Headphone Heights

RE: I need headphone help!

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This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: I need headphone help! posted by RGA on May 20, 2012 at 22:51:23

I received the Sennheiser HD 598 headphones in the middle of May. I like them a lot. The sound is smooth and spacious. They are very comfortable. As Chuck Y said, they are very easy to live with. The only ergonomic problem is that the cable has a 1/4" inch jack, so that it requires the included adapter to fit into my laptop. I have found the headphone outputs of laptops to be somewhat fragile. But I acquired a short 1/8" jack to 1/4" female cable so that the headphone out on the laptop is subject to less strain.

The build quality seems very good, although I doubt if they are quite as tough as my older Senn HD 280Pro phones. The HD 280Pro is not as open, specious and detailed as HD 598, but they are still quite listenable and, being close phones, the sound isolation is very good, when that is desirable. They are very clear on voices, though not more so than the newer phones.

The HD 600 is a much higher impedance phone, and so probably would not work as well as well from my laptop. The HD 598 measurements indicate a slightly more even response, but from what I understand of headphone measurements, the HD 600 measures very well, as do the HD 650 and a number of other phones that everybody seems to like.

I sent away for a HeadRoom Total Bithead headphone amp so the higher impedances of the more costly Senns would not be a factor. They say it is capable of driving any headphone except the AKG 1000 and electrostatic headphones. I have attached it to the cover of my laptop. I am not sure that it sounds any different than the soundcard in the laptop, but it does have their switchable crossfeed circuit, which has a subtle effect and makes the image a bit more spacious. It is certainly easier to use its volume control than to change volume on the computer.
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"A fool and his money are soon parted." --- Thomas Tusser

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