They're still available. Looks like the cost difference is basically negligible. Gah. Guess I should do a bit more research before committing.
Worth doing. Also buy from a company with good returns, so you can bail out if you're not happy.
Remember that these things can last you a substantial fraction of your life if you're careful with them. It's worth a few extra days of thinking when a good choice can last for so many years.
If you've got room on the credit card, you can buy all three, sample a bit, and then return the two you don't like to Headroom. Talk with them on the phone about it; they might have loaners they send out so they don't have to eat the open-box discounts over and over.
I'm going to sleep on it, but right now I'm leaning toward just picking up the 650s. I'm fed up with all the audiophile mysticism. It seems to be a split in preference between the 600s and 650s, then things devolve into how the 650s "come alive" and "tighten up the bass" when they are switched out to a $200 Cardas replacement cable which starts a discussion about how WineSnob52 prefers the Zu Mobius cable over the Cardas but wants to try the Silk Dragon cables, ad nauseam. I can't tell what's really empirical and what's clique parroting.
I tend to prefer a punchier sound, with cellos that resonate, and kick drums that have authority (generally not together). I've read repeated sane reading comments that people say the supposed high roll-off of the 650s is from the slightly stronger bass. In one actual blind comparison (shocking!) a reviewer compared 590s, 600s, and 650s and said a lot of times he couldn't really tell which he was listening to and at other points his preference depended on the music but even then was minimally different. I'm sure he was cotton eared and his equipment was lacking though.
At this point I'm ready to base my decision on the fact that they're almost the same cost, I prefer the looks of the 650s, and I can get the 650s on Tuesday via Prime. I'm sure regardless of what I buy that I'll be happy, and by getting the current "flagship" of the 6x0 series I won't have [as much] cause to second guess myself when I'm in audio nirvana.
I bite my thumb at the sound shamans.
Well, I don't have any experience with the 650s, but I can tell you that the 580s and 600s are awesome, and barely distinguishable from one another, despite the higher 600 pricing. I can't imagine that you'll be unhappy with either 600s or 650s.
Sennheiser has shown themselves to be an outstanding manufacturer of headphones, worthy of trust, so I think you can safely buy the 650s without worry.
I think you're right about the snobbishness; people want so badly to be in the 'best ears' club that they'll trick themselves into believing damn near anything. Wire is just wire, especially at the low power levels in headphones. Anyone who claims to hear a significant difference in wire sound that's not the sound of it rubbing on his or her shirt is not a trustworthy source, in my opinion.
I tend to prefer a punchier sound, with cellos that resonate, and kick drums that have authority (generally not together).
Not together, my arse. Univers Zero, man! 
I think you're right about the snobbishness; people want so badly to be in the 'best ears' club that they'll trick themselves into believing damn near anything. Wire is just wire, especially at the low power levels in headphones. Anyone who claims to hear a significant difference in wire sound that's not the sound of it rubbing on his or her shirt is not a trustworthy source, in my opinion.
Then I would counter...why contemplate buying $300-$600 headphones in the first place?
I'm sure the higher end Senns. sound fine without an amp to a lot of people, as people here are arguing, but then the same could be said for the headphones themselves. Why drop few hundred on headphones that will sound about as good as much cheaper pair, especially considering the source?
When it comes to headphones you pay for potential. Your source will always be the big bottleneck in quality with high end cans. So why wear a down coat (650s), when all you need is a windbreaker (280s)? I know...bad analogy, but it still holds.
If comfort is an issue the HD555's can be had for under $100. Open, smooth, comfortable, and A LOT easier to drive than the 650s (600ohms).
I like to read and live vicariously through the expensive headphone purchases of others.
Same with the firearms thread, really.
One day, I'll have my guns and kickass cans too!
I ordered my 650s earlier today. Should be hear tomorrow. Now hopefully I can hold out until after the holidays before ordering a Little Dot Mk IV SE valve amp to see what they can do. I also want to replace my old 1st gen Pioneer SACD/DVD-A player with an Oppo BDP-83.
