Sennheiser HD 650
Headphones
 By default, I've become
"the headphone guy" in high-end audio. I don't quite understand why other
audiophiles don't fess up that they listen to 'phones too. Maybe it's a macho thing, like
the Butt Blaster at the gym -- you never actually see guys using it, but you do see them
furtively exiting the room it resides in.
"Real" audiophiles don't listen to headphones?
They don't work out, or commute on the subway, or fly anywhere, or listen to tunes in
their cubicle? Riiiight.
I suspect that it's not so much that audiophiles don't
listen to headphones as that they don't realize how much they listen to them.
Possibly, they listen to 'phones simply because they have to -- and they listen to so-so
models because they don't know how good headphones can be.
Because here's the part that surprises -- no, amazes
serious audiophiles: You have to be as rich as Croesus to afford the best loudspeakers
available, or the finest amplifiers, or the very best digital components, but you have to
be only moderately well-off to afford the best headphones out there.
That doesn't mean there aren't expensive 'phones. Oh lordy,
there surely are -- you can pay $6000 USD for a set of Stax Omegas, or even more for a few
handcrafted models. But $499 can buy you headphone performance that not even the most
critical listener can complain about. Somebody like, um, me.
As I write this, a pair of $20,000 speakers sits in my
listening room. But when I knock off for the evening, I'll go over to the comfy chair next
to my Musical Fidelity X-Can V3 headphone amplifier
and a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s. Not because I have to. Because I want to.
Eight great tomatoes in that tiny little can
Other than a new "titanium" color scheme, the
Sennheiser HD 650s look remarkably similar to the HD 580s and HD 600s,
which preceded them. The company has retained many of the features that made their earlier
top models so successful -- it would be hard to improve on the HD 580/600's comfort
or fit, for example, and Sennheiser has wisely left those aspects alone. The 650s share
the earlier models’ open metal-mesh earpiece covers, velour pads, and padded plastic
headpiece -- at least, they appear to.
Sennheiser has actually used a tougher metal mesh for the
earcups that shouldn't dent as easily as the old stuff. (I welcomed this news -- my 600s,
which have traveled to many a recording session, are quite banged up.) The whole structure
of the HD 650 seems far more solid and less resonant than that of its predecessors,
possibly as a result of a stronger spring in the headband. Sennheiser states that it has
beefed up the 650's "baffling damper" -- a membrane that controls the chamber
resonances of and within the earcups themselves -- for "tighter acoustic
control." If that means the headphones feel dead-quiet and free from any structural
vibration, then: mission accomplished.
But the biggest changes in the HD 650 are the aluminum
voice-coils, the new diaphragm material, and a Kevlar-shielded OFC cable that sports a
dedicated 1/4" phono plug (a phono-to-miniplug "cable reducer" is also
provided). In addition to being made of a different material, the 650's diaphragms are
constructed differently -- it's a membrane of variable thickness that has been tuned by ear.
Not only by ear -- Sennheiser has comprehensive test and measurement facilities --
but engineer Axel Grell found that when the 'phones measured flat, they sounded harsh. So
he very carefully tuned the response to have notches at 5kHz and 16kHz. These notches,
speculates headphone maker-designer Tyll Hertsens, of HeadRoom, mimic the ridge notches of
the concha -- the largest and deepest concavity of the external ear, or pinna -- which
help you determine the azimuth and elevation of sounds.
The drivers are said to be hand-matched to extremely tight
tolerances. The frequency range is given as an astonishing 16Hz-39kHz, ±3dB. That's right
-- 16Hz from a headphone.
Canned music
I used the Musical
Fidelity X-Can V3 for most of my listening, although I also had to try the
HD 650s with HeadRoom's balanced BlockHead,
which necessitated changing the Sennheiser's stock cable for a balanced Cardas cable. And
no, I don't think it's entirely fair to evaluate a $499 headphone with a $3000 amp
and a $250 cable. I did most of my listening with the stock cable and a
"sensible" headphone amp.
Talent does what it can
You will most likely want a headphone amp for the
HD 650s -- their 300-ohm impedance will limit their loudness and dynamic range with
almost any portable, and with most standalone components as well. You won't need a ton of
power to control the 650s, but you’ll probably need more than the trickle most teensy
little op-amp-driven headphone jacks deliver. Once you hear what the 650s can sound like
when driven by a real headphone amp, you won't want to settle for less.
Settling for less is not what the HD 650 is about, not
by a long shot. The first thing I noticed was how much deeper and tauter the bass sounded
than from my long-term reference HD 600s. If you like to "feel" your music,
you'll lurve the 650s.
