[ORIGINAL MSRP $279.95. Purchased from Amazon for $139.99 in March 2026]
[Tl;dr: These headphones are so not for me. I don’t know if it’s a function of the specific unit I have, or if it’s the way the HD 560S interacts with my anatomy, but this is one of the least comfortable frequency responses that I’ve personally experienced, and I was unable to find an EQ profile that made them comfortable on my head. Add to that their reasonably uncomfortable physical design, and I just can’t recommend these for anyone. I genuinely am confused as to how they’re so frequently recommended on Reddit and in other forums; that’s part of why I’m open to the possibility that it’s a bad unit or a physical mismatch with my head.
Either way, there are a lot of great open backs on the modern market under $200-300 and I would point you to any of them over this model. A rare miss from Sennheiser to my ears; while I didn’t particularly like the 660S in relation to the rest of the 6X0s, it didn’t sound BAD, just boring. This … sounds bad to me.]
Scores:
Cost-agnostic: 3 out of 10 Denalis
Cost-sensitive: 3 out of 10 Denalis
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Intro to the Intro
This is a “quick” review. There are a number of things that I’d love to get quick notes down on for my own edification/memory, but that I don’t want to spend the substantial time I devote to most of my (overly?) in-depth reviews on. Some of these will be things that aren’t in production anymore (so it’s less likely anyone will read a review), or are extra niche, or are things that I didn’t particularly like but want to be able to point people to my reasoning, or that are in a category I don’t spend a lot of time with (like IEMs). Today, the highly-recommended and -regarded Sennheiser HD 560S.
Introduction
While Sennheiser is probably best known in audiophile circles for their excellent 600 series (600, 650, 6XX, 660S2, etc.), it has long also manufactured another series, with designations starting in the 500s. This 500 series is characterized by a number of things: single-entry, formerly fixed and now 2.5 mm locking cables, a very different yoke mechanism, a different fit, and (usually!) a lower price point. My first experience with Sennheiser, though lost to the mists of time, was certainly a Sennheiser 500 series, and the last headphone I bought before I got serious about audio with the HD 6XX was a Sennheiser HD 515 that’s still hanging from my audio rack.4
I have been pretty skeptical of the 500 series since I first purchased my HD 6XX in 2017 or so. The 500 series are, broadly, substantially less comfortable on my head and also less-well tuned to my personal preferences. Even my VERY well-used 515s are too clampy on my head, and my experience with the PC38X (an Epos-branded Drop.com collaboration with Sennheiser’s former gaming division), a gaming headset based on the 500-series chassis isn’t that great; I love the tuning but the cups are so shallow that they’re incredibly uncomfortable on my head after even a pretty short time. However, the HD 560S are a generally well-regarded introduction to the Sennheiser family of headphones for people who can’t or won’t spend $200 on a pair of HD 6XXs and are often recommended as an introduction to serious headphones, particularly for gaming as they are relatively inexpensive (often available under $150).
When Corsair announced a few weeks ago that they were closing down Drop.com and most of their collaborations would be going out of production, I started thinking about what I would recommend to people interested in a Sennheiser-style headphone in a 6XX-less world, and Amazon happened to mark the 560S down pretty heavily. I decided to take a chance on it.5
Testing rig
Here’s my basic testing protocol.
Based on my philosophy on the allocation of resources in headfi, I’m doing most of my testing for these with a Schiit Modi/Magni stack, single-ended via the OEM cable, connected via USB-C to a Windows PC running the Roon client.
EQ
As noted in the Bathys review, I mostly prefer to test headphones with their default tuning, assuming that most people won’t take the time or make the effort necessary to use a third-party EQ. In the case of the HD 560S, the treble is so very, very unpleasant on my head that I tried. I really tried. I started with Oratory1990’s Harmon target EQ … and it hurt my brain. I turned the high shelf on it down … and it hurt my brain. I turned OFF Band 5 (the treble toggle) … and it hurt my brain. I spent an hour trying to make this work for me, and I just didn’t get there. This is the first time Oratory couldn’t get a headphone to sound at least okay on my head, which makes me think this is a problem in the way my head hears them.
