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Sennheiser HD560s Owner's Thread.

The original 560s earpads are available for $22 at the moment.

 
Greetings!
I've recently got the Topping D50III. With its PEQ functionality, I've decided to try some EQ with the 560s. I have no prior experience with EQ, so I would appreciate any tips.
I've been testing Oratory EQ (v2.9 05.01.24) and at first, I liked it but there are some minor things bothering me. First, I just feel there's too much bass. Should I just decrease the gain at 105Hz to fix that? Would that take away the "warmness" that the EQ brought to the HD560s?
Lastly, in 'Touch' by Daft Punk, by the end of the song, when the children choir is fading back in, I just feel it got too laid back with Oratory EQ. Which frequency should I adjust to bring back the intensity those vocals?
Forgive me if any of this had been discussed before on this thread. If you have any other recommendation of EQ profile, please share! I listen to a lot of female vocal music and for a while I'm feeling the 560s stock just a bit fatiguing.

ps. I got the first version of the 560s, as soon as it was released, but had changed pads since then (got them from Sennheiser, I belive it is the same as the original pads, but I'm not 100% sure)

Many thanks for the help!
 
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As oratory always clearly states in his EQ suggestions... you can adjust certain bands to taste.

One has to realize the EQ is based on a specific industry standard measurement fixture. You ears (and personal taste) are very likely different from such a standard.

Sooo, use the suggested EQ settings as a platform to work from and adjust some bands to taste. Your ears, alas, do NOT comply to standards.
 
I'm using the HD560S since mid december and the HD6xx is mainly in the drawer, it's really good and the build quality is much better than my other 500 series which is quite squeaky plastic.
I'm using this profile below (probably it's from @Robbo99999 ) and does not always sound right but maybe just the albums I listened were bad sources, HD560S seems more revealing to me than the HD6xx. I'd thank any adjustment suggestions
Preamp: -6.75 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 20.0 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 0.50
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 160.0 Hz Gain -1.3 dB Q 1.00
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 1173.0 Hz Gain -1.0 dB Q 2.00
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1813.0 Hz Gain 2.8 dB Q 2.00
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3320.0 Hz Gain -2.1 dB Q 3.50
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 3870.0 Hz Gain 3.6 dB Q 2.00
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4520.0 Hz Gain -3.7 dB Q 3.00
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 5280.0 Hz Gain -2.3 dB Q 3.00
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 6800.0 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 2.00
 
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I'm using the HD560S since mid december and the HD6xx is mainly in the drawer, it's really good and the build quality is much better than my other 500 series which is quite squeaky plastic.
I'm using this profile below (probably it's from @Robbo99999 ) and does not always sound right but maybe just the albums I listened were bad sources, HD560S seems more revealing to me than the HD6xx. I'd thank any adjustment suggestions
Preamp: -6.75 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 20.0 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 0.50
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 160.0 Hz Gain -1.3 dB Q 1.00
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 1173.0 Hz Gain -1.0 dB Q 2.00
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1813.0 Hz Gain 2.8 dB Q 2.00
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3320.0 Hz Gain -2.1 dB Q 3.50
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 3870.0 Hz Gain 3.6 dB Q 2.00
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 4520.0 Hz Gain -3.7 dB Q 3.00
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 5280.0 Hz Gain -2.3 dB Q 3.00
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 6800.0 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 2.00
Yep, that's my EQ but you got Filter #1 wrong. Just put it as a Peak Filter like you have for all the others. Following is a pic of the EQ for interest which would have been pictured in earlier posts (they're all Peak Filters).
1735418134526.jpeg


I modify that EQ slightly by putting a linear tilt of -1.25dB onto that, meaning that 20kHz is -1.25dB below 20Hz and a linear slope adjustment inbetween - so it's just a subtle linear slope adjustment I use in addition to the EQ you see in the pic. You can do that using 3 High Shelf Filters, it's in an earlier post of mine. (It's like a Linear Tone Control Adjustment). (You should be able to find it, ask me if you can't & I'll take a look).

The pictured EQ's here in this post are all for New Version HD560s.
 
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Yep, that's my EQ but you got Filter #1 wrong. Just put it as a Peak Filter like you have for all the others.
Thanks, fixed it. I can only have 8 PK filters that's why it ended up as LS I guess. Which one is ok to leave out? That 1.1 KHz -1 dB filter 3 is the one I left out for now. The low end sounded great with games after the fix, the rumble is there and I didn't notice distortion. I like to test bass with this Gears of War trailer, even the compressed YouTube audio sounds good.
 
