Sennheiser HD650 Review (Headphone)

[LTig]

Well, I play piano.
I know how [email protected] Hz sounds.
And I play a synthesizer.
And I know how C0@16 Hz sounds.
Of course, the harmonics and overtones allows me to know if it is a piano a harpsichord, a pipe organ or a trumpet.
But I play a scale from C8 to C0 and it goes down...down...down.
I use loudspeakers when alone and headphones if not.

Also made the typical sine test from 16 to 15200 (my top)....
No harmonics there.

I believe all you say but not in those youtube recordings. The spectrogram does not lie.

 

[Helicopter]

If you are playing sine waves on the synthesizer then this is relevant. If you are playing instruments, then there are harmonics. If you are playing a low note on a piano, the vast majority of the sound is harmonics, and yes, that is what it makes it sound like a piano. Harmonics on this recording, which has no information below 60Hz are what make A0 sound similar to [email protected] Hz on a piano. You still get the vast majority of the information of the note with a 60Hz cutoff. If you had a recording that went lower, it would sound a lot more like a real piano. You can hear a beat at 2Hz because it rattles stuff. That doesn't mean you can hear the 2Hz fundamental tone. You are hearing something that indicates there is a 2Hz tone, but you are not hearing the tone, just the rattling. In this recording, there is no information below 60Hz. To me, it is obvious it sounds less like a real piano than a recording that goes lower.

 

[LTig]

But if I count 9 beats within a second is because I hear those beats.
And, precisely, that is nothing but 9 Hz.
I might count wrongly and it was 8 ?

You hear the single beats because they contain sound above 20 Hz so you can hear it. I could also hit my bass drum 4 times a second, but I cannot claim that I am able to hear 4 Hz.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

There is nothing below 60Hz in the recording,

Yup. It is just a cliff. In fact it is just weird watching the spectrograph as he plays. As he descends the notes, suddenly there is no fundamental at all. The note sounds different, and you can see the harmonic structure clearly. But there is simply no energy at all at where the fundamental should be. It seems clear that the recording/YouTube audio is the problem. Perhaps the telling thing is that although the video describes the very low notes as unusable and too low, in the video, they sound fine.
The harmonic energy of all these low notes is pretty evenly spread, even those notes that sound nicely have as much energy at each harmonic as at the fundamental.

 

[F1308]

You hear the single beats because they contain sound above 20 Hz so you can hear it. I could also hit my bass drum 4 times a second, but I cannot claim that I am able to hear 4 Hz.

The difference is that I play C0 once and I hear 16 beats per second, while you need to beat 16 times per second your drum for me to hear 16 beats that might be at any frequency.
Once thing is frequency, quite another is tempo.

 

[F1308]

Yup. It is just a cliff. In fact it is just weird watching the spectrograph as he plays. As he descends the notes, suddenly there is no fundamental at all. The note sounds different, and you can see the harmonic structure clearly. But there is simply no energy at all at where the fundamental should be. It seems clear that the recording/YouTube audio is the problem. Perhaps the telling thing is that although the video describes the very low notes as unusable and too low, in the video, they sound fine.
The harmonic energy of all these low notes is pretty evenly spread, even those notes that sound nicely have as much energy at each harmonic as at the fundamental.

The fact is that regardless of the quality of all those videos I sent, the idea of how deep it goes is clearly seen.

 

[Helicopter]

Time for me to unfollow this thread. Bye.

 

[F1308]

Also, the musicality of 16 Hz is a barrier...
Hard to count 16 times in a second.
You can enjoy a bare 16 Hz strike.
8 Hz is, on the contrary, just unbearable alone and can only be enjoyed (by me) while sounding along many other higher tones covering the beating.

Good night....

 

[LTig]

Time for me to unfollow this thread. Bye.

yep, time to bed.

 

[LTig]

Also, the musicality of 16 Hz is a barrier...
Hard to count 16 times in a second.
You can enjoy a bare 16 Hz strike.
8 Hz is, on the contrary, just unbearable alone and can only be enjoyed (by me) while sounding along many other higher tones covering the beating.

Good night....

Here is the spectrogram - not much below 30 Hz:

 

[JIW]

Another try...?
You see him playing C0...?

Here it is being put to good use.

From the description: "I thought it was fun to highlight just a fragment of Liszt Ballade #2 using the low octave . Look how those bass strings vibrate! it is insane Better speakers and full volume is a must ... In the score, Liszt writes the downward octave martellato passage in octaves in both hands - but then drops left hand to a single. Bosy Imperial 290 was not yet created back then... "

Full piece.

Also, final recording.

 

[Francis Vaughan]

The fact is that regardless of the quality of all those videos I sent, the idea of how deep it goes is clearly seen.

I don't disagree. I was hoping to capture the signal, but it seems the recording stymied me. Had much better luck with the Liszt above.

 

[Degru]

There's a reason I said "not much" and not "no". The vast majority of music that isn't somehow orchestral or involves an organ has very little energy that low, even stuff that's traditionally bass heavy like various types of hip hop.