Here’s as close as I got:
This is worlds better than the out of the box tune, but still occasionally harsh to my ears. And that’s a lot of EQ to get a headphone to “almost tolerable.”
Volume
Here are the volume settings I use with the Sennheiser HD 560S (unless otherwise noted, running via Roon with no headroom management, playing Daft Punk’s “Face to Face” from Tidal):
- Chord Mojo: white, medium red, medium red, red
- Direct Sources:
- Fiio CP13 Cassette Deck: 50%
- iBasso DX170 DAP: 49%
- Snowsky Echomini: 53%
- Dongles (iPhone 15, Apple Music, device maxed out)
- Apple: 65%
- Crinear Protocol Max: 75% (boost on)
- Fiio KA11:
- Fosi DS2: 50%
- JCALLY JM12: 60%
- Moondrop Dawn Pro:
- Holoaudio: Cyan 2/Bliss (KTE): -32 dB (low-Z)
- Mytek Brooklyn Bridge: 56
- Schiit:
- Hel2: 11:00
- Mimir/Jotunheim 2 (Mimir has a -15 dB pregain applied via Forkbeard): low gain, 10:30 (balanced); low gain, 12:00 (single-ended)
- Modi/Magni: low gain, 8:45
- Modius/Magnius: low gain, 11:00 (balanced); low gain, 9:30 (single-ended)
- Topping:
- DX5 II: -27.5 dB (single-ended)
- E30/L30: lowest gain, 10:00
My torture testing list
My torture testing list: Apple, Tidal, Spotify.]
The Basics
The Sennheiser HD 560S are an open-back, dynamic driver headphone from renowned audiophile manufacturer Sennheiser.6 They’re a moderate impedance headphone at a nominal 120 Ohms with a relatively high sensitivity of 110 dB/1Vrms, making them pretty easy to drive and perfectly competent to be plugged directly into a variety of devices like a phone or a digital audio player. They’re a single-entry headphone using Sennheiser’s proprietary 2.5 mm locking system, and come with a 2 meter rubberized cable terminating in a 3.5 mm jack with a threaded 6.35 mm adapter included in the box.
Sound
To be blunt, I’m not a fan of these headphones. I know what they were going for, but to me, they miss the mark pretty badly and given how good some of the other options in the current market are … these just aren’t for me. BUT, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re bad headphones, just that they’re a bad fit.
To keep it short; the midrange and the bass are fine but not very well balanced, and the treble is arguably the worst I’ve heard from a production headphone aside (maybe) from some of Hifiman’s closed backs. They don’t induce a headache the way that the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro do after ten or fifteen minutes, but they’re just so. Damned. Unpleasant. At least on my head, to the point where I keep edging the volume down while listening to them.
It does mean that I’m … confused as to how some reviewers stated when these released that they displaced everything else they usually recommended, from the 6X0s to Sundara. That seems … hyperbolic at best. But to each their own.
[Editor’s note: as I was finishing up this review, I put on Oklou’s “choke enough” and was rather enjoying it, thinking to myself, “huh, I guess there is some music that these sound good with.“
Nope. Turns out, I had put on the physically identical, and excellent,7 HD 550 instead of the HD 560S. I put the 560S back on and .. blurgh. 🤷♂️]
The soundstage on the HD 560S is fine; nothing to write home about, but reasonably wide and not as two-dimensional as some other options in the price tier. Certainly no worse than the HD 6XX. They also have better front-to-back staging than many of their competitors; the guitar at the beginning of “Love Can Damage Your Health (Laid Mix)” is distinctly moving around you rather than just pacing back and forth behind your head the way that it can be on some headphones. Instrument separation is decent for this price range, with most of the instruments reasonably distinct in space, though guitars on “Chan Chan” blend together a little bit at times; this may be a function of the weirdly (un)balanced midrange.