But for right now the 650s are going mostly be used for Borderlands and shortly Dragon Age.
These had better be good. Still waiting for Fedex but UPS just dropped off my first pair of DefTech Mythos Ones and listening to Hillary Hahn's Bach Concertos on SACD will bring a tear to your eye.
It's hard for me to imagine anyone being upset with Sennheiser 600s: I assume 650s are similar. They really are exceptional.
Remember that with SACD, unless you have a special receiver, you'll get better results running directly off the analog outs of the player. SACD uses an extremely high sampling rate, something like 2.4 MILLION samples per second, but each sample can only raise or lower the volume by one bit. So it's kind of like digitally 'drawing' a waveform, almost exactly like a record needle in a groove.
If you route that through a standard receiver, it will do the usual discrete sampling that all the other sound formats use, and what you'll get out will be no better than any other digital format. You have to completely bypass all digital circuitry to properly amplify SACD, or get SACD-compatible digital gear.
It's hard for me to imagine anyone being upset with Sennheiser 600s: I assume 650s are similar. They really are exceptional.
Remember that with SACD, unless you have a special receiver, you'll get better results running directly off the analog outs of the player. SACD uses an extremely high sampling rate, something like 2.4 MILLION samples per second, but each sample can only raise or lower the volume by one bit. So it's kind of like digitally 'drawing' a waveform, almost exactly like a record needle in a groove.
If you route that through a standard receiver, it will do the usual discrete sampling that all the other sound formats use, and what you'll get out will be no better than any other digital format. You have to completely bypass all digital circuitry to properly amplify SACD, or get SACD-compatible digital gear.
I'm currently using the 5.1 analog inputs on my old 883 receiver. Once I upgrade my downstairs AVR-790 receiver and get the Oppo player I'll A/B the analog vs. the HDMI in direct mode to compare the DACs. The ones in the 790 are pretty damn nice.
Well, if they don't explicitly handle SACD format, it doesn't matter HOW nice they are, you're getting it sampled back to whatever rate the internal DACs do, where it'll be processed and then re-output like normal. So any purported 'vinyl-ish' benefit to SACD will disappear, mutilated in the resampling process. You'll get the different SACD mix, but the true strength of the format will be lost.
It'll still sound good, but if you want real SACD, things have to either be handled entirely by digital chips that understand the SACD format natively, which very few receivers support, or the entire sound path has to be analog after the first D to A conversion.
It may not actually matter to you. I don't know if real humans can even hear the difference.
Oh, you know what, you're right. I was getting confused. The receiver I was looking at replacing my 790 with is the one that natively handles DSD. The 790 doesn't which is what would be in my den. Oh well, like I said the Oppo's DACs are supposed to be great, I just have to run more cabling to get the analog connection.
Well, if it natively handles DSD, you want to connect digitally. I think HDMI will carry an SACD signal, although I'm not sure. If you connect via analog, that's okay, but you have to be sure to put the receiver in pure analog mode, so it's not re-digitizing, but rather just using its analog amplification circuitry. That means no room correction, nothing. As long as you're doing that, you should get whatever native goodness comes from SACD. I've never heard it, so I have no idea if it's any damn good or not.
Right, my analog is set for direct and my SACD player is handling bass management and speaker delay. I've had this setup for probably seven years now. But yeah, HDMI will carry the full SACD signal, at least 1.3a will. I believe the bandwidth requirements are actually less than Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA.
Headphones have landed. Haven't gotten a chance to do much yet but they do sound immensely better off my Firebox, even just piping the X-Fi's output into the Firebox. Must. Resist. Ordering. Valve Amp.
They were a little tight, not near as bad as my 280s, but a quick tweak of the metal extension bands has them sitting very comfortably now. I guess I'll see just how much here with an extended run of Borderlands shortly.
I've worn my 600s for many full shifts with just occasional breaks. I hardly notice them.
If it sounds that much better off the Firebox than off the X-Fi, you HAVE a good amplifier already. I'm not sure you'd get much benefit from buying another one. Typically, it's very difficult for people to tell amplifiers apart as long as none of them are being overdriven.
