Sennheiser HD560s Owner's Thread.

[DarrylG]

Quality has come down as well. 2023 revision goes with half a lenght cable and fine velour on earpads was replaced by cheap polyester.

Are you sure? I just watched a user video on Amazon, and the earpads look like velour to me. It had to be the newer version, because it included the shorter cable. It's $142.45 today for Prime customers, by the way.

Sennheiser HD560s Unboxing and First Impression

Sennheiser HD560s Unboxing and First Impression

www.amazon.com

 

[Robbo99999]

Are you sure? I just watched a user video on Amazon, and the earpads look like velour to me. It had to be the newer version, because it included the shorter cable. It's $142.45 today for Prime customers, by the way.

Sennheiser HD560s Unboxing and First Impression

Sennheiser HD560s Unboxing and First Impression

www.amazon.com

It's hard to tell for sure because he didn't do any real slow moving close ups of the pads, but they seemed to have that "rough" surface texture of velour pads - I didn't notice anything specifically different about them apart from maybe they look just a tad thicker, but that it is a brand new unworn headphone, so the pads on my various HD560s will have compressed slightly with use. I certainly can't say that they are different pads from that video. At the moment I'd say the pads are unchanged unless we see/find some clear evidence that changes that.

EDIT: after pausing the video a few times I tried to find the best pic of the material used in the cups:

To me that looks like velour, that would be my bet. (so unchanged)

 

[DarrylG]

It's hard to tell for sure because he didn't do any real slow moving close ups of the pads, but they seemed to have that "rough" surface texture of velour pads - I didn't notice anything specifically different about them apart from maybe they look just a tad thicker, but that it is a brand new unworn headphone, so the pads on my various HD560s will have compressed slightly with use. I certainly can't say that they are different pads from that video. At the moment I'd say the pads are unchanged unless we see/find some clear evidence that changes that.

EDIT: after pausing the video a few times I tried to find the best pic of the material used in the cups:
View attachment 298640
To me that looks like velour, that would be my bet. (so unchanged)

I lightened it, it's definitely velour.

 

[nyxnyxnyx]

Velour is a good option nonetheless right? It seems that at this price range there are not much they can do to either upgrade or reduce materials quality. At least from what I've seen there have been a minimal amount of reports about more serious matters like drivers failure, weird buzzing and noises.....

 

[DarrylG]

Velour is a good option nonetheless right? It seems that at this price range there are not much they can do to either upgrade or reduce materials quality. At least from what I've seen there have been a minimal amount of reports about more serious matters like drivers failure, weird buzzing and noises.....

Yes, it is. The complaint was that they had changed the velour on the earpads to some other fabric, but as you can see, it's still velour.

 

[JLGF1]

The 560 pair I purchased one year ago had velour earpads.

 

[krumpol]

The guy who first mentioned this sneaky downgrade on reddit, linked in january ASR thread quoted by Robbo, posted two unboxing pictures with old+new HD 560S and added remark that fabric on earpads is different. It looks different on his pictures btw. Anyway, the point is, pricetag went down because quality went down in 2023 - cable and headband are definitely cheaper now. This is not complaint, this is a fact.

 

[solderdude]

The question is would this affect the tonal balance/sound ?
The cable and headband cloth certainly won't nor won't the fabric on the pads if that really also changed as long as the shape, size and used foam are the same.
In that case it is a win only. Cheaper price for a good sounding headphone.

 

[krumpol]

Yep, the sound wont change.
Comfort could, polyester is synthetic material and good heat insulator - not good for long sessions in hot weather. Also one guy here on ASR reported that new headband is poorly glued and keep yanking his hair, which is another anecdotal evidence that quality and comfort is not the same.

 

[solderdude]

one guy here on ASR reported that new headband is poorly glued and keep yanking his hair,

That won't be an issue for me..

 

[Robbo99999]

Yep, the sound wont change.
Comfort could, polyester is synthetic material and good heat insulator - not good for long sessions in hot weather. Also one guy here on ASR reported that new headband is poorly glued and keep yanking his hair, which is another anecdotal evidence that quality and comfort is not the same.

Point is, the pads don't look like they've changed (they're still velour), take a look at our discussions over this last page.

 

[DarrylG]

The guy who first mentioned this sneaky downgrade on reddit, linked in january ASR thread quoted by Robbo, posted two unboxing pictures with old+new HD 560S and added remark that fabric on earpads is different. It looks different on his pictures btw. Anyway, the point is, pricetag went down because quality went down in 2023 - cable and headband are definitely cheaper now. This is not complaint, this is a fact.

Right now, they're selling for $19 more than the introductory price, and $14 more than the HD 400 Pro. The price fluctuated before they started shipping with a shorter cable, which is the only change I can detect. A lot of people complained about the longer cable, by the way.

 

[Feelas]

Is the headband polyester now or still velour though? Good to know that they didn't change the pads.

