Headphones
Sennheiser HD 650
Once considered (at least by us!) "The "World's Best", the Sennheiser HD650 remains one of the absolute favorite headphones. This full-size open-back reference headphone delivers silky smooth, accurate sound with a laid-back, mellow tonal delivery. The HD650 is a truly gorgeous can for acoustic music of all kinds and for listeners seeking warm, richly rendered musical detail. Detachable headphone cord makes for easy upgrades to Cardas or CablePro standard and/or balanced XLR cables.
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Product Features:
- Best in class performance from these cans. A classic!
- Connectors on each earpiece make cable upgrades a snap.
- Extremely comfortable with replaceable velour ear pads.
- Lightweight aluminum voice coils ensure excellent transient response.
- 2 Year Warranty
What's In The Box:
- 1/4" to 1/8" adaptor cable
- Storage Box
Applications:
Sennheiser Electronics in Germany has always taken its time developing its audiophile reference headphone line. In fact, they're well-known for blissfully ignoring the apparent audio industry demand to come out with "brand-new" products every single season. We think their patience and persistence researching and developing headphones has paid off very handsomely over the years. With the HD650, the music is so smooth and relaxed when it's supposed to be; so liquid-quick, so punchy on demand, so effortlessly competent you just fall worry-free into its lovely sonic embrace. Such a great thing is the Sennheiser HD650. The warm yet refined and impossibly seamless sound coupled with great comfort has kept this can in the top echelon for years as one of the best headphones available on the audiophile market.
Liveried in a slick deep grey and gloss black look, these cans are largely the same headphones as the discontinued HD600 model but with a few quite noteworthy improvements. First and foremost, Sennheiser engineers improved the baffling damper for tighter acoustic control, and boy did that work! The audio measurements of these headphones are phenomenally even and jagged-free, and the tonality is probably as close to 'down-the-middle smooth' as is available at this price. The renowned classic Sennheiser sonic 'warmth' has been coupled to a clarity of acoustic detail in the HD650 that is hard to beat by most other audiophile master-level headphones. Design-wise, the earcup grilles on the outside of the earpieces have been made sturdier; those who suffered a dented housing on their old HD600's will likely be appreciative. A new velour headband pad design improves on the already good comfort of the HD600 headphones, and a slightly tighter tension on the earcup adjusters makes for a more secure fit. The HD650 cord has also been much-improved with a thicker OFC cable design terminated to a full-sized 1/4" stereo plug. A short cable-style adapter to a 1/8" (3.5mm) mini-plug jack is handily included in the HD650 package. Although it's a decent mini-adapter, we still highly recommend getting the superb Cardas Audio 1/4" to 1/8" adapter if plugging the HD650 into a source with small sensitive 3.5mm (1/8" inch) outputs. Overall, HeadRoom definitely more than recommends these fabulous Sennheiser HD650 headphones. Our HeadRoom motto: we say shell out big and cry once, but forever have world-class, blissful audio at your ears!
NOTE: Though the Sennheiser HD650 improved cord is certainly better than the original HD600 stock cable, we continue to suggest the Cardas Audio upgrade cable for ultimate detail resolution, musical texture, instrumental separation and soundstage depth. The significant audio benefits of the Cardas Audio cable upgrade will be especially evident with reference high-end audio sources. Please feel free to buy a Cardas Audio cord and compare versus the Sennheiser cord to determine for yourself the advantages. As always, our standard HeadRoom 30-day return/refund policy with zero 're-stocking' fees guarantees you'll love what you hear!
Winner of the 2004 Brutus Award!
2004 Brutus Awards: HeadRoom BlockHead Amp & Sennheiser HD650's
Specifications:
- Sensitivity: 102 dB/V
- Warranty: 2 Years
- Cord Type: Straight Y
- Coupler Size: Large
- Detachable Cable: Yes
- Cord Length: 10 ft. (3 m)
- Weight: 9.2
- Connector Type: 1/4" with 1/8" adaptor
- Ear Coupler Type: Full-Size
- Impedance @ 1kHz: 300
- Manufacturer Warranty: 2 Years
- Headphone Type: Full Size
- Wireless: No
- Noise Cancelling: No
- Isolation: 0
- Acoustic Seal: Open
- Microphone: No
- Driver Type: Dynamic
Additional Resources:
- Manufacturer's Website
- http://www.sennheiserusa.com/
- Product Manuals
- HD 650 Manual
- Product Reviews
- On Hifi Wes Phillips April 2004
- SoundStage! Doug Paratore July 05
- Personal Media Review David MacNeill Dec 07
- Techradar.com, Richard Black
- Ecoustics, Mark Brezinski
Average Rating
Posted by JoeCanadianGuy from near Toronto, Canada on 2012-03-16
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: transparent, clean mids and highs
Cons: overdone upper bass/low mids
I find that most pop/rock music is EQ'd heavily for "warmth" or "body" in upper bass/lower mids. This effect is accentuated with the 650s, giving the overall balance a downward tilt and the sense that the highs are veiled. This is not the case, because the mids and highs on this model are actually very neutral with a good sense of real instruments and voices. There is never any artificial sizzle to cymbals or sibilance in voices. The bulge in the lows, however, tends to muddy the mids on most pop recordings. It can fixed by holding the phones slightly away from the ears, but I'm not about to sit there doing that all night. Hey now there's an accessory idea for some young enterpreneur to develop!
The balance and transparency are excellent with acoustic, well-recorded jazz, singer-songwiter, and classical music, especially any bass-light music that benefits from a bit of warmth. So that explains all the high ratings for this model from Stereophile and other golden-eared reviewers who tend to gravitate to acoustic music.
The upper bass hump was reduced a bit after some break-in time, but I think I'll have to get some kind of EQ software for my PC to reduce the upper bass (any suggestions for good parametric EQ software, anyone?).
The phones were a bit tight for my wide head, but the cushions were very velvety, and bending the metal part of the headband very (very very) gently and occasionally near the earpieces has helped alleviate the clamping effect over time.
As for the Bithead amp, it does offer a minor overall improvement in transparency through the USB input, though I might have found even a bigger difference with one of the pricier amps. I have never found the need for the boost in gain that this amp provides, so there's no need to get one for that reason only, despite what many reviewers caution about lack of gain with these high impedence 650s. My laptops and even my iPhone seem to provide plenty of volume for normal istening. The crossfeed circuit is a good reason to get a Headroom amp, giving a subtle effect, especially on older, overly-separated recordings, and the circuit doesn't seem to affect clarity.
Anyway, I find myself listening through the 650s for long periods of time and forgetting they're there, so that says a lot.
If you're looking to buy, I hope this helps you make the right decision.
50 out of 51 people found this review helpful. Did you?
Posted by Elnrik from Denver, CO on 2012-02-27
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Very comfortable, excellent sound.
Cons: Shows imperfections in low bitrate/sample rate sources (Not a con, imo.)
As an aside - I put well over $4000 into a car audio system, and had brought the installer over to the house to have him listen to my Sennheisers (he's a friend). I told him I wanted my car to sound like that. He was floored, but said he would try. He couldn't do it. The car sounds good, don't get me wrong, but its nothing like my beloved Senns!
14 out of 15 people found this review helpful. Did you?
Posted by KK from Holland,Oh on 2011-08-19
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Comfortable, Sound quality scales well, lightweight
Cons: Slightly dark sounding, ear cups could swivel a tad more
-The headband started cracking after a year. Sennheiser is replacing the headband and more free of charge. They said the issue has now been corrected. Sennheiser is very easy to deal with, so far A++ support.
Don't hesitate to buy this!
59 out of 59 people found this review helpful. Did you?