That said, you might mean 'tube amp', rather than a brand name of Valve. If that's the case, I know tube amps do sound different than transistor amps, and many people like them better. They generate odd harmonics instead of even ones, and for whatever reason, some listeners strongly prefer them. I haven't heard them myself, but it seems universally accepted on all fronts that they have a very distinct flavor. And the 600s/650s are good enough to really show one off.
Don't forget your pipe and tobacco. 
I've worn my 600s for many full shifts with just occasional breaks. I hardly notice them.
If it sounds that much better off the Firebox than off the X-Fi, you HAVE a good amplifier already. I'm not sure you'd get much benefit from buying another one. Typically, it's very difficult for people to tell amplifiers apart as long as none of them are being overdriven.
That said, you might mean 'tube amp', rather than a brand name of Valve. If that's the case, I know tube amps do sound different than transistor amps, and many people like them better. They generate odd harmonics instead of even ones, and for whatever reason, some listeners strongly prefer them. I haven't heard them myself, but it seems universally accepted on all fronts that they have a very distinct flavor. And the 600s/650s are good enough to really show one off.
Valve amps aren't a brand, vacuum tubes function as a "valve". I have a single mono Presonus TubePre that I use to play bass direct into the Firebox. I think I'll try running one channel through that and comparing. They're cheap enough that I could buy another one and use them to warm up the signal chain. For guitar amps I'm a big fan of tubes over solidstate. But the 650s might be better with solidstate power given their sound characteristics.
But the Firebox is tied to my PC really. For my listening room I'll still need an amp, although I haven't tried them yet direct of my receiver, so maybe I'll luck out.
So after a decent run with Borderlands, I'm in love with these headphones. The clarity is amazing. I think I'll cut the cords on my 280s and use them for earmuffs in my workshop.
So after a decent run with Borderlands, I'm in love with these headphones. The clarity is amazing.
Yay, glad to hear it. I was a little worried after recommending them so strongly. With that kind of expectation, it's easy to be disappointed, and I'm glad they delivered.
I think I'll cut the cords on my 280s and use them for earmuffs in my workshop
Ack! I'm sure an underprivileged Goodjer would trade you a nice set of earmuffs for the 280s.
Ack! I'm sure an underprivileged Goodjer would trade you a nice set of earmuffs for the 280s.
Nah, I'm not going to go chopping 'em up. I still like them for what I really bought them for: silent guitar practice. I might still use them some on the PC if I need isolation from the family.
Oh, by the way, I forgot to respond to this:
Then I would counter...why contemplate buying $300-$600 headphones in the first place?I'm sure the higher end Senns. sound fine without an amp to a lot of people, as people here are arguing, but then the same could be said for the headphones themselves. Why drop few hundred on headphones that will sound about as good as much cheaper pair, especially considering the source?
I can tell you've never spent significant time with good headphones. In sound reproduction, it's all about the speakers. As long as your other components are competent, great speakers will make a system sing. Excellent speakers can make a crappy system sound okay, but no improvement can make bad speakers sound good.
In rough order of importance for headphone sound:
- The headphones themselves.
- Your source DAC quality (most computer DACs are total shit).
- Your music bitrate. 128K MP3 sucks.
- Having enough amplification for your given headphones.
- (much lower) The quality of the amplifier.
Note that wires don't even appear on that list. As long as your cable is thick enough for the distance of the run, and properly made of good quality copper, there is no human-discernible difference in transmission quality between ANY two cables. This applies to both speakers and headphones.
In the one case of headphone cables on earbuds, you also get transmission of the scraping sound as they rub on your clothing. It MIGHT be worth a little extra for a coating that reduces that noise. Maybe. But in terms of transmission quality, humans simply cannot tell competently-built cables apart, no matter how expensive or high-tech they're claimed to be. Anyone who claims to hear such a difference is not credible, and should be ignored.