 

[DarrylG]

Is the headband polyester now or still velour though? Good to know that they didn't change the pads.

I've had my pair for about a year and a half, but this guy says they're a "foam material", which would be fine with me if I could just find a replacement headband cushion. They don't seem to be available for purchase.

 

[Robbo99999]

Is the headband polyester now or still velour though? Good to know that they didn't change the pads.

The material for the headband has changed (to what material I don't know), but the pads have remained the same:

New version of Sennheiser HD 560S (!)

A new version of Sennheiser HD 560S has arrived. The big question is, does it sound (or measure) differently ? In a post on Reddit, a user has posted the following:

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[krumpol]

Right now, they're selling for $19 more than the introductory price, and $14 more than the HD 400 Pro.

I can see $229 for US of A (without taxes) at official Sennheiser outlet right now. Amazon internal pricing doesn't reflect MSRP. For $149 you can get refurbished HD 560S at Sennheiser's outlet, makes me wonder whether this is what Amazon is reselling.

HD 560S | Sennheiser US

Discover the unique acoustic performance of our HD 560S audiophile headphones. Zero distortion ✓ Rich bass ✓ Clear treble ✓ Now available from Sennheiser!

www.sennheiser-hearing.com

HD 560S Refurbished | Sennheiser US

Discover the unique acoustic performance of the HD 560S Refurbished Audiophile Headphones. ✓ Zero distortion ✓ Rich bass ✓ Clear treble. Now available!

www.sennheiser-hearing.com

 

[DarrylG]

I can see $229 for US of A (without taxes) at official Sennheiser outlet right now. Amazon internal pricing doesn't reflect MSRP. For $149 you can get refurbished HD 560S at Sennheiser's outlet, makes me wonder whether this is what Amazon is reselling.

HD 560S | Sennheiser US

Discover the unique acoustic performance of our HD 560S audiophile headphones. Zero distortion ✓ Rich bass ✓ Clear treble ✓ Now available from Sennheiser!

www.sennheiser-hearing.com

HD 560S Refurbished | Sennheiser US

Discover the unique acoustic performance of the HD 560S Refurbished Audiophile Headphones. ✓ Zero distortion ✓ Rich bass ✓ Clear treble. Now available!

www.sennheiser-hearing.com

No, I don't think so. Amazon sells refurbs as "renewed".

 

[Phorize]

I’ve just bought a pair from the Sennheiser shop on Amazon U.K. Given the comments above £139 seems very good value for a set that need such minimal eq to achieve Harman, and will be mostly fine without.

 

[Robbo99999]

I’ve just bought a pair from the Sennheiser shop on Amazon U.K. Given the comments above £139 seems very good value for a set that need such minimal eq to achieve Harman, and will be mostly fine without.

It really is stunning value at that price! They're a difficult headphone to fault, and most certainly for that deal. I think you should find the bass most pleasing & surprising after EQ for an open backed headphone, and the rest of the frequency response should be fine too.

EDIT: if using something like an Oratory EQ, and if tonality is not spot on have a go changing the tonality using a linear tone control slope across the whole frequency range, three High Shelf Filters with Q0.5 at: 63Hz / 632Hz / 6324Hz. To decrease brightness you'd use -(minus) dB on each of those, so always the same dB value on each one, you'd start by putting increments of only 0.2dB changes to each of those, so you'd do something like -0.2dB / -0.2dB / -0.2dB for each one if you wanted to decrease brightness and increase bass, then if it's still too bright you then might try -0.4dB on each of those filters (so 0.2dB increments each time - because the filters cover the whole frequency response then you will notice the effect of just 0.2dB changes on each of those three filters). I'm only really mentioning this tweak in specific relation to this headphone. I think it responds well to a linear tone control EQ, more so than my other headphones, MayaTLab (a user here) did measure his in ear response of the HD560s headphones and they can show a positive slope in the mids that you wouldn't expect from the GRAS measurements, so my loose theory is that a linear tone control can bring back the slope of the mids to something more ideal. (You'd use this linear tone control on top of the Oratory EQ if the Oratory EQ tonality wasn't spot on.). I wouldn't normally suggest this EQ approach for other headphones, just I've found it works well for this particular headphone. Something to think about, try it if you like.

EDIT#2: praps think about not using Oratory's High Shelf at 10000Hz if you take my approach of using the Linear Tone Control I described in the previous paragraph. So delete Oratory's 10000Hz High Shelf if you try my Linear Tone Control approach.

 

[knam]

Man I just got these and im wondering if I made a mistake in buying them because of how good they are.They are highly rated and alot of people recommended them.

For example I get really irritated by mouth smacking and subtle pops/clicks (all way to common everywhere in videos/streams) and altought I can hear them on my old headset the 560s really does make them pop out more to the point where it feels like every subtle sound is amplified.

There's too much bad audio out there in the wild and these headphones just lays them bare.