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Sennheiser HD-600?

I really love my HD600s. They’re the first headphones I’ve had that I feel I could work on confidently. Switching between my tuned ATC monitoring setup and these headphones feels remarkably familiar. I don’t find them forgiving at all and are often a great reality check for me in the mids/highs. :)

p.s. imo, don’t use sonar works with these. It really messes things up. I do however place a small bass boost on them with my RME totalmix software.
 
Blakus said:
I really love my HD600s. They’re the first headphones I’ve had that I feel I could work on confidently. Switching between my tuned ATC monitoring setup and these headphones feels remarkably familiar. I don’t find them forgiving at all and are often a great reality check for me in the mids/highs. :)

p.s. imo, don’t use sonar works with these. It really messes things up. I do however place a small bass boost on them with my RME totalmix software.
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THX for this. Clearly each HD600 User will need to sort their specific Audio I/F or HDfone Amp to be comfortable with capability to drive them optimally. This remains a concern, as fairly notable $$$ can be invested in one or more solutions. It will be a much simpler solution, for many, if their studio I/F can be trusted to also drive HD600 (or other HDfones) correctly.
 
sostenuto said:
THX for this. Clearly each HD600 User will need to sort their specific Audio I/F or HDfone Amp to be comfortable with capability to drive them optimally. This remains a concern, as fairly notable $$$ can be invested in one or more solutions. It will be a much simpler solution, for many, if their studio I/F can be trusted to also drive HD600 (or other HDfones) correctly.
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They do drive them "correctly" - you will hear good sound from them using your computer audio interface.

What others are saying is you will hear more and more clearly with dedicated amps...so it's a game of diminishing returns proportionate to money spent.

I already spent $725 on a used Apogee Quartet and the sound is decent on my HD6xx's. I can drop another $100 on a Schiit Heresy and from what people here are saying, the sound will improve.

Beyond that, more money spent will offer diminishing gains, and it's just up to each one of us where we stop...
 
Well stated, and understand your points clearly. Diminishing returns is the obvious factor, and I am not making sense asking yes/no .... blk/wht questions. :(
BTW, I did inquire with Schiit Audio and moved starting point to Magni 3+ ..... ymmv.

When it comes to scaling and related topics, sorting internals of Audio I/F(s) versus dedicated HDfone amps is not yet in my repertoire.

Regards
 
sostenuto said:
Well stated, and understand your points clearly. Diminishing returns is the obvious factor, and I am not making sense asking yes/no .... blk/wht questions. :(
BTW, I did inquire with Schiit Audio and moved starting point to Magni 3+ ..... ymmv.

When it comes to scaling and related topics, sorting internals of Audio I/F(s) versus dedicated HDfone amps is not yet in my repertoire.

Regards
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Strangely, the Heresy is the same price as the Magni 3+, yet they say the Heresy is supposed to be better...Not quite getting their marketing here...
 
Thundercat said:
Strangely, the Heresy is the same price as the Magni 3+, yet they say the Heresy is supposed to be better...Not quite getting their marketing here...
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If I recall, Hersey is Op-Amp. and Black & Red ! 3+ is all discrete.

" Choose Magni 3+ for the ultimate expression of an affordable all-discrete current-feedback headphone amp. It’s now seriously like a mini speaker amp, right down to the driver stage and Vbe multiplier. Magni 3+ is in our traditional silver and gray chassis.
Choose Magni Heresy for insanely great measurements from an all-op-amp based headphone amp that uses super high quality parts, including a multiple paralleled output stage with feedforward. Magni Heresy is in a black and red chassis.
Both amps sound fantastic. You really can’t make a wrong choice. "

This straight from Website. Right now, considering JOTUNHEIM as well. Schiit has been darn good about e-mails in recent days. This cable was also recommended when I asked about connection with Audio I/F hookup.

Amazon product ASIN B01FB1UFOS
 
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sostenuto said:
If I recall, Hersey is Op-Amp. and Black & Red ! 3+ is all discrete.

