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Way back in 1997, Sennheiser released the HD 600, and pretty much everything

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they've done since has lived in the shadow of that monumental headphone.

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But, the HD 550s, well,

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maybe they'll just measure up. Now, the HD 500 line is typically cheaper than

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the HD 600 and the 650s and 6XXs, but

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the HD 550 maintains a very similar shape with a little bit more comfort

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because this version has far less clamping force. Before we get to the

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headphones, I'm just noticing on the front of the box that Sennheiser is actually calling out gaming right there,

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which I find a bit surprising because it's outside of Sennheiser's headset

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lineup. Sennheiser does make gaming audio products, but to see it on their

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more traditional wired headphones is an

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interesting take, but I think makes a lot of sense when you consider the kinds

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of people that are buying these, tech nerds like us. But, let's take a look at

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these. Oh, the documentation's in the bag. Cool. Doesn't matter. The bag that you

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get with it is not the nicest material and also kind of confusingly is designed

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to go on this way? Does that seem weird to you to have the headband at the bottom? I just

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do it like this. Maybe I'm just an idiot. Oh, I'm an idiot. I've just never seen it with such a curve. It's a

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very floppy bag. Nothing special, but a nice value add.

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Outside of that, in the box, you get a single 1.8 m cable, and that seems

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about right.

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Yeah. It's about as long about as long as me.

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There's a 3.5 mm adapter with a screw-on quarter-inch adapter in the box.

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The cable is detachable and it terminates to a 2.5 mm connector. And,

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if you buy one from Sennheiser, you get this cool little channel that locks the

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cable in place in the headphone so they don't pull out from the top. It's a nice

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feature. You might not get that on third-party cables, but most 2.5 mm

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cables should still work just fine assuming that it is long enough to get

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through this little hole. Your mileage may vary. There are no

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inline controls or anything on the cable. If you want that, you do have to buy it from Sennheiser, but it's enough

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about the cable. Let's look at the headphone. This is the exact same shape

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as the well-known HD 560s with the same

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sturdy single-arm design. It allows for tilt,

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a very small amount of swivel, but you don't get any sort of angling action so

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much. But, the general flexibleness of

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these headphones and also incredibly lightweight design uh make these still

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pretty easy to sit comfortable on your head. And, when I say lightweight, I

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mean lightweight. They're just 237

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g. Quite lightweight, but also indicates

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that these are almost certainly a all-plastic design save for some of the

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screws. They're not creaky, though.

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However, I could see like if you're not super careful with these or you're

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pretty rough with these, you could snap the headband pretty easy,

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and maybe the adjustments

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will wear out over time. Overall, I wouldn't call these delicate, but I

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wouldn't just toss them in any bag and throw them around too much. The

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headphones are ratchet adjustable, but like it's really hard to get exactly one

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notch, but I don't think it's too big of a deal because you have enough wiggle

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room that when you get them on your head, you'll pretty easily be able to find a position that feels really good.

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And, boy, do these feel really good. One issue that comes up for a lot of people with the HD 600s and even some of the HD

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500 line is clamping pressure. That's when the ear cups are pressing against

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the side of your head. Um this is much lighter, but they still

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stay in position really well. And, just putting them on my head, they're very

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comfortable. [music] The combination of the lightweight plus the lessened clamping force compared to other

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Sennheiser designs is really nice. And, these plush

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velour ear cups, also great. And, the synthetic leather on the headband is

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sufficient as well. These are very open headphones. There's very little noise

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isolation. I mean like just look at the dust cover in here. Usually, you can't

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see a driver that clearly, but you can see you can see the mesh like just

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barely. It almost like feels cheap. It's one of those things that's kind of like

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with gaming mice how like things have become so light because that's a good

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thing that picking it up feels like it lacks luxuriousness and heft, and this

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feels the same, but it's all in service of a goal, and that goal is high-quality

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using our link for a limited-time discount. Before I give my listening

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impressions, here's some quick specs about the headphone itself. The drivers

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are 38-mm dynamic drivers. The headphones have a resistance of 150

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ohms, but they're very sensitive, so they're quite easy to drive. I had no

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issue running this off of the laptop or

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off of this overkill JDS Elements amp.

