Sennheiser HD620S

[IAtaman]

Just saw the announcement. FR looks very promising. HD600 with a bass boost - what more can one ask for? How about:

• open baffle and 42mm angled transducers, that allegedly delivers speaker-like imaging and expansive soundstage
• 150-ohm middle of the road nominal impedance
• Lightweight chassis with steel-reinforced headband sliders and artificial leather earpads with internal venting for long-term durability and all-day comfort.

Sold.

 

[Graph Feppar]

What does open baffle mean for closed back headphone? I understand what it means for speakers, but I dont understand what that means for headphone.

Is it like the HD600 acoustic steel mesh letting sound between front side and inner backside inside the cup space? That would ruin bass just like in open baffle speakers, no?

 

[IAtaman]

What doesopen baffle mean for closed back headphone? I understand what it means for speakers, but I dont understand what that means for headphone.

Is it like the HD600 acoustic steel mesh letting sound between front side and inner backside inside the cup space? That would ruin bass just like in open baffle speakers, no?

My understanding is that there are no / minimum obstacles in front of the driver, and it is fully open, maybe minus a frame or a mesh. Not unlike the long coming Grell OE1. You can see it in the photos a bit.

 

[usern]

earpads with internal venting

What does this mean?

Hopefully the vinyl? earpads are easily replaceable as this type gets disgusting when they start to peal.

 

[Graph Feppar]

My understanding is that there are no / minimum obstacles in front of the driver, and it is fully open, maybe minus a frame or a mesh. Not unlike the long coming Grell OE1. You can see it in the photos a bit.

View attachment 368413

Ah I understand. In my opinion, open baffle is very specific term that doesnt describe how much stuff is in front of the driver, it is a name for type of speakers that have driver without box. Some high end speakers use open baffle for midrange woofers. Becose the wavelenght of bass is so long, it goes from the back to the front around the driver and becose its opposite phase of whats comming from the front of the driver, it cancels out so open baffle woofers have zero bass, they need to be big even to produce midrange.

What I find very interesting is that in the video around 0:40 you can see what appears to be the silver metal accoustic mesh like is used in all HD600/800 Sennheiser open headphones. Look at the bottom right.

 

[jcarys]

I think it's interesting that this gets announced one day before Drop does the reveal on their new Axel Grell design. He's taking an even more radical angled front positioning of the driver, although that is an open back model. I'm interested in both, we'll see what the reviews and testing say.

 

[Graph Feppar]

I have prediction, this will be the lowest distortion dynamic over ear headphone Sennheiser ever produced. Why? Sennheiser has been pushing THD down since the HD600/650. The HD58X was upgrade, so was OG HD660. The HD560S was best until HD490 Pro overtook it. HD490 Pro had similiar distortion performance like closed back HD569, little less in lower mids/upper bass and little more in sub bass, that is very impressive considering HD490 is open and HD569 is closed.

If they put their HD490 Pro low distortion driver in these closed cups, that should overtake HD569 alone, but they also changed pads to pleather. They are perforated in the inside but not on outside, this means higher isolation and less bass leakage = lower THD. The frequency response confirms it too, they extend flat into deep sub bass unlike HD569 that roll off below 50hz

 

[Graph Feppar]

I think it's interesting that this gets announced one day before Drop does the reveal on their new Axel Grell design. He's taking an even more radical angled front positioning of the driver, although that is an open back model. I'm interested in both, we'll see what the reviews and testing say.

I think if any headphone release had impact on the announcement date of HD620S, it was the 549$ Focal Azurys that was announced yesterday. That is more similiar headphone.

 

[solderdude]

Today (May 9th) the public can play with the HD620S at the HIGH END Munich show. It should be available in June 2024 in the stores and can be per-ordered.
For those that cannot attend (which will be almost everyone on the planet) some measurements (I know ... not industry standard) and my evaluation of this headphone can be found here so one can make a bit more informed (future) purchase decisions:

HD620S

back to Sennheiser back to measurements home published: May-09-2024 NO SMOOTHING is applied to the shown plots. Most measurement sites have some smoothing applied which ‘irons flat’ sharp peaks and…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

 

[Graph Feppar]

Today (May 9th) the public can play with the HD620S at the HIGH END Munich show. It should be available in June 2024 in the stores and can be per-ordered.
For those that cannot attend (which will be almost everyone on the planet) some measurements (I know ... not industry standard) and my evaluation of this headphone can be found here so one can make a bit more informed (future) purchase decisions:

HD620S

back to Sennheiser back to measurements home published: May-09-2024 NO SMOOTHING is applied to the shown plots. Most measurement sites have some smoothing applied which ‘irons flat’ sharp peaks and…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

Did you measure this at the show? The measurements looks little dissapointing. The distortion and waterfall plot is little worse than HD569. Does it have wider soundstage or isolate better?

