List Price: $499.95
Sale Price: $399.95
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- Lightweight aluminum voice coils ensure excellent transient response
- Neodymium ferrous magnets maintain optimum sensitivity and excellent dynamics
- Sophisticated design, elegantly finished in black and gray
- High-quality open metal-mesh earpiece covers
- Detachable, Kevlar-reinforced oxygen-free-copper cable with very low handling noise
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This is the best dynamic headphone in the world, and is rivalved only by the Grado RS-1 headphone. Many studio engineers and audiophile's use these as their REFERENCE headphone...they are a steal for such a high quality headphone. The Grado RS-1 [costs more], and is definately less comfortable than the Sennheisers. These headphones have an extremely detailed, open, airy sound, that nears electrostatic sound. They are also unique in that they suit all types of music very well, they have great punch for rock music, but can perform clasical pieces with all the fullness and detail they were designed.It should be noted these headphone have an impedance of 300 ohms. Most headphone are 16-32 ohms. What this means is to get the full potential out of them you will need some type of amplifier. Headphone.com offers a couple inexpensive sollutions to this problem, as does audioadvisor.com. Althought they are not true audiophile components, they will greatly enhance your experience with these headphones. If you are planning on travelling with them, you can almost bet you won't be content with their sound when powered only by a portable CD player. I use a Audio Valve RKV Mark II Headphone Amplifier at home, and the headphone.com Airhead on the road. Buy these headphones if you are looking for true audiophile sound, or just the best dynamic headphone, but be aware of their limitations without am amplifier.
Buy Sennheiser HD 600 Open Dynamic Hi-Fi Professional Stereo Headphones (Black) Now
How can four hundred dollar headphones be a good value?Consider it this way: Let's call a CD 10 dollars. Let's say you get a certain amount of pleasure from a new CD: new sounds, new music, a new experience to last you a few weeks before it gradually inches its way into the dusty corners of your collection.
Now, let's say you have about 100 CDs.
These headphones are now worth about ... because you have never heard any of those CDs before. These are headphones that revolutionize all the music YOU ALREADY OWN!
But be warned: remember how when CDs first came out there were all those pretentious warnings about how the superior quality of the recording may expose flaws in the master that you could never make out before? I always thought there might be some audiophile somewhere who could hear some "flaw".
But with these headphones you can hear a good studio from a cheap one. I can hear the buzz of unshielded electronics in the second rate studio on some indy cds. Some of my beautiful old classical music suddenly sounds muffled and dead, flattened by an unflattering production job that my speakers could not convey.
The clarity is unreal. Guitar strings are made of gold and they ring clear as crystal; layers of techno pile atop each other in multicolor, multidimensional textures that knock you breathless; the exotic reverberant groan of a cello solo that you have heard a thousand times will bring tears to your cheeks.
And all of this at a fraction of the volume you might play music on your speakers with: these headphones are brilliant and clear and perfect at low volumes. Given their open air construction these things may well preserve your hearing for an additional decade.
I cannot recommend these highly enough.I have been building and listening to audiophile sound systems for more than 20 years. Having listened through Sennheiser HD580s for several years and finding them excellent, I feel comfortable saying that the HD600s are a very significant improvement in clarity and overall sound quality. The main differences between the HD580 and HD600 appear to be in better reasonance control throughout the entire mechanical system and evolutionary driver improvements. The HD600s do indeed approach perfection. Their sound quality is not easily surpassed by $10,000 loudspeakers.
However, several caveats are in order. Like loudspeakers, these headphones do require several days of playing time to break in and open up, particularly in the lower frequencies. The reason for this is simple physics: when new the suspensions are stiff and need some work to loosen up and allow larger, low frequency excursions to happen more easily. The may sound a little cool at first, but will warm up after many hours of playing time. They will also sound clearer. When breaking them in, don't play them louder than you would normally listen.
Second, these headphones are extremely revealing of the electronics feeding them. An audiophile-quality headphone amplifier, such as those made by headphone.com, is necessary to get the best sound of of them. The source electronics are also clearly audible. It would be appropriate to use these with multi-thousand dollar D/A converters or CD/SACD/DVD/vinyl rigs. Used with cheap or inferior source electronics, the sound will be severely limited. It's a bit like putting ketchup on a $20 steak.
Third, these headphones are extremely revealing of the quality of recordings. Unfortunately very few recordings, especially mainstream commercial ones, have really good sound quality. A few audiophile labels have consistently good sound such as Reference Recordings, a few jazz labels, etc. Occasionally a large record company may have a recording or a track with good sound, but they seem very rare and almost due to random chance. That's not a fault of the headphones, but of the source material. It's proof that the quality and resolution of these headphones is extremely high that they can help reveal those differences to the attuned ear.
Other highlights: very comfortable for most people, relatively light weight, free-space equalization, meaning the frequency balance is designed to be like natural sound in an open area. The latter is part of the reason these headphones "don't sound like headphones" and instead sound like real music, along with the mechanical resonance reduction practiced throughout.
Very likely these headphones will not be the limiting factor of the sound quality for most systems they are used in. Electronics and recording sources are probably a larger factor, which is a sign that these are indeed audiophile goodies. Given the very high quality of engineering and quality control behind the HD600s, they are a tremendous bargain even at their price. However, their benefits will not be fully realized in less than excellent systems.