The dynamic range is fine; starting the volume out at a reasonable level on “It’s All So Incredibly Loud,” I found myself reaching for the volume control around 2:50. Microdynamics are fine, particularly for a Sennheiser, though I’d definitely want more punch and slam for most of my listening. The bass bell tones on “Angel (Blur Remix)” are solid, but the leading edge on the reverb splatters a little bit at times when I turn it up enough to get a satisfying slam. I get almost no warble after the tones.
Detail retrieval is … fine? The 560S feels hollow at times, and it’s difficult to know if that’s a result of poor resolution or just poor balance in the tuning, particularly in the transition from mids to treble and bass to mids. I definitely get the appropriate hiss at the beginning of “What Did I Do?”, and Ndegeocello’s fingers are clearly audible as they slide up and down the strings. Particularly with busier tracks like “Face to Face”, I feel like a lot of the lines get mixed together or buried, and the flute parts basically disappear into the background if I’m listening at a level that makes the treble tolerable. I know there are folks out there who think that the 560S is more detailed than the 600, but … I question whether we’re listening to the same headphone, honestly.8
Bass
The bass on the 560S is competent, though less dynamic than I’d like in a perfect world. It just eases in on tracks where I would like a more assertive, punchy entrance. That said, it has good, linear bass extension out past the place where the 6X0s start to roll off pretty hard. On sparser tracks with more isolated bass like “Out of My Hands,” this works fine. Particularly as it comes in around 2:48, it’s deep, and rich, and satisfying, even if I might want a little more punch and precision. For more complex, layered tracks, the relatively lack of mid bass starts to detract from the listening experience for me. To my ears, at least, it come across as unbalanced, which ends up sounding hollow to me on a track like “Afro Blue.” It’s fine and well-controlled on a track like “Superpredators” where the bassline mostly lives on the lower end and there’s not much transition, but on something like “Cold War” the bass lines cross from sub to mid bass and the relative volume varies too much as a result.
I think, for my personal preference, a headphone with good sub bass extension needs some additional energy in the mid bass and lower treble, and a tune like the 560S (though it looks pretty good on a graph!) just ends up feeling like there’s a scoop in the middle. The end result is that it feels like
BASS midrange TREBLE
instead of
BASS midrange TREBLE
on my head; more U-shaped than V-shaped. There are some tracks on which that’s fine, but others where it really isn’t, particularly where melodic lines move across the sub bass –> mid bass –> midrange spectrum (and as you’ll see, that extends to the top end too).
Midrange
The midrange on the 560S is pretty good in isolation; not quite as strong as the 600 or the 6XX but better than most headphones in their price range and worthy of the Sennheiser name. Eddie Vedder’s voice quavers just so on “River Cross,” Justin Hicks’ voice has damned near perfect timbre on “What Did I Do?”, and Jill Scott is well-reproduced through on “Calls” though her vocal counter melodies and runs disappear a bit into the background.
The problem I have with the midrange on the 560S is that I keep finding myself reaching for the volume knob to turn it up to hear the voices, which result that the bass and treble (particularly the treble) end up being too loud for me, so I turn the volume down, so I can’t hear the voices again. I’m having a really hard time keeping a consistent volume throughout my listening as a result, and I’m a guy who has a tendency to set volume and let it go for hours. Having to adjust constantly tells me that the balance in the tuning is likely off (at least to my preferences). Turning up enough to hear vocals means the treble is too spicy for me, as detailed below.9
Treble
The treble on the HD 560S just doesn’t work for me. It just sucks on my head. Even at a pretty quiet listening volume, the trumpets on “Will o’ the Wisp” are wildly bright, sharp and painful. If I turn the volume down to the point where I can tolerate them, I can’t hear most of other instruments. It’s not as bad on my other treble-testing tracks; while “2021” isn’t PLEASANT, per se, it’s not nearly as bad. On a track like “Money Shows” by John Glacier, if I turn the volume down enough to make the guitars tolerable, I can barely hear Glacier’s voice. On Glacier’s “Emotions,” the synths are so overwhelmingly loud that I can’t hear Glacier’s voice or the guitar riffs comfortably (which is a real bummer, because this is an example of a track where the 560S’ bass really shines). Everything just ends up feeling hollow and unbalanced.
