The Headphones to Buy. Period. - HD6XX Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2017-05-06
·
1,317 words · ~6 min read
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I'm not new to the Sennheiser HD 600,
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650, 6XX, whatever it is you want to call it. I bought my pair of them along
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with a selection of cans from the likes of Bear Dynamic, AKG, Ody, and Audio
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Technica back in late 2013 when I was
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working on a review of some other audio file headphones, and I realized that I
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lacked the context to discuss their place in the market. Anyway, while I was
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able to achieve the context I desired, for one reason or another, I never
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actually got around to reviewing any of those contextual headphones. In the case
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of the Sennheiser HD600 specifically, it
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was because while I loved them and they became my still to this day daily driver
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about a year later, they're very, very
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similar replacement. The HD 650s already
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existed and I wasn't going to run out and drop another $400 on the same damn
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product so that I could make a video that would already be 10 years past its
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best before date. But there's good news.
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Massdrop is in the house with their Sennheiser HD 6X Massdrop edition, aka
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the excuse to have Brandon shoot seven minutes of gorgeous B-roll of a
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20-year-old product that I think is awesome. Not to mention, spoiler alert,
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an unbelievable
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value. Corsair's ML fans feature
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magnetic levitation technology and custom engineered rotors to provide a
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high performance, low-noise experience. Learn more at the link in the video
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description. So, let's kick this off with what
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exactly makes the Sennheiser HD 6XX a
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Massdrop edition product? Not much. Compared to the HD
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650, it features a shorter cord that terminates in a 3 and 12 mm jack instead
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of a quarterinch jack. Oh, there's an adapter to quarter inch if you want. And
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the plastic color scheme has been changed from a speckled gray to a really
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dark almost black matte blue that feels
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a little cheapo. And that's it. They're matte
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blue HD 650s with a 50-inch cable and a
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smaller connector on the end. And oh right, wait for it. This is where I
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dropped the big change, the bomb. They've got a cheaper black and white
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packaging. I've got my confirmation from Sennheiser directly that unlike previous
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Massdrop edition products like the K7XX, nothing has been altered
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acoustically. So then for the uninitiated, what are the HD 650s and
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why should you care? They are along with
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their close siblings the HD600 and HD 580 one of the most famous audio file
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headphones in the world whose performance has been chased by other
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manufacturers at this price point since the release of the original over 20
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years ago in 1993 and whose sound
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signature I would say even more so than the flagship HD800 series is
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identifiable as the Sennheiser sound
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since from my experience it bears more similarity to the company's lower-end
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products, just better. So, that is to
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say, they're not accurate in the same sense that a studio monitor might be
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accurate. They don't have a totally flat frequency response curve, but this is by
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design to make them less fatiguing and more natural sounding on human ears
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where they're intended to be worn. And they don't make the mistake that many
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mainstream headphones do today of overdoing the bass at the expense of the
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clarity of everything else because that's what sells to millennials. They
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sound great whether you listen to them out of the box or tune the EQ because
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you do like a little bit more thump. On the subject of out of the box,
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the included cables are replaceable. So you can go bananas replacing them and
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you can run out and buy a audio Valhalla 2 headphone amplifier. But in
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spite of their 300 ohm impedance, they also destroy just about anything else at
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this price point running off of an iPhone. So just because you don't have
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additional budget for an amp today doesn't mean I would stay away from
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them. With that said though, even fans of the HD600 series don't believe that
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they are perfect. They are not a fashion
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statement and are definitely part of the reason that the original Monster Beats
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by Dre was able to storm onto the personal audio scene in 2008 by not
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looking stupid. Even though they didn't work without a battery in them, suffered
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from subpar build quality and sounded like thumpy ass. But at least the HD600
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series is comfortable. Clamping pressure out of the box might be a little tighter
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than some would like and the ear cup foam isn't the softest memory foam known
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to man or anything like that. That award is reserved for the Bose QC35s, but they
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break in very nicely over time to the point where it's easy for me to forget
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that I'm wearing mine entirely. But a part of that too, I think, is the
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openbacked design of the HD600 series.
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The benefit of this is the natural sound of the music, movies, or games that
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you're listening to. With the drawback being though that ambient noise can be
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disruptive and well, let's just say I wouldn't flip on some really loud angry
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porn with your mom in the next room cuz everyone around you knows exactly what
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you're listening to. Which leads me then pretty well into a conclusion that is
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both obvious and very difficult for me
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to write. On the one hand, I feel the need to defend myself from the incoming
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barrage of comments criticizing me for giving a positive review to a product
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available exclusively from one of our sponsors. But on the other hand, I can
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use literally any headphone I want. I
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literally have more than one shelf of
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headphones and headsets ranging anywhere from 50 bucks to over a thousand. And
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these or ones almost exactly like them are the ones on my desk at home. So for
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some of you that won't be enough and that's fine. Line of shield tips,
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whatever. For the rest of you, go grab some HD 6Xs, assuming there are any
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left. The 350 that I paid secondhand
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felt like a good deal already. $200 brand new is an absolutely unreal value
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for these. Enjoy. Today in front of me,
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I've got the bloody gaming peripheral lineup from A4 Tech. They sent us a
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bunch of their products. Their G500 gaming headset, which has got 40
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millimeter drivers and inline mic and is $39.99 on Newegg for a limited time.
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Their B720 keyboard, which is a full layout keyboard that comes with eight
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silicone key caps, as well as an extended palm rest. Their ZL50 mouse is
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driver-free and comes with an Avago 9800 sensor. And their B070 is a smooth
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surface mouse pad that it's getting it all over. You can
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see this and more over at Newegg at the link in the video description for a
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limited time. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know
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what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or
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check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured at I'm just kidding.
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It's not an Amazon mass drop in the video description. Also linked in the
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description is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one, and our community forum, which you should
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totally join. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next. So, click
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