD650 for some time, but didn't liked their tuning at all, it was the most boring set of headphones i've ever owned.
these new HD490 actually have nice defined low end bass (not too much subbass though) and a nice engaging top-end.

im just in for 1 hour, so i still have to get used to the sound, but so far it's a winner for me and i likely will keep them.

still interested in the new sony mdr-mv1 though

 

[LoyK]

I got mine yesterday and really liking them so far.
Last week I had the HEDDPhone 2 and Ollo S5X here and for me these are simply better for me. I also have the Hd560s Revision from 2022 and these are quite a bit better overall I think.
Good job Sennheiser Pro!

 

[IAtaman]

I got mine yesterday and really liking them so far.
Last week I had the HEDDPhone 2 and Ollo S5X here and for me these are simply better for me. I also have the Hd560s Revision from 2022 and these are quite a bit better overall I think.
Good job Sennheiser Pro!

That is an interesting comparison. In which ways do you think 490Pro is better than newer 560S?

 

[solderdude]

Mine arrived too.
With the velour pads indeed very similar to the S5X (which is a good thing seeing as this is for pro usage), the S5X being a bit brighter (even with the felt mod), bass extension on S5X is deeper.
Warmer than HD560S/HD400Pro and also twice as expensive.
Comfort and fit is better than HD560S and S5X.
Soft velour, memory foam, washable, low clamping force.
No sibilance nor sharpness, good bass extension.
HD660S2 is a bit better sounding though, more 'hifi' but also more expensive and less comfy (high clamping force and less comfy pads), a bit more and better upper mids/lower treble.
The fabric pads (mixing) have less warmth but lacks low bass extension and mids are too forward. These have 'regular' foam.
Bass and mids now below HD660S2 but with a bit too much treble/sharpness. Fine for mixing as it highlights the details.
The producer pads are a tad too 'warm' for me, the mixing pads a tad too bright.
The HD660S2 is an inbetween headphone and sounds a bit more 'delicate'.

Review will follow this weekend probably.

 

[Svperstar]

I wouldn't consider buying a Sennheiser with a number less than 600.

I love my 580 with custom 3d printed grilles, wearing them now

 

[isostasy]

Mine arrived too.
With the velour pads indeed very similar to the S5X (which is a good thing seeing as this is for pro usage), the S5X being a bit brighter (even with the felt mod), bass extension on S5X is deeper.
Warmer than HD560S/HD400Pro and also twice as expensive.
Comfort and fit is better than HD560S and S5X.
Soft velour, memory foam, washable, low clamping force.
No sibilance nor sharpness, good bass extension.
HD660S2 is better sounding though, more 'hifi' but also more expensive and less comfy (high clamping force and less comfy pads), a bit more and better treble.
The cloth pads sound better to me (less warmth) but lacks low bass extension and treble is a bit too sharp. These have 'regular' foam.
Bass and mids now below HD660S2 but with a bit too much treble/sharpness. Fine for mixing as it highlights the details.
The producer pads are a tad too 'warm' for me, the mixing pads a tad too bright.
The HD660S2 is an inbetween headphone and sounds a bit more 'delicate'.

Review will follow this weekend probably.

Can we be fairly confident listener's reverse engineered measurements are incorrect then, as he suggests they should be brighter than anything?

I would challenge him on here about them but I don't think he has an account.

Really not surprised now that the Sennheiser guy said they're hesitant to post measurements.

 

[MayaTlab]

Can we be fairly confident listener's reverse engineered measurements are incorrect then, as he suggests they should be brighter than anything?

I would challenge him on here about them but I don't think he has an account.

Really not surprised now that the Sennheiser guy said they're hesitant to post measurements.

It's been confirmed that they were indeed taken on a 5128 and compensated with B&K's supplied DF HRTF curve.
That still doesn't really explain the discrepancy between the curves Sennheiser supplied for the Producer pads (it looks less elevated in the treble vs 5128 DF HRTF + preference adjustments when using the trace from the promo videos), and if these headphones behave like headphones such as the HD560S / HD600 / HD800, the response above 4-5kHz on a fixture may not be fully representative of the in situ response for a given individual or the average of a set of listeners (but below that probably will be quite close). So I think that we should still take it with a pinch of salt.

If I end up buying these they'll be EQed, so personally I'm less interested in their basal response per se than in measuring whether or not they're a good platform for EQ, but let's wait and see if they'll indeed prove quite a bit brighter on most fixtures and on most people's heads in that region .

Mine arrived too.
With the velour pads indeed very similar to the S5X (which is a good thing seeing as this is for pro usage), the S5X being a bit brighter (even with the felt mod), bass extension on S5X is deeper.
Warmer than HD560S/HD400Pro and also twice as expensive.
Comfort and fit is better than HD560S and S5X.
Soft velour, memory foam, washable, low clamping force.
No sibilance nor sharpness, good bass extension.
HD660S2 is better sounding though, more 'hifi' but also more expensive and less comfy (high clamping force and less comfy pads), a bit more and better treble.
The cloth pads sound better to me (less warmth) but lacks low bass extension and treble is a bit too sharp. These have 'regular' foam.
Bass and mids now below HD660S2 but with a bit too much treble/sharpness. Fine for mixing as it highlights the details.
The producer pads are a tad too 'warm' for me, the mixing pads a tad too bright.
The HD660S2 is an inbetween headphone and sounds a bit more 'delicate'.

Review will follow this weekend probably.

Tanks a lot. Do you think that you'll have time to perform measurements such as leakage tolerance and pad compression ?

 

[Rhamnetin]

I got mine yesterday and really liking them so far.
Last week I had the HEDDPhone 2 and Ollo S5X here and for me these are simply better for me. I also have the Hd560s Revision from 2022 and these are quite a bit better overall I think.
Good job Sennheiser Pro!

I'm really curious about how the HEDDPhone 2 would measure.

 

[staticV3]

I'm really curious about how the HEDDPhone 2 would measure.

Here you go:

Source

The graph may look a bit unusual. That's because it's a DF-compensated B&K 5128 measurement.
It's an evolution of the usual GRAS measurements in both hardware and visual presentation.

You can read this type of graph just like an in-room speaker response graph.

 

[solderdude]

Tanks a lot. Do you think that you'll have time to perform measurements such as leakage tolerance and pad compression ?

Already done... very leakage resistant, pad compression has the same effect as other HD6xx headphones, becomes darker sounding the more pads are compressed.

 

[MayaTlab]

pad compression has the same effect as other HD6xx headphones, becomes darker sounding the more pads are compressed.

And flat-ish below 3-4kHz I guess ?

 

[solderdude]

Wait till I finished my review...