This treble is genuinely a deal-breaker for me. Even if you can EQ out the treble10 … why own a headphone that is almost unusable out of the box on your head?
Gaming
These are often recommended on Reddit for gaming, but … man, there are just a lot of better things at this price point or below. The bass is nice, the soundstage is decent, and the mids are fine (and the weirdness in the balance between the bass, mids, and treble less overtly noticeable in gaming than in music), but on the off chance you hit something that’s in the kill zone in the treble response … oof. Plus they’re really uncomfortable on my head: I’m never going to use these for even a moderately long gaming session. I’ve played a bit of “Death Stranding” with them this week and they’re … fine. I didn’t have a super easy time locating enemies via audio cues, but I’m willing to chalk that up to a skill issue rather than a headphone one.
I’m just not going to use or recommend these even for gaming. I get why people like them … but I’m not going to do that to anyone else.
Amplifier Compatibility
The HD 560S aren’t hard to drive by any measure, and seem to have reasonable amplifier compatibility, sounding about as good as they can sound from everything I tried them with. If you buy this headphone, I strongly recommend either using a source with built in EQ or getting a DAC/amp that can apply system-wide EQ. Definitely skip any particular DAC/amp that imparts additional treble energy (though why you would want such a thing in the first place…11)
Overall Impressions
When I measured this individual unit on my new headphone measurement rig, I did get substantial variation between the drivers and I’m at least open to the possibility that part of my problem might be a channel mismatch. If you look at the graph below, you can see some deviations between 3 kHz and 8 kHz, and most of my problems with this headphone fall somewhere in there. It’s possible that because of this mismatch, attempts to EQ down the left side reduced the right too much and vice versa. I am genuinely curious to get time with another pair of 560S to see if they work better for me.
Build
Like most Sennheiser headphones, the HD 560S are made primarily of plastic, which while it makes them feel relatively cheap, also means that they’re VERY light and surprisingly sturdy. Sennheiser generally makes well-built products and the 560S is no exception.
Connectivity. I have written a number of times about how much I loathe proprietary cables, and the HD 560S’ cable is no exception. It’s a super dumb, single-entry, locking, 2.5 mm cable that connects to the left earcup. These headphones are internally wired for a balanced connection, if you buy Sennheiser’s cable for around $100 or an aftermarket version for around $50.12 The OEM cable is a little microphonic, but not as bad as a lot of headphones in this general price range. Overall, it’s … fine, and perfectly functional. Rubber coated, not great, but arguably better than the OEM HD 6XX cable, and worlds better than the Hifiman surgical cable nonsense they include with their $1k+ headphones.
Physical design. Light, sturdy, but relatively inflexible. Sennheiser’s 500-series design gives you probably 30 degrees of rotation and maybe 30 of tilt, but it’s a pretty clever design and between the angle of the tilt and the flexibility of the band you should be able to get a reasonable seal on most heads. The mesh on the cups is reasonably microphonic (as you might expect), as is the headband with anything that’s a little scrap-y.
For me, “optimal” vs. extreme13 seatings didn’t make much of a difference in the frequency response under around 8-9 kHz (the range in which the EARS Pro is most accurate). This isn’t a headphone that appears to be overly affected by how you’re wearing it.
Comfort. For me, these are a very uncomfortable headphone. They feel more clampy than similar headphones like the HD 550 or the HD 515, though they’re pretty similar to the EPOS PC38X (EPOS being Sennheiser’s former gaming division, and the PC38X being a headset version of the 500-series). The ear pads also feel thinner and rougher than the HD 550, though they are softer than the PC38X’s and my ears fit better in the 560S’ cups.
All around, just not a comfortable headphone on my head, but not PortaPro levels of discomfort.
Appearance. The 560S are a pretty typical Sennheiser 500 series in black with silver logos on the cups and Sennheiser written in silver running along the band on the left side. They do have a more stylish mesh than something like the 550s, with more shape to the mesh around the logo. You either like this style or not, and I personally think they’re pretty sharp looking and they’re definitely less Cyberman-ish than a lot of options out there.
