Way back in 1997, Sennheiser released the HD 600, and pretty much everything
they've done since has lived in the shadow of that monumental headphone.
But, the HD 550s, well,
maybe they'll just measure up. Now, the HD 500 line is typically cheaper than
the HD 600 and the 650s and 6XXs, but
the HD 550 maintains a very similar shape with a little bit more comfort
because this version has far less clamping force. Before we get to the
headphones, I'm just noticing on the front of the box that Sennheiser is actually calling out gaming right there,
which I find a bit surprising because it's outside of Sennheiser's headset
lineup. Sennheiser does make gaming audio products, but to see it on their
more traditional wired headphones is an
interesting take, but I think makes a lot of sense when you consider the kinds
of people that are buying these, tech nerds like us. But, let's take a look at
these. Oh, the documentation's in the bag. Cool. Doesn't matter. The bag that you
get with it is not the nicest material and also kind of confusingly is designed
to go on this way? Does that seem weird to you to have the headband at the bottom? I just
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
very floppy bag. Nothing special, but a nice value add.
Outside of that, in the box, you get a single 1.8 m cable, and that seems
about right.
Yeah. It's about as long about as long as me.
There's a 3.5 mm adapter with a screw-on quarter-inch adapter in the box.
The cable is detachable and it terminates to a 2.5 mm connector. And,
if you buy one from Sennheiser, you get this cool little channel that locks the
cable in place in the headphone so they don't pull out from the top. It's a nice
feature. You might not get that on third-party cables, but most 2.5 mm
cables should still work just fine assuming that it is long enough to get
through this little hole. Your mileage may vary. There are no
inline controls or anything on the cable. If you want that, you do have to buy it from Sennheiser, but it's enough
about the cable. Let's look at the headphone. This is the exact same shape
as the well-known HD 560s with the same
sturdy single-arm design. It allows for tilt,
a very small amount of swivel, but you don't get any sort of angling action so
much. But, the general flexibleness of
these headphones and also incredibly lightweight design uh make these still
pretty easy to sit comfortable on your head. And, when I say lightweight, I
mean lightweight. They're just 237
g. Quite lightweight, but also indicates
that these are almost certainly a all-plastic design save for some of the
screws. They're not creaky, though.
However, I could see like if you're not super careful with these or you're
pretty rough with these, you could snap the headband pretty easy,
and maybe the adjustments
will wear out over time. Overall, I wouldn't call these delicate, but I
wouldn't just toss them in any bag and throw them around too much. The
headphones are ratchet adjustable, but like it's really hard to get exactly one
notch, but I don't think it's too big of a deal because you have enough wiggle
room that when you get them on your head, you'll pretty easily be able to find a position that feels really good.
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
500 line is clamping pressure. That's when the ear cups are pressing against
the side of your head. Um this is much lighter, but they still
stay in position really well. And, just putting them on my head, they're very
comfortable. [music] The combination of the lightweight plus the lessened clamping force compared to other
Sennheiser designs is really nice. And, these plush
velour ear cups, also great. And, the synthetic leather on the headband is
sufficient as well. These are very open headphones. There's very little noise
isolation. I mean like just look at the dust cover in here. Usually, you can't
see a driver that clearly, but you can see you can see the mesh like just
barely. It almost like feels cheap. It's one of those things that's kind of like
with gaming mice how like things have become so light because that's a good
thing that picking it up feels like it lacks luxuriousness and heft, and this
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
impressions, here's some quick specs about the headphone itself. The drivers
are 38-mm dynamic drivers. The headphones have a resistance of 150
ohms, but they're very sensitive, so they're quite easy to drive. I had no
issue running this off of the laptop or
off of this overkill JDS Elements amp.
The reported frequency response from Sennheiser is 6 Hz to 39.5 kHz, which is
well beyond the range of human hearing, which usually goes from 20 to 20,000 Hz.
So, um you're probably covered, but it should be noted that open-back
headphones, especially Sennheiser open-backs, are noted for their bass
roll-off. That means they're not kind of the bassiest headphones. It gets a lot
quieter down there. Uh and that's not always a bad thing. That's just a point
of preference. So, let's let's take a listen now.
They sound really good. Like, I don't know what more could you
really ask for. These are, on the whole, a relatively uh neutral headphone,
though they have a little bit of extra sparkle in the top end compared to, I'd
say, the typical Sennheiser um headphone. So, if you're somebody who maybe has had a HD 600 in the past and
you thought that they felt veiled, this, I would say, solves that problem.
Though, I will say with some specific distortion on certain tracks, there was
um some clear peaks in the treble, but
honestly nothing too offensive. While these aren't exactly a bassy headphone,
they have no troubles reproducing the bass. And, I'm sure if you slapped a
nice EQ on this, you could get a little bit of a better bass response if you want some real rumble. You're obviously
not going to be able to get as much bass as you would with a closed-back headphone. That's just the nature of
open-back headphones. And, I will say that like while I was wearing these and listening to music, you can really hear
everything, and I'm sure you guys can attest that you can hear everything I
was listening to. And, it wasn't even at a very loud volume. But,
honestly, easy recommend from a personal perspective. There's
enough detail in the highs, the mids are very full-bodied, things sound natural,
but I am not every pair of ears. So, let's take a look at what Labs has to
say about these. We're taking a look at our frequency response chart right here.
The average listener preference, that's the white area. Basically, headphones
that fall into this area will probably sound good to anybody. They might not
sound good to everybody, but on average you got a good there's a good chance
you'll like them. The red line is what we're looking at, and that's the actual
frequency response. And, as we can see, this does a great job of staying in the
average listener area. And, you can see that it's also very, very flat, which
indicates a fairly neutral sound. When we look at
the low end, that's where we see that bass roll-off that is substantially
outside of the window. I would not consider that to be bad. That is a point
of preference. Many people will enjoy extra oomph in their bass cuz it's a
little bit more fun to listen to. But, as I said, bass reproduction on this is
very clear. It's very good. And, maybe if you want to bump it up in your EQ,
you might be able to uh get a little bit more fun out of these. The only real
thing of note that was pointed out to me from Labs is a spike at around 10 kHz.
You might find that if you're very sensitive to sounds around that region, that's very high-pitched sounds. So,
things like, as I mentioned before, distortion or like kind of the the
sparkle of cymbals, you might find that this brings those out a little much. I
would not call it overpowering, but something to note. The Labs comments
call out that the bass is a bit lean. I agree. Uh but, great midrange and upper
mids and treble are a bit forward. I think it sounds really good and
relatively balanced, and I liked that added detail. I think these are
excellent, and I'm glad that the graphs back me up. So, who is this for and how
much are you going to pay for it? If you are somebody who is cool with a simple
wired headphone, to me, this has almost made the HD 600s
pointless. These sound so good, and they're substantially cheaper. These go
for $350, but we've actually seen these on sale for 250 Canadian dollars, which
is like, honestly, a no-brainer if you're in the market for a good pair of
headphones. I have literally zero hesitations recommending this to anybody
who wants a straight-up simple pair of headphones.
Sennheiser just made a lot of their more expensive headphones kind of pointless.
You played yourself. But, you know what? That's good because we, the consumer,
win. Finally, one for the little guys. Thanks
for watching. If you enjoyed this video, why not check out my video on the Focal
Bathys? That's the things that I listen to every single day at my desk here at
work. And, they are wonderful headphones.