" Choose Magni 3+ for the ultimate expression of an affordable all-discrete current-feedback headphone amp. It’s now seriously like a mini speaker amp, right down to the driver stage and Vbe multiplier. Magni 3+ is in our traditional silver and gray chassis.
Choose Magni Heresy for insanely great measurements from an all-op-amp based headphone amp that uses super high quality parts, including a multiple paralleled output stage with feedforward. Magni Heresy is in a black and red chassis.
Both amps sound fantastic. You really can’t make a wrong choice. "

This straight from Website. Right now, considering JOTUNHEIM as well. Schiit has been darn good about e-mails in recent days. This cable was also recommended when I asked about connection with Audio I/F hookup.

Amazon product ASIN B01FB1UFOS
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Thank you.

the distinction is completely lost on me. I don’t really understand what’s different about them. Are op-amps better/different sounding?
 
HD600 user here. I’m driving them straight from a Profire 2626 headphone out and they sound fine to me, they get extremely loud. Honestly, loudness is the most important reason you might want a separate amp. They really are kind of low when driven from my iPhone even when the volume is maxed out.
 
Thundercat said:
A question then - my Apogee Quartet has a 1/4" headphone out, and 1/4" speaker outs. Nothing else.

Would I use the Quartet headphone out to the headphone amp in? If I was to get the Heresy, this is RCA plugs (yikes!). I can't imagine using the speaker outs...

In this scenario I'm still using the Apogee internal headphone amp. Then I'd have 2 volume controls, one on the Quartet, and one on the Heresy. Somethings seems amiss here...

Thx,

Mike
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You d'have to use the line out of your Interface, as the headphone amp would already "amp" the signal thus ruining the signal path for the dedicated amp. The Volume of the Dac/ Interface should always be on full as well as the actual sound source, volume control should be left to the last member of the chain (so in this case the headphone amp).

Ps. Maybe you should get the headphones first and then decide if you need the amp, if I wouldn't have listened to high-end equipment I'd probably live a happier life, plenty of people are perfectly ok with barely adequately driven mid-fi headphones, you can always upgrade later on.
 
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marius_dm said:
HD600 user here. I’m driving them straight from a Profire 2626 headphone out and they sound fine to me, they get extremely loud. Honestly, loudness is the most important reason you might want a separate amp. They really are kind of low when driven from my iPhone even when the volume is maxed out.
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As I said 600s also don't really have that "veil" and are easier driven, that mainly applies to the 6XXs, although 600s do also scale with nice amps, it's just less noticeable.
 
Thundercat said:
Would you say a dedicated amp in addition to the Apogee Quartet headphone output? It's a pretty high quality unit overall, but I don't know about the headphone amp within...

Thx
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I have the Apogee Duet and HD6xx. i found it loud enough until I turned on Sonarworks...since it loses around 6-8db, it was too quiet. So now I feed my Duet into a small Mackie mixer which gets much louder via its headphone amp.

(also, with the Apogee Duet it is plenty loud when listening to normal music, but when composing, sometimes when you’re writing a soft piece or adding a flute part, you just need more volume.

Also, by the way, I used to run my Apogee Duet into a Schiit headphone amp, and didn’t notice any improvement in sound quality. Louder, yes, but clearer no.)
 
David Kudell said:
I have the Apogee Duet and HD6xx. i found it loud enough until I turned on Sonarworks...since it loses around 6-8db, it was too quiet. So now I feed my Duet into a small Mackie mixer which gets much louder via its headphone amp.

(also, with the Apogee Duet it is plenty loud when listening to normal music, but when composing, sometimes when you’re writing a soft piece or adding a flute part, you just need more volume.

Also, by the way, I used to run my Apogee Duet into a Schiit headphone amp, and didn’t notice any improvement in sound quality. Louder, yes, but clearer no.)
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Most excellent information. Thank-you.

Again, the purpose of an external amp isn't for volume only, although that is an effect; it's normally to create a better sound stage, imaging, punch, bass extension, etc. From what you're sharing it doesn't sound like you experienced a sonic improvement.

It could be that the Apogee headphone amps are already pretty good...