Thanks, fixed it. I can only have 8 PK filters that's why it ended up as LS I guess. Which one is ok to leave out? That 1.1 KHz -1 dB filter 3 is the one I left out for now. The low end sounded great with games after the fix, the rumble is there and I didn't notice distortion. I like to test bass with this Gears of War trailer, even the compressed YouTube audio sounds good.
Hi, given you've got limitation of 8 Peak Filters then I worked out just now what Low Shelf Filter would have a nearly identical effect as the 20Hz Peak Filter I used. So instead for Filter #1 use Low Shelf at 54Hz, +4.1dB at Q0.71. That means that you'll be able to reactivate the 1.1kHz filter.
 
Hi, given you've got limitation of 8 Peak Filters then I worked out just now what Low Shelf Filter would have a nearly identical effect as the 20Hz Peak Filter I used. So instead for Filter #1 use Low Shelf at 54Hz, +4.1dB at Q0.71. That means that you'll be able to reactivate the 1.1kHz filter.
I'm using this profile since your reply and going through many albums this is clearly improvement and now the sound is full and balanced, even some albums I thought are more compressed have greater dynamic range. No desire currently to use my HD 6xx, this is also comfy and good for everything.
Thank you for your EQ!
 
I'm using this profile since your reply and going through many albums this is clearly improvement and now the sound is full and balanced, even some albums I thought are more compressed have greater dynamic range. No desire currently to use my HD 6xx, this is also comfy and good for everything.
Thank you for your EQ!
Excellent, pleased it's worked out for you!
 
image.png

What is going on at 7k on some of these 5128 measurements?
The dark blue line is avg of L+R from HypeTheSonics, if you look at their left channel it also drops like this.
One of the light blue or red is RTings and the other is I think Resolve.
Orange is an average of the measurements from Listener, which I don't think includes everything to date.
Green is SoundGuys.
No idea who pink is.
Also a lot of variance at 3k.
Light blue and red also way higher at 15k.

That 7k is a disaster though if some units are like that.
 
View attachment 419782
What is going on at 7k on some of these 5128 measurements?
The dark blue line is avg of L+R from HypeTheSonics, if you look at their left channel it also drops like this.
One of the light blue or red is RTings and the other is I think Resolve.
Orange is an average of the measurements from Listener, which I don't think includes everything to date.
Green is SoundGuys.
No idea who pink is.
Also a lot of variance at 3k.
Light blue and red also way higher at 15k.

That 7k is a disaster though if some units are like that.
You've got no labelled scale on the y-axis so we can't really assume what kind of differences we're seeing between the various lines. It's normal for there to be some variance between different units and if you also factor in different people measuring the headphones that's also some extra variance there. I have no idea if for sure all of these people use 5128, and I'm also not sure if there are some different variants of the 5128 that you can get (perhaps not), but for GRAS measurements there are a lot of people measuring using Chinese cloned equipment which is cheaper but doesn't show the same results. It's also possible that some of these people have measured the Old Version of the HD560s rather than the New Version, so that's another point of variance, and there's no information re the degree of pad wear for these measured units - so all in all there's quite a lot of potential variation that could be going on here that doesn't have to be associated with just real unit to unit variation, albeit that will be a factor too.
 
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View attachment 419782
What is going on at 7k on some of these 5128 measurements?
The dark blue line is avg of L+R from HypeTheSonics, if you look at their left channel it also drops like this.
One of the light blue or red is RTings and the other is I think Resolve.
Orange is an average of the measurements from Listener, which I don't think includes everything to date.
Green is SoundGuys.
No idea who pink is.
Also a lot of variance at 3k.
Light blue and red also way higher at 15k.

That 7k is a disaster though if some units are like that.
You can not assume all HD560S/400PRO 'measure' exactly the same on a similar fixture under the same circumstances.
They don't and this alone is enough reason to see this delta, which in itself is already quite good.
Could be product variance, could be pad condition, could be placement, could even be other causes.
This 'science' is anything but exact and the plot that comes out may not reflect 'reality' but rather the circumstances.

Just look at the average between 100Hz and several kHz and that will be pretty much 'correct' the rest is measurement condition and production spread dependent.

Headphone measurements are anything BUT exact and only are correct to the standard it is measured to, not to reality on one's head, not even with BK5128.
No matter how much we all want the science and measurements to be exact ... they aren't.
Frequency response measurements can give a decent 'picture' for tonality between 50Hz and 8kHz (sometimes even less) which is the most important part of the frequency range.
 