Value & Comparisons
I think it’s probably pretty clear from … well everything above that these just aren’t the headphones for me. As such, I cannot in good conscience recommend them to anyone who isn’t looking specifically for a VERY bright tuning, and even there … I think there are better options. I’m kind of stunned that Sennheiser/Sonova priced these above the HD 6XX, but then, the 6XX has long undercut most of Sennheiser’s more audiophile focused headphones so perhaps these are best thought of as intended to compete in markets where the HD 6XX aren’t available. That might also have something to do with their current 50% markdown in the US. So … are they worth it at $139.99?
To me, nope. Everyone’s preference is going to be different, but there are a lot of things that I’m going to take over these, including a number of options that are often available at or under that price point. Even with EQ, I couldn’t get these to a place where I wanted to listen to them, and my philosophy is that while EQ can make okay headphones sound good and good headphones sound great, I don’t have time or space in my life for headphones that NEED a third-party EQ tool to be palatable.
Sennheiser is no stranger to the realm of marmite tunes14: the HD 515 is the only headphone I’ve ever seen Oratory1990 apply a -10 dB gain on a band to get to a reasonable target and while they sound … okay, they’re super weird. These are just the Sennheisers that I’ve tried that are genuinely unpleasant on my head.
These are often recommended for gaming, so I’m mostly going to be evaluating them against headphones that I’d recommend for gaming, but as a Sennheiser headphone retailing for a little less than $300, I have to do a little bit of comparison against some of the other highlights in the crowded under $300 open back category.
Sennheiser HD 6XX
I’d take the HD 6XX at $200 (or even $220) over these at $139 any day. The 560S arguably has better sub bass than the 6XX (certainly deeper extension) but I’ll take the mid bass and bass to midrange transition on the 6XX every time, and I can EQ in a bass shelf to make up any deficit at the lowest end on the 6XX. I might very slightly prefer the 560S’ mids in isolation, but they’re so poorly balanced overall that I’ll take the 6XX’s (great!) midrange for pretty much any listening. And then there’s the treble … the treble on the 560S (and the balance overall!) is so bad on my head (and there’s no fixing it with EQ, at least not in the couple of hours I’ve spent on it) that I’d so much rather pay more for a better headphone I want to listen to. Also the 560S make the otherwise quite clampy 6XX feel like air on my head. Which is wild.
This is more or less what I hear; in general I prefer a little more filled in bass to midrange transition over a midbass hump, and I don’t care all that much about frequencies under 50 Hz; there’s just not THAT much information down there in most of my music and the difference is only a few decibels.15
Just because I’m fiddling around with my own measurements (but don’t have a Squig yet!) here’s what my EARS Pro shows for this measurement:
That’s impressively close! I’m going to take that as a sign that my measurements aren’t terrible.
My pick: the HD 6XX and it’s not a close call. The HD 6XX is my benchmark open back, and the HD 560S is a headphone *I* would never choose to use.
Sennheiser HD 550
My full review of the HD 550 (ordered when it looked like the 6XX was out of stock forever, I was looking for a substitute, and the 560S was backordered a few weeks on Amazon) is forthcoming, but spoiler: it’s really, really great. [It might, in fact, possibly displace the HD 6XX in my heart? But I want to do a lot more A/B’ing before I declare that.]
The 550 is, in my opinion, a much better headphone all around than the 560S. The actual difference in frequency response doesn’t seem like it’s all that much, but man … I hear them VERY differently. Where the 560S has good sub bass but a dip in the mids, the 550 has a MUCH better overall bass response and transition from bass to mids. The midrange, especially vocals, are much better balanced with both the bass and the treble (particularly in the transitional regions), and the treble doesn’t break my brain. For whatever reason, they’re also more comfortable on my head and I don’t think it’s just because the 560S’ treble makes me want to take them off. The clamp feels lesser, and the pads softer/squishier.