Thx again!
 
David Kudell said:
I have the Apogee Duet and HD6xx. i found it loud enough until I turned on Sonarworks...since it loses around 6-8db, it was too quiet. So now I feed my Duet into a small Mackie mixer which gets much louder via its headphone amp.

(also, with the Apogee Duet it is plenty loud when listening to normal music, but when composing, sometimes when you’re writing a soft piece or adding a flute part, you just need more volume.

Also, by the way, I used to run my Apogee Duet into a Schiit headphone amp, and didn’t notice any improvement in sound quality. Louder, yes, but clearer no.)
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Well to be absolutely honest the Shiits are budget amps and apart from the new Magni3+ and the Heresy they didn't come out with anything I would have advised anyone to get. (The Heresy is also their very first op amp so you cannot really compare it to anything they've brought out before.)

Those 2 do however beat all of the competition in the low price region, you d' surely notice a difference on a RebelAmp class A or a THX 789 as it colors tone the least (at 3-4x the price). Also keep in mind, that most DACs and Interfaces actually color the tone as well. (Although I guess the Apogee should be "neutral".)
 
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Thundercat said:
Most excellent information. Thank-you.

Again, the purpose of an external amp isn't for volume only, although that is an effect; it's normally to create a better sound stage, imaging, punch, bass extension, etc. From what you're sharing it doesn't sound like you experienced a sonic improvement.

It could be that the Apogee headphone amps are already pretty good...

Thx again!
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The Heresy on high gain definitely gives the feeling of a widened soundstage, while low gain is absolutely stale. Not every Shiit is the same, the Heresy measures much better than everything they've offered in their Magni range before. People also are in agreement that the Heresy seems to match up better with Sennheiser headphones than the Magni 3+ does. (The Heresy seems to be the more analytical of the 2 due to its op amp structure, all of the other Shiit offerings are discrete amps.)

There will definitely be a sonic improvement if you buy a decent amp but it will depend on the amp and on the headphones as to how big the gap will be.

I'm sure the Apogee's amps aren't half bad so yes decide on a headphone and get the amp later if needed.
 
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Apogee was high end since back in the day. As an assistant sound editor in LA in the early 2000’s, I loaded the dialog for lots of big movies from 1/4” tape through an Apogee A-D converter.

I have no doubt the headphone output is high quality. Whatever amp you end up getting, I’d just recommend getting something you can return if you don’t notice a difference.
 
Well, I’m not the OP, and right now I don’t need to/shouldn’t just spend money just cause, so I’ll wait. I might try it out in the future tho. Let’s get through this damned virus crap first...

thx for your insights.
 
Blakus said:
I really love my HD600s. They’re the first headphones I’ve had that I feel I could work on confidently. Switching between my tuned ATC monitoring setup and these headphones feels remarkably familiar. I don’t find them forgiving at all and are often a great reality check for me in the mids/highs. :)

p.s. imo, don’t use sonar works with these. It really messes things up. I do however place a small bass boost on them with my RME totalmix software.
Click to expand...
The average curve that SW introduces to HD600 is very minimal. The most it does is in the bass department, everything else is just so slight, minimal comparing to other headphones' SW curves.

May I ask, what did you find that SW messess so much with HD600?

I like what it does in the low-end and for that it makes sense to me to keep it. Do you think it messess with he rest too much?
 
shomynik said:
The average curve that SW introduces to HD600 is very minimal. The most it does is in the bass department, everything else is just so slight, minimal comparing to other headphones' SW curves.

May I ask, what did you find that SW messess so much with HD600?

I like what it does in the low-end and for that it makes sense to me to keep it. Do you think it messess with he rest too much?
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Especially when used in conjunction with can opener the software introduced some problems when using stuff like Dear VR Pro or with some reverbs (Spaces II being one of them) as well as compression. It was notably giving bad info on the placing of the instruments, cut out some frequencies which would have revealed flaws and even messed with one frequency that sounded absolutely different on all of my other sources.

I'd recommend using correction software on other headphones but HD600s are really good for mixing right off the bat.
 
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