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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Sennheiser HD650




Sennheiser HD650 has been known for its deep bass and neutral tonal balance ever since its release. After 12-consecutive-years of dominance, does this headphone still have a chance against new-bloods?




PRO: While the driver is tightly damped, HD650's frequency response is accurately diffuse-field equalized with a slight downward tilt. This yields a very neutral tonal balance. In addition, there's a high level of second-order harmonic distortion in the sub-bass range, which may contribute to the enhancement of perceptual bass quality.

CON: Since the diameter of the transducer is only 38 mm, the headphone's sweet-spot is very small. My recommendation is to place the driver to the rear portion of the pinna, so that the harsh peaks in the high frequency range are settled. Meanwhile Mr. Jan Meier of Meir Audio recommends the exact opposite. His method yields a sharp null in the treble, which creates a 'veil' like sound quality.

ON SECOND THOUGHT #1: Even Sennheiser HD650 doesn't quite suit the Harman International's  new headphone reference. 


ON SECOND THOUGHT #2: Here's a simple peer-review on EURI's HD650 measurements(Blue/Orange) compared to other simulator data. While the red graph is of GRAS 43AG of Stereophile, the cyan plot is of B&K 4128C of Samsung Electronics. And as expected, Innerfidelity's Head-acoustics HMS.II data (light gray) don't quite add up here somehow.

ON SECOND THOUGHT #2: I might be able to provide a simple modification guide on Sennheiser HD650. Stay tuned!

8 comments:

  1. One Simple Question: Any how can HD650 be modded so it's the FR is dead flat (like LCD2)??

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Maybe, maybe not..! Stay tuned for my mod guide, which will be available once I am done with the current backlogs of 50+ headphones loans. (Ouch!)

      Delete
    2. Great! I'm looking forward to that...
      BTW, your CSD shows somewhat more ringin around 3K and 10k, aro thost gonna bother??

      Delete
    3. Not really. if they are subjectable, simply push the driver further to the rear part of the pinna- that will equalize most of the treble resonances.

      Delete
  2. Hey man, great blog, but I have a question, you comment that the hd 650 driver must be in a specific way, in the ear, to the sweet spot, you could make an outline with some illustrations (like the illustrations you have in your review of the hd 800 ) with the sweet spot???, forgive my bad English, greetings from Mexico.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Jan Meier of Meier Audio did a nice illustration on this phenomenon:
      http://www.meier-audio.homepage.t-online.de/bilder/position.gif

      Basically, the pic on the right represents the scenario of which the pinna resonance at 10 kHz is present, while the pic of the left shows the otherwise.

      Delete
    2. Which illustration is the better one? From what I understand, I am assuming the right one with the earpad on the back of the ear.

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