In this specific case, LiquidMantis has a very good DAC in his Presonus Firebox, so he avoids the first pitfall of computer sound. He's got acceptable DACs on his X-Fi as well. So adding a really good set of headphones will give him a big return on investment. And you just heard it straight from him: the cheap 280s are now earmuff material. His $350 headphones probably sound a little better than his brand-new $2,000 speakers.
As long as you have a good DAC, headphones matter.
In this specific case, LiquidMantis has a very good DAC in his Presonus Firebox, so he avoids the first pitfall of computer sound. He's got acceptable DACs on his X-Fi as well. So adding a really good set of headphones will give him a big return on investment. And you just heard it straight from him: the cheap 280s are now earmuff material. His $350 headphones probably sound a little better than his brand-new $2,000 speakers.
I expect that the DACs in my Firebox are probably better than the X-Fi's, or at the very least it's going to have a lower noise floor and THD, but I can't really do a true A/B comparison without also putting the X-Fi's headphone amp into the test. To be able to run the X-Fi into the Presonus I had to disconnect the Pre from the firewire connection or I got noise. Not a ground loop hum, just a much higher noise floor. Plus the Presonus doesn't have WDM drivers for Windows 7 yet so I can only use it with ASIO, but not for gaming. They took forever to get Vista drivers so I'm not counting on Win7 ones soon. I've got a MOTU Ultralite MkIII which does however so when I get some time I'll give it a test and see how it compares to the X-Fi and the Firebox.
It's funny you mention the speakers. I was actually about to post that the worst part about getting the 'phones and the new mains on the same day is that the 350s really took a lot of wind out of the Mythos. As amazing as they sound the headphones have even greater clarity. I will say that having voice matched drivers all around now does make for an awesome soundfield. With the mains matching my center the frontstage is seamless and much wider than before. But it's the headphones that I woke up wanting to listen to.
[Edit] Ok, it's not really noise floor issues with both sound devices connected, it's low level computer noise, that electronic whine you hear from interference. Having the Presonus connected to the PC but running on its AC power adapter rather than firewire reduces it a lot, but it's still there. Neither sound device has it on its own though, and running the X-fi through the Presonus with the Pre disconnected and just on AC power (its mixer/monitor mode) is clean.
It's funny you mention the speakers. I was actually about to post that the worst part about getting the 'phones and the new mains on the same day is that the 350s really took a lot of wind out of the Mythos. As amazing as they sound the headphones have even greater clarity. I will say that having voice matched drivers all around now does make for an awesome soundfield. With the mains matching my center the frontstage is seamless and much wider than before. But it's the headphones that I woke up wanting to listen to.
Yeah, a great pair of headphones will give you a hell of a lot of sound quality for a fraction of the cost. Definitely takes some of the joy out of regular speaker listening.
I'm listening to some Michael Hedges right now, absolutely euphonic.
I expect that the DACs in my Firebox are probably better than the X-Fi's, or at the very least it's going to have a lower noise floor and THD, but I can't really do a true A/B comparison without also putting the X-Fi's headphone amp into the test.
Yeah, I wasn't being very clear there... my adjectives weren't clearly different. The X-Fi's DAC is pretty good if you put the card into Audio Creation Mode and then set it to Bit-Matched Output, and drive it with ASIO. But the Firebox's DAC ought to be significantly better through ASIO without any work at all. Plus, of course, the Firebox has a built-in amp that's strong enough to drive those high-impedance cans.
Strikes me as a waste of time to screw with the Creative card except for gaming. You can jump through freaking hoops with the X-Fi, or you can just use ASIO on the Firebox. Seems pretty much a no-brainer to me.
(note, this is assuming that you're using the computer as a music source; you have a lot of other high-end gear, far in advance of the folks that are usually posting here, and may not be.)
I was actually about to post that the worst part about getting the 'phones and the new mains on the same day is that the 350s really took a lot of wind out of the Mythos
Yeah, that's a bummer. Headphones are usually about as good as speakers that cost ten times as much. Filling a whole room with beautiful sound is a much more difficult thing than playing two inches away from your ears. But you can safely listen to music much, much louder on speakers; with headphones, you just can't get the full-body experience of deep bass. But a lot of people try anyway, and way overcrank the volume, pounding one of the most sensitive areas of their entire body to goo to try to duplicate that feeling of bass slam.
