Sennheiser HD 598 SE* Review (headphone)

[Yorkshire Mouth]

Amir, thanks for the great review.

Does the owner not want them back, now s/he knows they can be fixed with eq?

I’d love to see graphs for frequency and distortion post-eq.

 

[amirm]

Does the owner not want them back, now s/he knows they can be fixed with eq?

He says he can't eq it in all the apps he uses so doesn't want it back.

 

[Andreas007]

We had the hottest day in the history of this area today. Firing anything into the sun would be something I would do if it helped lower the temps!

Does someone know how to EQ the sun?
However, boosting the low end of spectrum won’t help this time to get amir satisfied.

 

[nerdstrike]

I would like to point out that orbital mechanics tell us that firing something into the sun is in fact very difficult! You need to negate nearly 30 km/s of kinetic energy before something will fall into the sun without missing it.

That would need a LOT of donations to pull off!

 

[Helicopter]

I would like to point out that orbital mechanics tell us that firing something into the sun is in fact very difficult! You need to negate nearly 30 km/s of kinetic energy before something will fall into the sun without missing it.

That would need a LOT of donations to pull off!

Perhaps cast it into one of Amir's local volcanoes:

 

[General Direction]

I would think it fair to add "with third-party pads" to the title of the review, since that is the actual set of products on review.

 

[phoenixsong]

The note stole the spotlight imo XD

 

[phoenixsong]

I think the FR wouldn't be that terrible with stock pads though

 

[Chocomel]

As you see below, my measurements markedly differ from 598 series posted online. I have no explanation for the discrepancy but stand beyond mine being correct for this sample

The aftermarket pads would be a very likely explanation for the differences in Measurements.

Edit: here's some HD598SE Measurements from rtings (says it's a hd598 but can see it's the Black SE version in the reviews.)

We can for example see the mids don't have the dips which is caused be the aftermarket pads.

 

[3125b]

I always liked the classic 598s, they looked like an old Mercedes:


But I'm also glad they fixed the HD 500 line with the 560S, the 599 was fairly bad for its price.

 

[Robbo99999]

That's terrible, but I'm sure some of the fault with the FR is down to the replacement pads.

Lol, another review with replacement aftermarket pads! Just places doubt on the validity of the results in comparison to how they would have been with stock pads (as intended by the manufacturer), especially as Amir was saying that the measurements of this 598 model differed wildly from other similar 598 models. Not really good practice, a waste of a review I think, surely there are enough headphones available to measure from people that we can choose stock pads as a pre-requisite, unless the review is specifically targeting a comparison of effects of different pads.

 

[infinitesymphony]

A friend bought a pair of HD598s in 2010 or 2011 not long after they were released. I didn't think they sounded too bad at the time. Definitely a punchy sounding headphone for a rock lover. Wonder if this one has a problem with pads, QC, or some other flaw.

 

[Nathan Raymond]

Maybe you should have a new policy of measurements with original pads only?
Or if you do measure them with alternative pads, also post measurements with originals too.

It's not just original pads, but age and wear of the original pads matters too. Solderdude explored this in his HD 650 review. Scroll down to the "HD650 pads" section to see this text with pictures:

The measurements of the headphone above are made with a black driver + old type pads.
Most likely the old pads once were a bit stiffer and the foam inside will be somewhat decayed/softened over time.

The newer pads indeed sound ‘brighter‘ and ‘clearer‘ and relatively the old pads sound ‘darker’ or ‘warmer’ with less clarity/treble presence.
I was curious what caused the differences as side by side they looked very similar in height.
The old pad = 30mm high, the new pad 32mm, the color of the new pad is darker and the velours of the newer pads feel less ‘soft’ to the skin.
The new pads also come with new foam inlays.
The new pads have the product code: 050635. They are suited for HD545 / HD565 / HD580 / HD600 / HD650 / HDI850.

Time for some measurements to show the differences between the 2 pads (right channel only).
The measurements are done with the same test-voltages from a low output R amplifier and the same driver/channel.
The old pad has a good 2dB more presence below 1000Hz and is also a bit louder in SPL. The amount of treble (> 4kHz) is about the same level.
The new pad is more balanced and the ‘warmer’ signature is gone. More towards the HD580 / HD600 signature.

