Sennheiser HD560S Review (Headphone)

[staticV3]

Hmm, I think it is hard to guage channel balance without measuring it though, how can you know it varies at different frequencies without measuring it

Easy, just listen to sine waves at different frequencies in Mono and adjust the L/R balance until the tone is centered.
Do that at 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400Hz..... and you have a channel imbalance vs Frequency graph.

 

[xavx]

Hmm, I think it is hard to guage channel balance without measuring it though, so I think it should be taken with a bit of a pinch of salt. How can you say that for your K702 that it has "just a tiny variation at few frequencies which is fine" - how can you know it varies at different frequencies without measuring it, and especially if you say they're "tiny variation"? If you're just listening to tones in a signal generator to try to guage variation at different frequencies then this is far from an accurate way to guage it, most largely because your hearing can have natural peaks & troughs throughout the frequency range that can vary from ear to ear.....each ear is not symmetrical in terms of the way it amplifies frequencies and additionally you can have hearing damage in one ear at some frequencies or even excessive wax build up in one ear.....that's not even to mention the subjective inaccuracies of trying to listen to two tones in left & right ear and then trying to decide if they are at the same volume or not. I'm not saying your HD560s does not have channel imbalance, but I'm saying you should be aware of the inaccuracies of trying to determine this using your ears alone (without measuring it), and you would have been very unlucky to have had two headphones in a row with poor channel matching. Like I said I've measured 3 units bought from 2 different retailers over a period of at least a year and they're all pretty much identical in channel matching & from unit to unit. Maybe it would be worth buying your next HD560s from a different retailer if you've not been happy with the two you received from the previous retailer.

I didn't test them with tones only but used them for several hours listening to my usual playlist.
Once the initial wow effect over, I noticed that loudness mismatch over time. It was similar to having a small stone stuck in your shoe : initially not really bothering but the longer you walk the more annoying it gets.
My test went then towards troubleshooting rather than enjoying...

• Fiddling the notches to extend/retract more on one side or the other, swapping the left & right pads : the mismatch remained.
• Putting the left driver to right ear & right driver to left ear : the mismatch swapped sides.
• Tried tracks by setting EQAPO with Mono effect : still louder on one side
• Tried then some tests from audiocheck.net both with and without EQAPO Mono effect : same conclusion as with the music.
• Asked a friend to listen to his favorite tracks : he also got disturbed after a while and mentioned the volume was louder on one side. He also noticed the louder side changed when he swapped the left & right sides.

Looking up on google afterwards, several people also mentioned this imbalance. These headphones are super easy to drive so I can't even question a lack of power from the DACs (tested on Creative AE5 and LG G7)

So, I understand my observations were not done in a pure scientific way using calibrated/professional equipment and contain subjectivity with potential hearing imbalance and many other factors but I believe my methodology is quite good. I'm open to suggestions if you have other tests not requiring pro equipment. It would even be a better idea to create a dedicated thread for general headphone testing

 

[Robbo99999]

Easy, just listen to sine waves at different frequencies in Mono and adjust the L/R balance until the tone is centered.
Do that at 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400Hz..... and you have a channel imbalance vs Frequency graph.

I didn't test them with tones only but used them for several hours listening to my usual playlist.
Once the initial wow effect over, I noticed that loudness mismatch over time. It was similar to having a small stone stuck in your shoe : initially not really bothering but the longer you walk the more annoying it gets.
My test went then towards troubleshooting rather than enjoying...

• Fiddling the notches to extend/retract more on one side or the other, swapping the left & right pads : the mismatch remained.
• Putting the left driver to right ear & right driver to left ear : the mismatch swapped sides.
• Tried tracks by setting EQAPO with Mono effect : still louder on one side
• Tried then some tests from audiocheck.net both with and without EQAPO Mono effect : same conclusion as with the music.
• Asked a friend to listen to his favorite tracks : he also got disturbed after a while and mentioned the volume was louder on one side. He also noticed the louder side changed when he swapped the left & right sides.

Looking up on google afterwards, several people also mentioned this imbalance. These headphones are super easy to drive so I can't even question a lack of power from the DACs (tested on Creative AE5 and LG G7)

So, I understand my observations were not done in a pure scientific way using calibrated/professional equipment and contain subjectivity with potential hearing imbalance and many other factors but I believe my methodology is quite good. I'm open to suggestions if you have other tests not requiring pro equipment. It would even be a better idea to create a dedicated thread for general headphone testing

Fair enough, not as accurate (& valid) as actually measuring them though for the reasons I mentioned. But good luck if you do decide to get a 3rd unit, I'm surprised by your outcome......perhaps try a different retailer.