The HD 550 is more expensive; at MSRP it’s $350vs. $275, and at the time of writing it’s $250 vs. $139 on Amazon. That’s not an inconsiderable difference, given the price range. What do you get for that extra $120? For me, the ability to not only actually use the headphone, but to get a sound profile that (for me) meaningfully competes with some of the greats under $300.
Yeah, that mostly lines up with what I’m hearing. This makes me wonder if the treble spike I’m hearing is around that 4 kHz region; I definitely don’t hear a spike on the HD 550 so I don’t think the offending frequency is the shared spike at 8 kHz (either that, or for whatever reason that spike on the 550 doesn’t show up on my head. Going to have to do some frequency sweeps on that when I review it).
My pick: the HD 550 by a country mile. I recommend the HD 550; I do not recommend the HD 560S for most people.
Epos PC38X/Drop + Sennheiser PC38X
This is probably the closest on paper; I personally find the PC38X so uncomfortable that I mostly haven’t used the pair hanging in my closet and waiting for my review, BUT the difference is that I actually mostly like the way the PC38X sound, and I could envision a world in which a pair of replacement pads might make them comfortable enough (without derailing the frequency response too much) to make them a good option for me for gaming. I think the bass between the two is mostly a tossup (though the PC38X doesn’t have the hollowness in the mid bass to midrange transition of the 560S), the mids pretty equivalent, and the treble on the PC38X isn’t problematic on my head. The soundstage is pretty similar; it might be a very small bit wider on the 560S, but it’s definitely not enough to matter for anything I’m doing.
Gaming is probably the most compelling use case for the 560S for me, and the PC38X is going to be a better option for gaming. When it was available, the PC38X retailed for around $170, and is currently available on Amazon for $150. When it comes to gaming, that extra $10 may be the best $10 you can spend, even discounting the value add of getting a decent built-in boom mic with the PC38X.
A quick glance at the graphs (Super* Review hasn’t measured the PC38X so for this I’m turning to Gadgetry Tech):
Interestingly, I get a much more pronounced midbass hump on the PC38X in both my EARS Pro measurement AND what I’m hearing on my own head. Normally I don’t love this kind of mid bass hump, but compared to the valley the HD 560 has in the bass to mids transition, I’ll take it.
My pick: The PC38X, obviously, if these are your only choices. I’d take some other things over either, though, as much as the PC38X would be great for gaming for someone whose head it physically better suits.
Fractal Scape
I really like and frequently recommend the Fractal Scape. They’re a great headphone for both music and gaming, though I really only use them for gaming given the wall of options I have for music.
I might actually prefer the bass on the 560S; the Scape’s bass tuning out of the box is a little heavy for me without applying EQ, though it’s pretty well controlled and not so heavy as to be problematic. Particularly after applying Resolve’s EQ preset,16 the overall tune for music is quite nice. The mids are pretty close; I think I might slightly prefer the 560S out of the box there too. The treble is worlds better on the Scape, though, and given my inability to get to a comfortable place with EQ on the 560S, in the end that’s kind of all that matters. (Well, that plus the fact that the Scape’s built-in parametric EQ means that I can fix any deficiencies in it’s tuning without resorting to a third-party tool.) Add in the fact that the Scape is more comfortable, and it’s another easy loss for the 560S, even at their current prices ($140 for the 560S vs $200 for the Scape). Particularly if you can wait for a sale (I paid $140 for my Scape around Black Friday in 2025), it’s a no-brainer given all of the additional functionality you get with the Scape.
Even on the “Balance” setting, I don’t hear the bass hump on the Scape to quite this extent, and as EQ’d this headphone is a MUCH nicer listen than this graph suggests. Though, interestingly, when I actually do the measurements, I …. have a more prominent mid-bass hump on my unit than the default balanced setting:17
Guess I’ve got some more listening and measuring to do!
My pick: Scape. Even ignoring the additional capabilities you get with a well-designed active headphone with full parametric, shareable EQ, it’s just a better tuned and more reasonable headphone all around.
Hifiman Open Backs
Hifiman has a number of open back options down under $140 these days, and while I generally caution folks away from buying anything directly from Hifiman based on their customer service, I’d take any of them over the HD 560S. At the moment, the refurbished list includes the HE-400se, HD-5XX, and the genuinely excellent Sundara.18 Hell, even a refurbished Edition XS is around $200 these days.