Of course, when you feel a 22Hz tone live, you get a
sensory impact that no headphone can deliver. HeadRoom's Tyll Hertsens once speculated
that that intensely physical sensation is, well, physical -- that a lot of
bass impact was chest- and nasal-cavity compression, and bone-conducted low-frequency
perception. He pointed out that you detect low-frequency acoustic information in a variety
of locations around the body -- your chest, the side of the bridge of your nose, your
skull. Tap any of those spots, Tyll observed, and you will hear and feel low-frequency
resonances. Tyll knows more about hearing than just about anyone I know, so I listen when
he says stuff like that.
Check out the wheezy roar of Garth Hudson's Hammond B3
organ on "Chest Fever," from The Band’s Across the Great Divide CD
[Capitol 89565]. It has weight and heft -- and that distinctive saw-tooth burr that only
the B3 provides. But bouncing across the B3's hornet's-nest ruckus, Rick Danko's bouncing
bass propels the whole tune forward. Everything is as distinct as it's intended to be --
there's no overhang or blur, just the notes that are 'sposed to be there.
But bass isn't the only place the HD 650s excel. If I
had any complaint about the HD 580s or 600s, it would be that they sounded a tad soft in
the uppermost frequencies, the result being a relaxed sound that, although I found it
extremely easy to take, would have to be called somewhat soft. The 650s are not
forward-sounding, but their portrayal of string overtones is about as close to perfection
as anything I've heard.
The 650s are blazingly fast and darned nigh uncolored.
Joshua Bell's Romance of the Violin [CD, Sony Classical SK 87894] is a casebook for
the production of harmonic overtones. Want to hear harmonics? This recording has
'em in spades, and the 650s will lay 'em out for you like a star map -- they'll shine out
of the darkness like diamonds on black velvet. It's, like, primordial, Stu!
For voice or simply recorded acoustic instruments, the 650s
are an audiophile wet dream. Cantus's Deep River [CD, Cantus CTS1203] is warm,
detailed, and, ummm, deep. I mean really deep -- the warm acoustic embrace of the
Washington Pavilion of the Arts & Sciences is the 13th member of this 12-man vocal
ensemble. It sounds big, but the perspective is intimate. Within that big ol' hall, the
sound of the chorus is so present and human that I had to shake my head in
admiration.
That's another great thing about headphones -- when you
shake your head, the image stays put.
Can you hear me now?
If you get tired of listening to all that music stuff, the
HD 650s have tons of resolution to allow you to listen to audiophile
differences. I’m not mocking this aspect of the hobby -- if I completely dismissed
the joys of detecting minute variations, I'd be making fun of my bread and butter, and of
myself.
When I was reviewing the Musical Fidelity X-Can V3, I spoke
to Upscale Audio's Kevin Deal about its tubes. Kevin, the king of tube rolling, offered me
a few pairs of tubes to try in the V3 -- some JAN (joint Army/Navy) Philips 6922s and
Sovtek 6H23s. I could easily distinguish all three pairs from one another -- and you'll
have to wait till April 15th to hear all about that little experiment. Let's just
say that the HD 650s made hearing the similarities and distinctions very easy.
We can work it out
Being an audiophile, I had to try to redline the
HD 650s, so I hunted up my Cardas balanced cable and warmed up the HeadRoom
BlockHead. Excessive? You bet. The results were counter-intuitive, too.
There was waaay too much of a spotlight on the
recordings -- at least for pleasure. When I listened to the Fab Four, for example, all I
could hear were the punch-ins (the mid-strum appearance of a distorted guitar five seconds
into "Money"), dropouts (the lead guitar disappears from the right channel
almost two minutes into "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"), and jokes
("Ahhhh, Paul," sings John under Paul's lead 20 seconds into "Lovely
Rita").
Hey, I'm a geek -- hearing all that (and more) was kind of
cool. But it wasn't musical enjoyment, it was parlor tricks. Also, it was not why I keep
my Beatles discs near my listening chair. I keeps 'em handy because I likes 'em.
On the other hand, the next time I work on a recording
project, the HD 650s, the Cardas cables, and the HeadRoom BlockHead are going along
as essential working tools. I may not always want to know the truth, but when I have
to know the truth, that's the rig I’ll want to depend on.
Can do!
The Sennheiser HD 650s are good enough to make any
audiophile reconsider his prejudice against headphones. In fact, they're so good, I might
even argue that the highest resolution most audiophiles can achieve these days is through
a pair of those remarkable cans.
That you "can do" that for less than $500 isn't
just good news, it's nothing short of a miracle -- like the HD 650s.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
Sennheiser HD 650 Headphones
Price: $499 USD.
Warranty: Two years parts and labor.
Sennheiser Electronic GmbH & Co. KG
30900 Wedemark, Postfach 10 02 64
Germany
Phone: (49) 5130-600-0
Fax: (49) 5120-600-300
Website: www.sennheiser.com
U.S. distributor:
Sennheiser Electronic Corporation
One Enterprise Drive
Old Lyme, Connecticut 06371
Phone: (860) 434-9190
Fax: (860) 434-9022
Fax: (860) 434-0509
Website: www.sennheiserusa.com
|