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The reported frequency response from Sennheiser is 6 Hz to 39.5 kHz, which is

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well beyond the range of human hearing, which usually goes from 20 to 20,000 Hz.

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So, um you're probably covered, but it should be noted that open-back

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headphones, especially Sennheiser open-backs, are noted for their bass

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roll-off. That means they're not kind of the bassiest headphones. It gets a lot

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quieter down there. Uh and that's not always a bad thing. That's just a point

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of preference. So, let's let's take a listen now.

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They sound really good. Like, I don't know what more could you

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really ask for. These are, on the whole, a relatively uh neutral headphone,

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though they have a little bit of extra sparkle in the top end compared to, I'd

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say, the typical Sennheiser um headphone. So, if you're somebody who maybe has had a HD 600 in the past and

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you thought that they felt veiled, this, I would say, solves that problem.

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Though, I will say with some specific distortion on certain tracks, there was

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um some clear peaks in the treble, but

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honestly nothing too offensive. While these aren't exactly a bassy headphone,

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they have no troubles reproducing the bass. And, I'm sure if you slapped a

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nice EQ on this, you could get a little bit of a better bass response if you want some real rumble. You're obviously

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not going to be able to get as much bass as you would with a closed-back headphone. That's just the nature of

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open-back headphones. And, I will say that like while I was wearing these and listening to music, you can really hear

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everything, and I'm sure you guys can attest that you can hear everything I

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was listening to. And, it wasn't even at a very loud volume. But,

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honestly, easy recommend from a personal perspective. There's

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enough detail in the highs, the mids are very full-bodied, things sound natural,

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but I am not every pair of ears. So, let's take a look at what Labs has to

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say about these. We're taking a look at our frequency response chart right here.

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The average listener preference, that's the white area. Basically, headphones

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that fall into this area will probably sound good to anybody. They might not

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sound good to everybody, but on average you got a good there's a good chance

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you'll like them. The red line is what we're looking at, and that's the actual

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frequency response. And, as we can see, this does a great job of staying in the

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average listener area. And, you can see that it's also very, very flat, which

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indicates a fairly neutral sound. When we look at

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the low end, that's where we see that bass roll-off that is substantially

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outside of the window. I would not consider that to be bad. That is a point

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of preference. Many people will enjoy extra oomph in their bass cuz it's a

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little bit more fun to listen to. But, as I said, bass reproduction on this is

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very clear. It's very good. And, maybe if you want to bump it up in your EQ,

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you might be able to uh get a little bit more fun out of these. The only real

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thing of note that was pointed out to me from Labs is a spike at around 10 kHz.

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You might find that if you're very sensitive to sounds around that region, that's very high-pitched sounds. So,

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things like, as I mentioned before, distortion or like kind of the the

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sparkle of cymbals, you might find that this brings those out a little much. I

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would not call it overpowering, but something to note. The Labs comments

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call out that the bass is a bit lean. I agree. Uh but, great midrange and upper

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mids and treble are a bit forward. I think it sounds really good and

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relatively balanced, and I liked that added detail. I think these are

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excellent, and I'm glad that the graphs back me up. So, who is this for and how

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much are you going to pay for it? If you are somebody who is cool with a simple

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wired headphone, to me, this has almost made the HD 600s

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pointless. These sound so good, and they're substantially cheaper. These go

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for $350, but we've actually seen these on sale for 250 Canadian dollars, which

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is like, honestly, a no-brainer if you're in the market for a good pair of

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headphones. I have literally zero hesitations recommending this to anybody

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who wants a straight-up simple pair of headphones.

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Sennheiser just made a lot of their more expensive headphones kind of pointless.

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You played yourself. But, you know what? That's good because we, the consumer,

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win. Finally, one for the little guys. Thanks

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for watching. If you enjoyed this video, why not check out my video on the Focal

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Bathys? That's the things that I listen to every single day at my desk here at

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work. And, they are wonderful headphones.