All of these headphones have flaws (mostly in the treble), but none have been as hard to listen to as the 560S on my head.
Overall
These are a strange headphone for me; I rarely give scores this low, and definitely don’t for headphones that get the kind of love in the community that the 560S do (well, maybe the Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro, though I think folks have mostly come around on those headphones).
I think these are headphones with a use case, and a target audience. I’m … just not that audience, and these headphones are just so not for me. There aren’t a lot of headphones that are genuinely uncomfortable for me to listen to based on their frequency response: it’s basically this and the DT 770 Pro. So while the first rule of audio is that the best headphones are the ones you like, for your music, in your space, I can’t recommend the Sennheiser HD 560S to anyone given the number of genuinely great headphones in the market in this general price point.
I really tried to give these a fair shake, but every time I put them on my head throughout my testing window (including when I accidentally grabbed them instead of the HD 550 sitting right next to them), they were just … unpleasant.
These are going back to Amazon. Curious to borrow another pair in the future for measurement and listening to see if it is just a unit issue, or if this model just doesn’t work for me. In the meantime … grab something else. I’m certainly going to.
Phil’s Matrix of Use
#reviews #headphones #sennheiser #6XX #anc #spatialaudio #meh #2025 #99noir #meze #sunglasses #overear #cans #hifiman #arya #stealth #
- I score bass, mids, and treble on a two part scale: 1-5 for quantity (5 being the highest), and A-E for quality (A being best in class, E being laughably bad). For soundstage it’s also a two part scale, with the number representing the width and the letter the separation within it. ↩︎
- For comfort/fit, my scale is A-E with A being disappear entirely into the background and E being I want to tear my ears off to stop feeling these headphones on my head. I’ve had one E: the Koss PortaPro. ↩︎
- The temptation to give this a scale-breaking 6 for treble was real. ↩︎
- And hooboy is it an odd one, but I’ll still take it over the 560S. ↩︎
- In the meantime, Sennheiser has announced that they will be selling the HD 6XX themselves for at least the near future, albeit only in the US and for $220, a $20-30 increase from Drop’s typical pricing. So while they’re not quite as sensational a deal as they used to be, they’re still the 650 for like half the price. ↩︎
- They’re currently manufactured by Sonova Hearing, which bought the Sennheiser Consumer Division in 2021, though they’ve recently announced it is for sale again. ↩︎
- Spoiler alert! Review coming soon. ↩︎
- There was a revision in 2023, but it sounds like those revisions shouldn’t impact the sound; changes to pads and cables. ↩︎
- Though this issue CAN be ameliorated at least partially by EQ. ↩︎
- And I genuinely can’t, after a couple of hours of trying everything I can think of short of radical AutoEQ. ↩︎
- And I’m a bit skeptical that this product even exists in the first place … but you do you. ↩︎
- The HD 560S and HD 550 are the first headphones I’ve owned that use this system, so I don’t currently have a Hart Audio interconnect for it. If I keep the HD 550, I’ll fix that. ↩︎
- As far forward, back, up and down as they can go on my EARS Pro. ↩︎
- Tunes that are far enough out of the normal preference bounds that recommending them can be hard to distinguish from trolling. ↩︎
- And I personally have always liked the bass performance of the 6XX, and think the complaints about roll off are a bit over-sold. ↩︎
- AQUAmpmJwN0kskA6IwAAAAAAZmYGwGZm9j+0CwAAAAAACXERQEJgpT/nAgAAAAAAMzMTwGZmVkBJKwAAAAAAMzMTQPCnjkDtEgAAAAAK ↩︎
- Note: you should be VERY skeptical of comparing graphs on different rigs, even different rigs of the same type, because of potential variation. I’m including this mostly because I’m genuinely curious about how my rig hears things in comparison to other major rigs. ↩︎
- The open back version, not to be confused with the awful Hifiman Sundara Closed. ↩︎
Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm 
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