 

[solderdude]

Not measured at the show, I have one here. Sounds better than the FR measurements suggests.

Sounds a LOT better than the HD569 (plot below) as the HD569 sounds a bit bloated/fat caused by the emphasis around 200Hz and lacks clarity (3kHz dip) and treble extension (>10kHz). So comparatively the HD620S has better bass quality, clear mids and well extended treble. Of course the HD620S costs twice as much...

Isolation of the HD620S is slightly better due to the pads being less 'leaky' and sturdier enclosure, so is the build quality.

I'm sure the usual suspects will also be posting (YT)reviews and plots on industry standard fixtures as well later today.
Major HiFi already posted their review yesterday.

 

[Moonhead]

Would be more interesting to compare to Ollo and AA.

 

[Alchemist_]

Not measured at the show, I have one here. Sounds better than the FR measurements suggests.

Sounds a LOT better than the HD569 (plot below) as the HD569 sounds a bit bloated/fat caused by the emphasis around 200Hz and lacks clarity (3kHz dip) and treble extension (>10kHz). So comparatively the HD620S has better bass quality, clear mids and well extended treble. Of course the HD620S costs twice as much...
View attachment 368545

Isolation of the HD620S is slightly better due to the pads being less 'leaky' and sturdier enclosure, so is the build quality.

I'm sure the usual suspects will also be posting (YT)reviews and plots on industry standard fixtures as well later today.
Major HiFi already posted their review yesterday.

Maybe the 620S ear pads installed on the 560S would add bass to the 560S? It would be interesting to see such measurements.

 

[Graph Feppar]

@solderdude They seem to have 800hz resonance. The treble seems like it has more peaks and valleys too compared to 569. Is it possible to get access to the cavity in the back of the cups? I would fill it with cotton or other low density sound absorbing material. I would love to see how do they measure with different pads. Are 560S or 569 pads compatible?

 

[solderdude]

Filling the cavity with wool results in a substantial drop on 2-4kHz range and low bass. Did not address the 800Hz even the tiniest bit.
Have been playing with these headphones for over a month and tried all kinds of modifications.
Looks like the engineers did a fairly good job on the tuning.

Putting the HD620S pads on the HD560S turns it into a dull bloated abomination. I am not even going to get out the measurement fixture for that.
Even the HD569 pads on the HD560S makes them sound poor.

In the review you can see what HD560S and HD569 pads do with the sound of the HD620S (almost in the last part of the review), just imagine the opposite effect on the HD560S.

 

[solderdude]

Would be more interesting to compare to Ollo and AA.

Austrian Audio Hi-X60, OLLO S4R(1.1), the current 1.2 has a bit more bass vs HD 620S

 

[jcarys]

I think if any headphone release had impact on the announcement date of HD620S, it was the 549$ Focal Azurys that was announced yesterday. That is more similiar headphone.

I don't know, the Drop + Grell info is out now, and they're selling it initially at $349- exactly the same price point as the 620S. That sounds like classic company one-upmanship to me. Personally, I want to audition both of them.

 

[Alchemist_]

Interestingly, they added iron to the headband - maybe now it can be stretched? (I’m asking because I have a suspicion that they might also implement this in the 560S..)

PS By the way, I understand why the 560S presses me, they press on my small head. The larger the head, the more comfortable they are.

 

[jean-benoit]

would love hear them in comparison to the newly released HD490 Pro and the HD650. they certainly do look interestingm but i always found the HD650 a bit too boring and bass shy for modern (and bass heavy) music, so i hope they have a little bit more excitement to their sound character than the classics.

 

[solderdude]

would love hear them in comparison to the newly released HD490 Pro and the HD650. they certainly do look interesting but i always found the HD650 a bit too boring and bass shy for modern (and bass heavy) music, so i hope they have a little bit more excitement to their sound character than the classics.

The 'boring' part ('liveliness') of the sound as well as stereo imaging is better in the HD620S, also it has less 'warmth' than the HD650.