What isn’t very obvious when wearing these is the fact that the old pads compress a lot more than the newer (less compliant) ones.
When placed on the test rig this became quite evident though.
Quite possible the older pads may create a slightly better seal on some heads (depending on bone structure) as well.
Using the older pads the drivers are thus much closer to the ears which results in a slightly higher SPL below 1kHz.
To check if the pad thickness is indeed the only parameter that changed I pressed the new pads against the rig to the same driver-rig distance as the old pads did by themselves. Below the result of this small test.

This test shows that the newer pads do not have any different absorption or other acoustical effects and the differences in sound signature and SPL between the two pads is now the same. They sound equally ‘warm’ under these conditions.

What became quite obvious is that while the old and new pads differ only slightly in height when laying flat on the table (30mm vs 32mm) as shown in the picture above, but the pads compress in a substantially different way when being pressed against the skull with the same clamping force.

Below 2 pictures of both pads with 1kg weight on top of them. Roughly equating to about 10 Newton force which is a bit north of firm pressure but it shows the differences better.
With 10N on the entire surface of the pads the total height of the pads was reduced from 30mm to 20mm. Considering the mounting plate was also included (which is 5mm) the actual pad thickness reduced from 25mm to 15mm a 40% reduction.

Below a picture of the new pads with the exact same weight pressing on it. With 10N on the entire surface of the pads the total height of the pads was only reduced from 32mm to 27mm. Considering the mounting plate was also included (which is 5mm) the actual pad thickness reduced from 27mm to 22mm a 20% reduction.

The question of course is whether or not the old pads had been (much) stiffer when new which is quite likely as the foam inside the pads deteriorates over the years.
If that’s indeed the case then the sonic signature must have become ‘warmer’ over the years without me really noticing it….

 

[Zensō]

Lol, another review with replacement aftermarket pads! Just places doubt on the validity of the results in comparison to how they would have been with stock pads (as intended by the manufacturer), especially as Amir was saying that the measurements of this 598 model differed wildly from other similar 598 models. Not really good practice, a waste of a review I think, surely there are enough headphones available to measure from people that we can choose stock pads as a pre-requisite, unless the review is specifically targeting a comparison of effects of different pads.

I have to agree. As much as I appreciate the great work being done here, testing headphones with random aftermarket pads undermines the overall credibility of ASR headphone reviews. In the end it seems like a waste of valuable time and resources.

 

[o7_brother]

To further illustrate how important ear pads are, here is my personal Focal Utopia with original and Dekoni pads. These aftermarket pads visually resemble the originals quite closely.

Measurements and subsequent graph courtesy of oratory1990.

 

[crinacle]

The measurements and subjective results by no less than three humans agree that out of box tuning of this headphone is horrible. This doesn't jive with any review I read on the 598 or 598 SE. I tend to think that there is more to this SE version than just color back. Anyway, I am not going to generalize the response to all 598 SEs. The walk-away point though is that objective measurements proved their worth strongly in confirming subjective listening tests and showing the path to equalization.

Amir, the problem here is that the HD598 (SE or otherwise, the differences are just in colour) comes with, and were tuned with, velour pads.

​

It's no longer "out of the box tuning" once the pads have been changed, especially a change as radical as going from velour to p/leather.

Not saying that the measurements published here are useless, but it's also safe to say that the vast majority of existing 598(SE) owners would not be able to use any EQ profiles derived from this data, nor would it be particularly useful for any potential buyers of the 598(SE) since again, the pads aren't stock. It's really the very small subset of 598(SE) owners with your specific set of p/leather replacement pads who would be able to make use of this data, though the bigger issue is that you may be misleading some users into thinking that you've measured a stock pair of 598s.

 

[Aperiodic]

Just wonders will it be the pads affecting it much? Can’t imagine the sennheiser line which are generally considered similar to HD 600 deviated so much

The pads may affect the response but I doubt by the gross amounts seen here

 

[MayaTlab]

The pads may affect the response but I doubt by the gross amounts seen here

You have an example just above whereby they changed the response by somewhere around 5dB across a very large bandwidth when normalised at around 2kHz. That to me is "gross".

 

[JohnYang1997]

The pads may affect the response but I doubt by the gross amounts seen here

It's very common for a change from velour to leather.

 

[raistlin65]

The owner doesn't have the original pads. What you saw, is what I got to test.

People have interest in discontinued products since they can often

I think you are probably wasting your time testing headphones with aftermarket pads, where you don't know what pads they are. Whether headphones are still in production or not. The measurements won't be very useful.

Probably best to stick to headphones with stock pads, unless testing a specific set of pads that have a reputation for improving the response. For example, Focal Elears using Clear pads are supposed to improve the sound signature.