Want Sennheiser HD 600 Open Dynamic Hi-Fi Professional Stereo Headphones (Black) Discount?
Plenty of superlatives have been heaped upon the HD-600s and for good reason. They almost hint at perfection, and even while that outworldly ideal will always prove elusive, the HD-600s are an livable earth-bound solution. Their most remarkable sonic characteristics are balanced, natural tonality and the presence of remarkable detail and transparency. The sounds coming from these 'phones are of such natural rightness, you sometimes forget you are listening to a reproduced event. Of course, since the HD-600s are so transparent, you'll hear source tape flaws you never noticed before and these can ruin the magical illusion. But don't blame the Sennheisers for revealing the truth.Prior to owning the HD-600s, I used the fantastic HD-580s for about one year. One thing that surprises me (well, actually, it doesn't) is how quickly audiophiles pronounce the HD-600s leagues better than the HD-580s. I listened to each set profusely under careful conditions and came to the realization that the HD-580s offer about 95% of the performance of the HD-600s. The most notable difference is that the HD-600s remove a very thin veil of "sonic haze" from the music. But they both share the same character and personality and I would expect them to generate very similar test lab results. In my experience, many audiophiles will consider that extra 5% "a tremendous improvement". As to avoid being hypocritical, I did enjoy the HD-600s more and decided to keep them over the HD-580s, but take all superlatives and Grand Statements with a grain of salt, as you should in audiophiledom. If the HD-600s are priced out of your league, the discontinued and discounted HD-580s are a can't miss baragin.
But even at [price], the HD-600s are a surprising value. A pedestrian pair of bookshelf loudspeakers will set you back [price] and they don't even come close to producing the heavenly sounds of the Sennheisers. And if you aren't a headphone person, time spent with these Sennheisers might change your mind. They did with me!
I also connect my Sennheisers directly to my Panasonic portable on the go. Sure, an outboard amp would be nice, but who wants all that bulk and weight? Aside from more limited volume, most portables I've used are more than capable of driving the HD-600s with clarity, neutrality and practically no distortion. So don't worry about getting an amp right away...you might find the extra equipment unnecessary.
The Sennheisers are my favorite piece of audio equipment. Their sonic performance and portability allow musical contentment late at night, at work, outside, wherever. They are the best [price] I've ever spent on audio.
If you're producing audio like myself you already know theres no replacement for a good set of monitors. That said there's a few reasons you may be mixing through a set of cans.
My reasons are that my studio is sometimes mobile and that I'm often mixing in my apartment (I've found that boxers and a t-shirt are a superior choice for studio apparel).
I'm running an Mbox2 with Pro-Tools 7 (sometimes switch to Nuendo... don't hate me... hush now Abelton users).
I also use these with my Ivory Keys VST and it sounds pretty nice, I think they add a bit of warmth when compared to a set of Mackies, could be the spatial difference, but I actually like it better through the Senns, a bit more personal I guess.
That said, I feel pretty happy with the sound from these cans.
I've been using them for almost a year now, extensively.
They're a bit lacking in the low-ends when I push them, but when you pair them up with an analyzer you can usually compensate pretty nicely with a combo of visual and audio reference.
They are open-ear, so dont expect your vocalists to be using them in the sound booth or you'll be recording the sound coming from the headphones along with the vox. For the producer, the only real place for these is in the mix down if you're trying to be quiet... or your one of those weirdos who uses cans for some bizarre voodoo mixing ritual.(I've heard of these guys but never met one)
They are definitely more comfortable than some of the other headsets I've tried, Grado's being the least comfortable, Sony's aren't bad.
Sometimes I seem to put them on wrong and my ears start hurting pretty quickly but if I slide them around on my head a bit so my ears are good and centered I can wear them for a few hours before I need to take em off.
I think the most important thing to note here is my experience with Sennheisers customer service.
Recently I snapped the headset in half, dunno if it was from cheap plastic construction or just lots of use. Regardless I contacted Senn and asked what I needed to do, assuming I'd have to send them in and wait a week to get them fixed. Instead Senn offered to just send me a new headband and I could replace it myself.
Because of the modular construction of these cans that will be pretty easy to do and lets me keep using them while I wait for my replacement.
Needless to say, that made me pretty happy.
The cords firmly snap in and out of the cans via 2 pronged plugs, nice for those who accidentaly step on the cord while they stand up.
On a consumer level note, if you are listening to MP3's or any compressed audio format in a portable device... or any device for that matter, dont buy these, you're wasting your money.
I'm not insulting you, I'm being serious.
There are cheaper alternatives for compressed audio.
If you like your music and can't blast your speakers for some reason or the other, then I'd say these are a pretty nice set. Not the best for sound but close enough that the price and comfort make up for the slight difference you may hear in a set of (very uncomfortable) Grado's.
For those of you who are worried about reproducing the "original sound" of a recording, you need to laugh at yourself for a minute and realize that we process those sounds pretty thoroughly before we even bounce them to a track. Compressors, EQ's, Verbs, etc., sometimes before the signal even hits the sound card it's gone through a pre-amp. Aside from that the difference between audio still in the DAW and a bounced track is pretty dramatic. You're just not going to hear what we hear in the studio. Go with what you like.
Some like it crispy, some like it warm.
If you can listen to your favorite track through the headphones before you decide to buy them, do that.
Leave em on your head for a while see how they fit.
I recommend trying them out if your searching for a set.
They work nicely for my purposes.
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