So lurked around here and bought a pair of awesome IEM's for an unbelievable $20 - The Salnotes 7hz. The detail and out of the box tuning impressed me greatly. So wanted to see the hype with open backs and got the highly reviewed HD 560s. They are doing everything well, I use wavelet for EQ but They sound pretty flat out of the box. It blows my Sony ANC headphones out of the water in terms of comfort and fidelity. I've put in a few days of heavy listening and this is my verdict. They are great headphones that suit my sound profile perfectly. I despise bloated bass and really like the refined midrange. these are resolving but not as much as the 7Hz. Soundstage is slightly bigger than the the IEM. But I have really well setup speakers - 2 pairs for stereo and a dedicated home theater setup and I can tell you soundstage is nowhere near what my speakers can do. The imaging is good and the low end extension is a little bit better than the 7Hz. I guess with the open backs I was hoping for the best of both worlds in terms of sitting between an IEM and my speakers. But really I am not feeling the open back hype, it still sounds enclosed and the narrow soundstage just makes it still pretty much a headphone experience.

I reach for my IEM to catch the details I miss from my speakers but really default choice for listening are my speakers because of the 3d soundstage and imaging.

So I guess in my Audiophile Journey I am going to stick to the experience that a good pair of IEM's / Headphones for detail but for a great listening experience for my personal taste speakers cannot be replaced.

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newbie audio enthusiast here

After watching some reviews I bought the tin p1 max big panda on avexchange and damn do they have everything that I've been looking for. A warm neutral tuning with just the right amount of bass. Reviewers mentioned them having a very "relaxed" sound and those are exactly my thoughts,. They sound so damn smooth even in the treble never sounding sibilant or fatiguing. Vocals have a nice weight to them and sound natural, my favorite thing about this iem honestly I love some good vocals. The "timbre" I think? is really great every instrument just sounds so natural as if i were hearing it in person. In terms of technical performance performance its really good for the price soundstage feels decently wide, detail retrieval/separation is super impressive, and imaging is very accurate. Its not at the level of the moondrop blessing 2's technical performance but Imo it gets fairly close to it. For comfort, it beats everything that I've had blessing 2, t3 plus, and the raptgo hook x. Been using spinfit tips and those contribute to the comfort as well. I mainly listen to rock/metal, indie rock/pop occasionally hip hop and the p1max had done really well with these genres. These have also since replaced my fidelio x2hr for gaming due to the accurate imaging.

Got into this hobby with the fidelio x2hr enjoyed them at first but overtime really disliked the tuning and technical performance. Then got into iems with the t3 plus and much preferred them due to the balanced warm sound over the fidelios although their technical performance was really average. I than bought blessing 2's and really enjoyed their technical performance but disliked the cold/analytical tuning. As for the raptgo hook x they had a grainy texture to them that I wasn't a fan of.

HD600 is a much, much better headphone than the 650/6XX. It's basically the same driver as the 650, except it isn't over-dampened. Its only real downside is the bass roll-off, but everything else about it IS good, and you can EQ the 'boring' parts of it to be more lively without much issue.

It's kind of like a much, much better version of the KSC75, which to my ears, still sounds better than the 6XX/650, lol

Timbre is a reflection of frequency response, though. Which can be changed.

And no, I'm not saying that frequency response is literally everything, but timbre is a property of instruments, and its essentially the properties of an instrument that make it sound like... well, itself.

So for good timbre to be correct, that means that the tonality of the headphone has to be accurate to your ears in that respect, which is, again, frequency response.

That's why I don't put much importance on a headphone's timbre, because if I have issues with that specific property of the headphone, I can just fix it with EQ.

With the 6XX, it has recessed treble (EQ thankfully helps), really muddy bass with no texture or definition (EQ hasn't helped this, have tried for a while), and all the frequencies smear together compared to other headphones because the driver is over-dampened. Yeah, the mids and timbre are good, but the rest of the sound suffers as a result. I'd rather just get a headphone without these issues, and tune the mids to be similar to the 650/6XX, so I can get its benefits and the rest of them as well.

That's why I disagree so heavily with the recommendation. It's way too expensive for what you get, there's better-sounding (I know, subjective, but at least in terms of the rest of the frequency range), options both more expensive and less expensive.

I still have my 6XX, right next to me. Sometimes I'll put them on, give them a listen to see if there's anything I'm actually missing about them, but all it ends up doing is make me appreciate how much better almost everything else is.

I'm fairly used to it, lol. No one likes hearing that their favorite might not be as good as they think it is.

People can like what they like, no debating that. But when people say that there's nothing beyond this, I'm like, "Buddy, you're using a headphone that's good at like two things out of eight. Don't even go there."

But that's okay, Reddit is free to Reddit all it wants. I don't expect the hivemind to change course.

> Arya aren't necessarily endgame as hifiman release headphones none stop. So the upgrade/sidegrade is a normal thing. That's why i said hd600 is endgame. Since 1997 Sennheiser released 2 other models ( 650 & 660s ) in the 6 series. So i'm good for a long time with it.

This is a genuinely bizarre definition of endgame. New models alter your perception of your holding's value?

For me, if you use Oratory1990's EQ preset then these really offer so much that anything more is just luxury unless one listens to EDM, metal etc that need a bit more and cleaner bass and even then they're fine.

That's a keyblade.

Thanks! I have other headphones and IEMs that offer good bass (with some other tradeoffs), so I'm pretty happy with the 600s. I don't have anything else that sounds like them, except maybe the Dunu Titan S, in a small way.

Would they benefit from a dac amp maybe like the shio? I bought both on a whim.

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These are two of headphones that I really have my eyes, maybe someday on the future. Definitely will keep my HD 660s for a long time too, as I just love their tonality :)

I will try it for sure, thanks 👍 Which one is your favorite 660s or Sundara??

For me it is the fact that they have a long history of producing high quality reliable products. I baby my Sundaras in comparison because I do not have the same faith in a brand like Hifiman.

Velcome!!! Check out the Oratory1990 EQ for them. It makes my 660s sound a lot more balanced to me.

Sennheiser offers pretty good comfort and a sound signature most people will enjoy. I had been a fan for the last 4 years but I wanted to try something different. Bought and returned the K240 Studio, great sound (for the money) but they lack a lot of bass extension to me. Today I got Philips X2HRs, first impressions are very positive. To me, the HD 600 line has a very unique midrange and soft treble. Everything else isn't that great compared to the competition IMO in the same price ratio. I get your frustration but most people first hifi headphones are usually Sennys.

Midrange and timbre are very important to me, which is why I pretty much enjoy the 600's sound more than other headphones I've tried. But I do listen to my K701's from time to time for something unique.

"Sense of balance" is exactly how i feel about this headphone. Not the best but still very satisfied while it's on my head 🙂.

I had the focal clear OG and the Arya Stealth, but hifiman is superior to my ears. Arya aren't necessarily endgame as hifiman release headphones none stop. So the upgrade/sidegrade is a normal thing. That's why i said hd600 is endgame. Since 1997 Sennheiser released 2 other models ( 650 & 660s ) in the 6 series. So i'm good for a long time with it.