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Maybe they don't generate the volume of the Shure 530s or quite the bass response but they are soooo comfortable with superb sound for either music or movies. Finally, headphones to compete with the best of the ear buds.
Clear defined bass but doesn't quite hit the same low end extension and power by a significant amount. The HD600's stregnths are instrumental music. The entire headphone is replaceable in parts because it is designed to be dissassembled and reassembled. I believe the sennheiser can reach a full octave lower and louder than it is hitting now upto at least 25hz with accuracy and precision.Mid-range: It gets very close and in cases slightly better than even than my tower speakers. Im not even kidding. Soft rock, Jazz, and are VERY good on bluray movies. And the others are quite right. Build quality is very good.
This all changed when I bought the HD650 cable based on reccomendations. I have to push my amplifier to the limit and only then it's the low range than distorts. The high's are recessed and veiled. I can tell you there is a HUGE difference when I switched wires. When I first got it for about an year I was thoroughly unimpressed with the sound. This is saying a lot as when my speaker system is properly positioned vocals float in the middle of the air very naturally.
Highs: HD600 is a clear win. Most comfortable headphones I've tried on and they do not feel warm. Also great is that the heaphone cables split and go individually into each heaphone. The strain and ear fatigue just vanished. Best decision I have ever done.
Same goes for guitar. With my comparison speaker current setup it has the amount of detail pumped out by a cambridge soundworks megaworks 510D subwoofer powering two (underused) full range Mitsubishi vintage towers which contain a 2 inch tweeter, four 4 inch mid-range woofer and a 10 inch low end woofer. The highs are clear airy and defined while my two inch towers come a far far distant second. I reccomend the Asus Xonar and a pretty expensive headphone amplifier.
The sennheissers can deafen me quite easily as it stays clear and unstrained WITHOUT boominess until the loudest levels thereby you sometimes don't realize how loud they are until you take them off and go DAMN. I can already tell that by its effortlessness these headphones will do much better with a more expensive headphone amplifier and a way better source than the audigy 2 (which admittedly is quite a good low cost card). Once again, I think this is a problem with the bass control on my headphone amplifier which has a cross over of about 50-60hz which is not very low at all. Vocal performance though does go to the HD600 with clear and high female vocals. In my opinion the quality of the sound improved by about 30-50% depending who you are and how unblocked your ears are. Dissapointing.
All that's required is to replace it with the HD650 wire from sennheiser website and buy the gold adapter. The detail was not much better than other headphone that cost around 60-100 dollars. ABSOLUTELY NO BOOMINESS in the bass. A warning though, if you buy these headphones and don't use it with a dedicated GOOD soundcard without buying the HD650 replacement cables (rather than the HD600) and without an amplifier this is what you will experience:Decent, unimpressive sound that can be bought by a pair of headphones well below a 100 dollars. I would say you would get similar detail that my speaker setup provides from a speaker combination costing anywhere between $600-1300 depending on how you shop.
Everything sounds like it has a veil on it. I don't believe in paying big bucks for an amazing cable but there is something wrong with the wire they send you. Also the original cable is very susceptible to damage compared to almost any replacement. In my opinion cheaper systems that distort under strain is better suited to rock guitars. The low end improved and every quiet detail was bought. Everything sounded veiled, and the high frequencies sounded like they were very veiled.
Also the headphones themselves are HUGE so keep that in mind and are definitely not suitable for running as they will fly off your very easily if you shake it. I bought the HD600 refurbished from amazon.com and paired with a xenos headphone amp and an audigy 2ZS (unfortunately). I've had it for three years. great. What The advantage is a complete lack of hiss. All my mp3 listening had to be replaced to 192kbps-320 kbps because of this amazing preciseness of the HD600. This applies to even the egg shakers or pretty much anything in the high end.
You can differentiate the timbre of the same type of musical instrument. The bass is defined though not loud and has a low end extension of about 40-50hz though. The headphones became airy and even with great high end extension. Long story short. Loud sounds were harsh and strained. However, I have to say that the HD600's attention to detail doesn't make it an ideal listening environment for Rock music precisely because the sound is so clean and clear and only produces the distortion present in the recording and nothing more. This will actually cost LESS than 30 bucks and less than the replacement wire for the HD600. Bass: My sub goes down accurately to 33 hz +/-3db.
You need to replace the stock heaphone wire on this headphone and buy a headphone amplifier. It is VERY hard to these headphones to distort. The detail of different instruments, especially quiet details seemed to be gobbled up and not properly produced. If you do take the time and money this kind of headphone is meant to be paired with source equipment + amplification worth all the way upto at least a thousand dollars easily. The pads are also VERY comfortable. For instance one flute can be distinguished from a different quality flute of the same kind. And yes, I have ordered replacement wire for the HD600 and same problem.
You will get adequate amplification out of a normal output but you will completely miss the powerful dynamic capabilities of a dedicated headphone amp and miss some low and high end extension. Listening to jcwfree on youtube is just an absolute pleasure. The pads are replaceable all the wires are replaceable. Stepped on it, sat on it, thrown it, dropped it from four feet, twisted the heaphones (all accidentally) and this thing is no worse for the wear. Completely lacking any wow factor. On the HD600 You can hear significant differences in the symbals on drumsets according to the song you are listening. Soft sounds don't quite get expressed very well. However the full range towers do provide a more pleasing and more detailed mid-range.
The dynamics are on par with a headphone costing about 60 dollars. First, yes, it's a 300 ohm headphone. I listen to very loud music and have several noise complaints against me :p and this volume where it clips is too loud even for me. The presense of mid-range on drum tracks are more pleasing and come through with a good punch while the sennheissers don't quite capture the power of a good mid hit on a drum. However, I noted that even then the sennheissers had a high tolerance to PUSH extreme amounts of volume without clipping. HD600 bests the 8 inch 180W RMS sub in terms of detail.
Properly amped these headphones are awesome. These headphones are very power hungry. They NEED an dedicated amp otherwise they sound like crap.
Sometimes the finale of an action film has explosive or rumbling sound effects continuously for several minutes.The HD600 RUINS movie sound. I listen to everything - tv, computer, you name it - on headphones. I had to go back to using my old beat up Sony headphones for movies - they cost a third of what these cost, and they actually sound better.I expected much better of the Sennheiser HD600 for the price. Do not buy these headphones if you intend to use them with a home entertainment system. So I was looking forward to an upgrade over my old Sony studio headphones when I bought the Sennheiser HD 600.The open ear design is very comfortable, much more comfortable than the Sony.The sound is nice on most music and tv, comparable to the Sony with maybe a little more clarity in the high frequencies.But when I watched/listened to my first dvd using the HD600, I was upset to discover that they overload horribly during every explosion, engine rumble, or any other loud sound effect. The elements producing the sound begin to crackle and pop and buzz until the sound effect ends - which totally ruins the experience of watching any action movies, which are FILLED with these kinds of sound effects every couple of minutes.
It never happened before at other locations of amazon.com. They shipped my first order pretty fast (in three days) because I payed the standard shipping, then I chose FREE with Super Saver Shipping when I placed the second order (hd 600), it took me about three weeks to get it. Just for few bucks saving of shipping, I had to wait forever to get my order, kind of silly. I have ordered sennheiser twice from amazon.com at lexington ky.
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