 

[xavx]

Fair enough, not as accurate (& valid) as actually measuring them though for the reasons I mentioned. But good luck if you do decide to get a 3rd unit, I'm surprised by your outcome......perhaps try a different retailer.

In my opinion, using 2 real human heads with real ears is more valid than using a fake head with microphones. After all, headphones are supposed to accomodate and be listened to by humans and not manikins. Similarly, you might also challenge the reason why Amir is even listening to the headphones sent to him and not just review them based on metrics alone.

 

[Music1969]

Easy, just listen to sine waves at different frequencies in Mono and adjust the L/R balance until the tone is centered.
Do that at 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400Hz..... and you have a channel imbalance vs Frequency graph.

Thanks for this great idea. I was about to buy a miniDSP Ears

I just did this on my new HE400SE which has issues and it revealed issues worse than i thought (see HE400SE thread).

Did the test on my 560S now and its pretty good until I get to 12.5kHz test tone and the sound shifts fully to one side.

But its not my hearing because at 12.5kHz test tone, sound is central with my HE400SE.

We know even the Gras 45 is unreliable past 10kHz so we can't look at Amirm's measurements past that

I wonder how many issues people would hear with their headphones over 10kHz doing this test using REW

I'm personally not too concerned above 10kHz because most music content is below

But for the HE400SE there are multiple issues below 10kHz that I can't live with.

Not so for my HD 560S

 

[Robbo99999]

In my opinion, using 2 real human heads with real ears is more valid than using a fake head with microphones. After all, headphones are supposed to accomodate and be listened to by humans and not manikins. Similarly, you might also challenge the reason why Amir is even listening to the headphones sent to him and not just review them based on metrics alone.

That's not true, you shouldn't really correct for hearing damage differences between your ears in headphones as you are used to your "deficiencies & imbalance" in your day to day life, so you shouldn't really use your ears as an ideal means of judging channel balance. I'm still not saying you don't have channel imbalance in your headphone, but if you are quite fanatical about it, then you should do yourself a favour and either make a reliable rig for measuring channel balance or buy something like the miniDSP EARS. miniDSP EARS costs about the same as a mid range headphone, but the bonus is you'll be able to see how exact the channel matching is for your headphones & even correct for it accurately throughout the frequency range using parametric EQ. That's the main reason I bought one. (don't buy the miniDSP EARS if you intend to use it specifically for IEM's, it's rubbish with IEM's).

 

[xavx]

That's not true, you shouldn't really correct for hearing damage differences between your ears in headphones as you are used to your "deficiencies & imbalance" in your day to day life, so you shouldn't really use your ears as an ideal means of judging channel balance. I'm still not saying you don't have channel imbalance in your headphone, but if you are quite fanatical about it, then you should do yourself a favour and either make a reliable rig for measuring channel balance or buy something like the miniDSP EARS. miniDSP EARS costs about the same as a mid range headphone, but the bonus is you'll be able to see how exact the channel matching is for your headphones & even correct for it accurately throughout the frequency range using parametric EQ. That's the main reason I bought one. (don't buy the miniDSP EARS if you intend to use it specifically for IEM's, it's rubbish with IEM's).

Closing the loop on the initial topic as I'm not interested in DSP/measurement discussions... Got the 3rd set yesterday and no channel imbalance at all. The root cause was indeed the shop. The 2 headphones with driver imbalance came refurbished from Sennheiser Outlet (the manufacturer itself & shipped from Germany) while the 3rd is new from Amazon. Looks like the refurbishment done by Sennheiser is limited to renewing the visible parts. From the outside, they looked brand new. But the drivers were clearly not checked properly. Anyway I'm returning them. Despite being an improvement in SQ over my K702, I found the HE400SE far superior while being cheaper.

 

[Robbo99999]

Closing the loop on the initial topic as I'm not interested in DSP/measurement discussions... Got the 3rd set yesterday and no channel imbalance at all. The root cause was indeed the shop. The 2 headphones with driver imbalance came refurbished from Sennheiser Outlet (the manufacturer itself & shipped from Germany) while the 3rd is new from Amazon. Looks like the refurbishment done by Sennheiser is limited to renewing the visible parts. From the outside, they looked brand new. But the drivers were clearly not checked properly. Anyway I'm returning them. Despite being an improvement in SQ over my K702, I found the HE400SE far superior while being cheaper.

That's good that the 3rd set didn't have the channel imbalance from your perceptions. Interesting to know that the 2 units with imbalance that you had were refurbs from the Sennheiser Outlet, I suppose they might well have been returns from people who weren't happy with the headphone, which might have been the original reason for the return of those units that you ended up buying. Yes, it's probably not best to buy headphones from refurb outlet due to increased probability of that kind of reason. Here in UK HD560s has had some fantastic pricing earlier this year on Amazon, down to £139 for a good portion of this year, at that price & to be honest even at the normal retail price of £169 that's a good price to pay for headphones of this quality - so not much reason to risk buying refurbs from an outlet. See attached pricing history of HD560s on Amazon in UK:

 

[solderdude]

Thanks for this great idea. I was about to buy a miniDSP Ears

I just did this on my new HE400SE which has issues and it revealed issues worse than i thought (see HE400SE thread).