But, there's also the part where distinguishing tones that low is immensely difficult.

Only immensely difficult if your headphones don't do bass well. Zero problems clearly discerning subbass notes on my stax. On many other cans they tend to blend together as some vague rumble, even on cans with relatively good bass like audeze planars.

 

[Degru]

Continuing from my previous post, Rtings found the HD560S to have a weighted frequency response channel mismatch of 2.21, which is relatively poor, and could impact imaging ability.

The one I heard had exceptionally good imaging, far better than any hd6x0. So I would not worry too much.

 

[hmscott]

HD560S might be a good shout, I thought I remembered hearing that they have angled drivers, so I looked them up.....and yes they do indeed have angled drivers (at following link), although quite why they say "Angled transducers recreate the optimal listening position every time, without the need for acoustic room treatment" I do not know, because there ain't no room!
https://en-uk.sennheiser.com/hd-560-s-audiophile-headphone-high-end-over-ear
Yeah, so those angled drivers might help to deliver a great open soundstage, being my main point. Not only that if you look at the Oratory measurements I find that curve very attractive (see following link)!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7amvtfabcizrc12/Sennheiser HD560S.pdf?dl=0
If you're a fan of the Headphone Harman Curve then you can see only minimal corrections required, and for an open backed headphone they've got some impressive bass extension, so wouldn't need a much bass boost to bring them up to the target, which in turn might make you think that distortion is gonna be quite low in the bass. I think there's great potential in this headphone from the information I'm seeing! (I've not read any other reviews or measurments so don't know if there are some screaming faults that anyone has identified.)

EDIT: although RTings didn't give it a particularly good soundstage rating, below that of HD600, and for me the soundstage of HD600 is pretty lacking.....but having said that I'm not sure how accurate this soundstage rating is....it puts HE4XX above my K702, I've ordered HE4XX because of this as a major reason so I'll soon know:
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/tests/sound-quality/passive-soundstage

As time goes on I'll likely fill out the Sennheiser line HD650, HD660s, HD820. The HD560s is a new generation of Sennheiser drivers so that is interesting to me.

The higher power provided by the balanced side of the A90 / M15 really helped with opening up the HD598cs, and I expect similar with the HD560s.

The new TA-20 has plenty of power on both Balanced and SE sides, but as ASR measured the XLR was less noisy - audible? - and the tube choices can help with the channel imbalance measured on the TA-20 while EQ - which I am still avoiding - can tweak the headphone response.

I really do strive for no tone adjustments in the audio chain, so far that's been working great. I don't buy multiple IEM's and Headphones to tune out their audible characteristics, different sounding really is ok by me.

The reading of the specifications has always been crucial to me for equipment selection, but then it comes down to how my ears and brain interpret what it is hearing and what my body is experiencing - will my technical expectations be met with joy in listening? It is always exciting to find out.

 

[Patrick1958]

Well that's bad, praps just one sample, but still. That's something that could be EQ'd out, but it's not really that easy to measure individual drivers in the comfort of your own home for most people! Yes, so they either got a faulty one, or a large proportion of them are not matched well. I still think they have some promising qualities though, but for sure I wouldn't want a headphone with a channel mismatch, that is very fundamental.

EDIT: thinking about it, couldn't you match channels yourself by using Equaliser APO to cancel one channel and then identify the lowest negative preamp you could hear a noise from say Left Channel, then you'd do the same with the Right Channel and see the difference between the two negative preamp values - that would be your channel matching differentiation assuming that your left & right ear both have equal hearing capabilities. You could even do it over multiple spaced frequencies over the whole frequency range to get an average deviation on which to base it on. Although I myself know that my right ear is not quite as good as my left due to (I think) letting off a child's cap pistol right near my right ear when I was about 6 yrs old, so you don't want to correct for real hearing differentiation between left & right ears, because the brain compensates for that in everyday life, so you have to bare that in mind if you're doing this correction experiment I'm talking about.

The first one i ordered channel mismatched 3/4 dB, second one replacement from Sennheiser channel mismatched 2/3 dB. I lost confidence in Sennheiser.

 

[hmscott]

The first one i ordered channel mismatched 3/4 dB, second one replacement from Sennheiser channel mismatched 2/3 dB. I lost confidence in Sennheiser.

That is the HD650?, or the new HD560s? Or another Sennheiser model? Either way, that is very disappointing.

 

[Patrick1958]

That is the HD650?, or the new HD560s? Or another Sennheiser model? Either way, that is very disappointing.

HD 560s.
The HD 650 from several years ago also had issues, see Solderdude's Findings, scroll to bottom, The Veil… [insert ominous music]

 

[alexstone]

@amirm Can you please attach the numerical raw frequency response measurement as well?

 

[solderdude]

HD 560s.
The HD 650 from several years ago also had issues, see Solderdude's Findings, scroll to bottom, The Veil… [insert ominous music]

Wasn't the X2HR with channel imbalance also yours ?