Personally, I think of speakers as being good for volume and sharing the experience; headphones are good for accuracy and being antisocial and isolationist.
Strikes me as a waste of time to screw with the Creative card except for gaming. You can jump through freaking hoops with the X-Fi, or you can just use ASIO on the Firebox. Seems pretty much a no-brainer to me.
(note, this is assuming that you're using the computer as a music source; you have a lot of other high-end gear, far in advance of the folks that are usually posting here, and may not be.)
The problem is my gear is all scattered throughout the house. Trying to get quality audio in three different rooms is a daunting endeavor. The X-Fi and Firebox are on my primary workstation and gaming system in my office. The SACD player is in my den/study which is the room I'm focusing on quality audio as that's where I primarily listen to music when I'm really focusing on the music.
I decommissioned my HTPC in the basement for now as the PS3 serves most of the function I was using it for and I needed space on my overpopulated A/V rack. So I need to pull its M-Audio cards, a Revolution 7.1 and a 2496, to put in the den HTPC. That way I can get better playback for the bulk of my music which is stored on my fileserver, admittedly in MP3 format but it's all 256 VBR encoded with LAME. I need to dig out a CD and do some ABX testing to see if I can hear a difference now that my equipment has improved drastically since the last time I tried. If so, I guess I'll start the onerous task of reripping all my CDs to FLAC now that disk space is pennies on the dollar if not less compared to when I started my music storage.
Listen for spatial cues; you probably won't hear any difference in the frequencies between lossless and 256K LAME VBR, but you may be able to tell because some of the positioning information is lost. I can clearly hear the difference between my CDs and any MP3 on one track on a Deep Forest album, for instance, but hardly ever otherwise. I think there's some Madonna CDs that play with 3D sound processing as well, and I suspect they won't sound right in MP3 either. MP3 also cuts out really deep bass, if you have a good subwoofer.
Mostly, the biggest reasons to do lossless are twofold: you can burn new perfect CDs if the old ones are lost or damaged, and you can generate any other kind of lossy format you happen to need from them without having to re-rip. So you can have, say, an AAC library for iTunes and an MP3 library for some other player. And if some new cool format gets popular, like Ogg, you can just generate that too. That's looking less likely these days, though.
You've mentioned that your Firebox isn't really working on your workstation right now; you could probably drag that into your sound room and turn it into a free headphone amp until you can afford one you'd prefer. It'll probably do the usual digital mangulation of SACD, but it doesn't cost anything. (I'm assuming it will work without a computer attached, I could be wrong. ) I know the MOTU units can do stuff like that standalone.
You've mentioned that your Firebox isn't really working on your workstation right now; you could probably drag that into your sound room and turn it into a free headphone amp until you can afford one you'd prefer. It'll probably do the usual digital mangulation of SACD, but it doesn't cost anything. (I'm assuming it will work without a computer attached, I could be wrong.
Yeah, that's how I'm using the Firebox right now for an amp for the X-Fi. It's on AC power but no firewire connection (to get rid of that annoying computer whine) to so it works as a rudimentary mixer, but no level adjustment other than master out. My MOTU is actually in the sound room already as I got it to use in there for a guitar practice station. It lets me plug in my effects processor, a drum machine, and an ipod together, plus I have it connected to the HTPC should I want to record anything. I haven't tried using it as an amp for the 650s but I suspect it will sound great.
One complaint is that it's a pain to switch my current SACD player from 5.1 to stereo. I have to go into its setup menu, change output to 2 speaker and set SACD playback to 2-channel. Then if I want to listen to my speakers I have to go back and set it to 5.1 speakers and multi-area for SACD playback. I really hope the Oppo makes it easier.
Do you have a headphone jack on the SACD player? Maybe it might do that automatically?
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