Did the test on my 560S now and its pretty good until I get to 12.5kHz test tone and the sound shifts fully to one side.

But its not my hearing because at 12.5kHz test tone, sound is central with my HE400SE.

We know even the Gras 45 is unreliable past 10kHz so we can't look at Amirm's measurements past that

I wonder how many issues people would hear with their headphones over 10kHz doing this test using REW

I'm personally not too concerned above 10kHz because most music content is below

But for the HE400SE there are multiple issues below 10kHz that I can't live with.

Not so for my HD 560S

Note that doing this with pure tones at stepped intervals may not be the best method. Perhaps slowly increasing the frequency but not in steps or using a so called 'warble tone' or very narrow-band noise would be the best method.

 

[xavx]

That's good that the 3rd set didn't have the channel imbalance from your perceptions. Interesting to know that the 2 units with imbalance that you had were refurbs from the Sennheiser Outlet, I suppose they might well have been returns from people who weren't happy with the headphone, which might have been the original reason for the return of those units that you ended up buying. Yes, it's probably not best to buy headphones from refurb outlet due to increased probability of that kind of reason. Here in UK HD560s has had some fantastic pricing earlier this year on Amazon, down to £139 for a good portion of this year, at that price & to be honest even at the normal retail price of £169 that's a good price to pay for headphones of this quality - so not much reason to risk buying refurbs from an outlet. See attached pricing history of HD560s on Amazon in UK:
View attachment 236183

It's for sure always better to buy new stuff but I wouldn't have bought them for 150€. At 100€ they seemed like a good deal. While I never expect good surprises from Amazon Warehouse used products, I was (maybe naively) thinking that Sennheiser would care for its products/reputation/<insert what you want>. Strangely enough, both my K702 & HE400SE are Amazon refurbs and have no major mismatch. One small critic for the new 560S though Using REW, I had a small range around 6KHz totally absent on one driver, then some usual zigzagging left right on higher frequencies but nothing disturbing with music . Before that 6KHz "bug", matching was spot on.

 

[Robbo99999]

It's for sure always better to buy new stuff but I wouldn't have bought them for 150€. At 100€ they seemed like a good deal. While I never expect good surprises from Amazon Warehouse used products, I was (maybe naively) thinking that Sennheiser would care for its products/reputation/<insert what you want>. Strangely enough, both my K702 & HE400SE are Amazon refurbs and have no major mismatch. One small critic for the new 560S though Using REW, I had a small range around 6KHz totally absent on one driver, then some usual zigzagging left right on higher frequencies but nothing disturbing with music . Before that 6KHz "bug", matching was spot on.

Good. (well I'm not gonna comment anymore on your listening sine sweep approach, as I've already said everything I need to on that.)

 

[Music1969]

Note that doing this with pure tones at stepped intervals may not be the best method. Perhaps slowly increasing the frequency but not in steps or using a so called 'warble tone' or very narrow-band noise would be the best method.

Why would steps not be good if they immediately bring out an issue? Like happened in this case

 

[solderdude]

because there could be a substantial dip at say 8kHz but not at 8.05kHz and somewhat below it. it could give an erroneous conclusion. while at 6kHz an 10kHz there may not be such a L-R driver balance issue.
For speakers in situ this is more of an issue though but headphones, above a few kHz could also hae these kind of issues.

 

[Music1969]

because there could be a substantial dip at say 8kHz but not at 8.05kHz and somewhat below it. it could give an erroneous conclusion. while at 6kHz an 10kHz there may not be such a L-R driver balance issue.
For speakers in situ this is more of an issue though but headphones, above a few kHz could also hae these kind of issues.

Ok yes I see.

So you mean it might show an imbalance but it might be a really high Q that it not audible and going in steps might not show this high Q

At least for imbalance issues the miniDSP ears would be good? (for open back)

Maybe not for developing EQ

 

[Robbo99999]

Ok yes I see.

So you mean it might show an imbalance but it might be a really high Q that it not audible and going in steps might not show this high Q

At least for imbalance issues the miniDSP ears would be good? (for open back)

Maybe not for developing EQ

miniDSP EARS rig for measuring channel balance in over ear headphones is ideal, listening to sine tones is not ideal (although arguably better than nothing). In terms of EQ, you would certainly use miniDSP EARS to create a channel balance EQ - to match the channels throughout the whole frequency range. You probably wouldn't want to use it to create an EQ for the whole headphone to a Target Curve, but you could probably get away with using it to EQ below 1kHz.