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Using references, ears, parametric EQ and many years experience.
I am sure you will have tons of objections, if so just ignore me.

Audiophiles: "You don't listen to measurements."

Solderdude: "I hear frequency response graphs!"

:)
 
Replying to my own post with a small update, in that post I said that my HD560s didn't sound right when I got it back from Oratory, well I managed to fix that, it was the cable. Now I'm not a cable mystic, and my understanding is that they either work or they don't, but I bought a replacement short cable just because I wanted a shorter cable, and it now unexpectedly sounds awesome now & I realise now why the HD560s had been my favourite headphone (and is again now). I don't know what the hell happened with that cable on it's journey overseas, but replacing it transformed the headphone back to how I remember it. Now there is still the small damage to the earpad that I had mentioned, but I don't believe that's affecting the sound....how the hell it was the cable I don't know! I would replace the old cable & do comparisons in the same listening session, but the aftermarket cable is an extremely tight fit on the twisting locking mechanism of the headphone attachment, so much so that I had to try many times to get it seated properly and thought I was gonna have to send it back....so I'm not gonna be removing this cable anymore. To be clear, I'm not a cable mystic, something up with the original cable though that happened during it's time away from me, or perhaps reseating the cable in the headphone is what fixed it rather than the cable itself. Happy to be enjoying the HD560s again anyway, regardless of what the hell is going on!

I was potentially wrong about my channel imbalance points I brought up though, because further testing with different headphones shows I do have natural brief swings in my hearing to the right at 7kHz and to the left at 9kHz, so ignore my channel imbalance comments in that post of mine that I'm quoting. But there was something wrong with the cable somehow that I mentioned in my previous paragraph, which was the reason for my general unhappiness with my HD560s upon receiving it back from Oratory.
I've always thought people talking about cables were crazy, but recently I've found a difference between the stock cable and some cheaply bought balanced replacement cable. I didn't use to believe cables makes a difference either but after a year of using my bal cable going back to stock cable makes it seem so much darker. But now the imaging seems right, I can pinpoint gunshots and footsteps much better in games like CS2 and be able to tell the directionality of audio.

So I'm confused about everything rn, with Balanced everything was much brighter and energetic at the cost of terrible imaging (in games) and smushed soundstage (wide but not separated, everything was smushed together). I still managed to enjoy it with music, sparkled well. But for games it really was terrible.

Currently on unbalanced it seems weird, but maybe it's because I've been used to the messed up sound signature the bal cable provided. I'm not even sure if it's a cable issue or a Qudelix specific issue (I've seen threads about similar complaints with the qudelix). And yes I'm aware these systems aren't actually "balanced" and even the dual DAC functionality of the Qudelix only being engaged in Balanced should only be a negligble difference, certianly not enough to distantiate between SE and B. So wtf is going on?
 
I've always thought people talking about cables were crazy, but recently I've found a difference between the stock cable and some cheaply bought balanced replacement cable. I didn't use to believe cables makes a difference either but after a year of using my bal cable going back to stock cable makes it seem so much darker. But now the imaging seems right, I can pinpoint gunshots and footsteps much better in games like CS2 and be able to tell the directionality of audio.

So I'm confused about everything rn, with Balanced everything was much brighter and energetic at the cost of terrible imaging (in games) and smushed soundstage (wide but not separated, everything was smushed together). I still managed to enjoy it with music, sparkled well. But for games it really was terrible.

Currently on unbalanced it seems weird, but maybe it's because I've been used to the messed up sound signature the bal cable provided. I'm not even sure if it's a cable issue or a Qudelix specific issue (I've seen threads about similar complaints with the qudelix). And yes I'm aware these systems aren't actually "balanced" and even the dual DAC functionality of the Qudelix only being engaged in Balanced should only be a negligble difference, certianly not enough to distantiate between SE and B. So wtf is going on?
That post you quoted of mine was an old one from the beginning of 2022, and I can't remember what the issue was with that unit of HD560s with the stock cable before I changed it to an aftermarket one, so I can't remember the specifics. Generally cables don't make a difference, so you shouldn't chase fancy cables - there might have been something wrong with the stock cable I had or it had somehow got damaged in the post on the way back from Oratory, who knows.....as I said I can't remember the details of what was wrong with it. Don't chase cables though, just use the stock one or a good value quality aftermarket cable, but you don't need anything fancy.
 
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