 

[xavx]

miniDSP EARS rig for measuring channel balance in over ear headphones is ideal, listening to sine tones is not ideal (although arguably better than nothing). In terms of EQ, you would certainly use miniDSP EARS to create a channel balance EQ - to match the channels throughout the whole frequency range. You probably wouldn't want to use it to create an EQ for the whole headphone to a Target Curve, but you could probably get away with using it to EQ below 1kHz.

Agree that sine tones are not ideal. In low frequencies, it's kind of accurate but if I'm not mistaken, the ears tend to ring internally when reaching high frequencies and the ears become overwhelmed. I found the best way (without DSP rig) is to listen to music and set APO Effect to Mono.

My advice with these headphones (apply to others too) after trying 3 brand new units : pay attention to the foam quantity / density of the earpads. 1 out of 3 had an earpad with much less foam which was causing the imbalance.
If both earpads are equal, these 560S produce the best balance I ever experienced.

 

[Robbo99999]

Agree that sine tones are not ideal. In low frequencies, it's kind of accurate but if I'm not mistaken, the ears tend to ring internally when reaching high frequencies and the ears become overwhelmed. I found the best way (without DSP rig) is to listen to music and set APO Effect to Mono.

My advice with these headphones (apply to others too) after trying 3 brand new units : pay attention to the foam quantity / density of the earpads. 1 out of 3 had an earpad with much less foam which was causing the imbalance.
If both earpads are equal, these 560S produce the best balance I ever experienced.

Interesting idea about changing the music to mono, I can kind of visualise how that might highlight an overall shift to one earcup or the other as a stereo music source by definition cannot be guaranteed to be central in it's presentation (not at all times anyway as the artist & engineer choose to position instruments & effects as they wish between left & right).

Your 3 units weren't refurbs then? I thought you said you had problems with refurbs? It's a pity either way as you've been very unlucky, as my 3 units have very consistent looking & feeling earpads between all of them, and as I've posted recently they all pretty much measure identically too on my miniDSP EARS. (Mine were bought new though, albeit from two different vendors, two units from Amazon and one unit from another store, and bought over a period of about 1.5 yrs I think. Last one bought around February/March this year if I recall. I'm in the UK.)

 

[xavx]

Interesting idea about changing the music to mono, I can kind of visualise how that might highlight an overall shift to one earcup or the other as a stereo music source by definition cannot be guaranteed to be central in it's presentation (not at all times anyway as the artist & engineer choose to position instruments & effects as they wish between left & right).

Your 3 units weren't refurbs then? I thought you said you had problems with refurbs? It's a pity either way as you've been very unlucky, as my 3 units have very consistent looking & feeling earpads between all of them, and as I've posted recently they all pretty much measure identically too on my miniDSP EARS. (Mine were bought new though, albeit from two different vendors, two units from Amazon and one unit from another store, and bought over a period of about 1.5 yrs I think. Last one bought around February/March this year if I recall. I'm in the UK.)

Thats right. I've tried 5 HD560S in total The last 3 units are brand new from Amazon Germany. The previous 2 were refurbs directly bought from Sennheiser, both of which had imbalance issues. I can't comment if the imbalance on the refurbs was due to an earpad foam quantity/density discrepancy or not as I didn't pay attention to that aspect back then.
( I know we had that chat already. Just sharing here so that people pay attention to the earpads if they encounter any imbalance )

 

[Robbo99999]

Thats right. I've tried 5 HD560S in total The last 3 units are brand new from Amazon Germany. The previous 2 were refurbs directly bought from Sennheiser, both of which had imbalance issues. I can't comment if the imbalance on the refurbs was due to an earpad foam quantity/density discrepancy or not as I didn't pay attention to that aspect back then.
( I know we had that chat already. Just sharing here so that people pay attention to the earpads if they encounter any imbalance )

Well, that's a rubbish experience for you, I'm surprised....lol unless Sennheiser are trying to punish Germany or something! How did you solve the problem, did you just find two perfect pads from the units you bought and then switched them onto your favourite unit?

 

[xavx]

Well, that's a rubbish experience for you, I'm surprised....lol unless Sennheiser are trying to punish Germany or something! How did you solve the problem, did you just find two perfect pads from the units you bought and then switched them onto your favourite unit?

The last 2 units arrived with more or less equal pads and both sound centered when set to Mono ( ordered 2 directly expecting at least one would be bad again... ). The 3rd one (ordered before) has one earpad apparently with too much foam while the other earpad hasn't enough compared to the last 2 units.
I really had enough testing with these headphones that I don't want to compare each unit with the "good earpad pairs" to find the best sounding one.