Their respective tonalities are pretty close on ~$100 solid state amps out there. The HD58X exhibits just a bit more sub-bass presence since it doesnât roll-off as quick as the HD6XX and the treble of the HD58X has slightly more energy than the HD6XX but theyâre pretty close. However, when it comes to technicalities, even on a Magni 3/Modi 3 Schiit stack, I could tell that the HD6XX outclassed the HD58X, e.g. with regards instrument separation during busy passages, especially for classical music, you can hear the instruments starting to glob together on the HD58X where the HD6XX keeps them much better delineated.
On tube amps, even on the relatively affordable Darkvoice 336SE (non-stock tubes), the HD6XX truly separates itself from the HD58X. The 150ohm impedance HD58X doesnât do too well on OTL tube amps like the Darkvoice compared to the 300ohm impedance HD6XX, the latter just loves the voltage that OTL tube amps provide.
You should also consider where you plan to go with audio. The 6xx/650 scale up with higher quality amps and dacs ridiculously well. The 58x will top out relatively quickly. If you plan on going on an audio journey the 6xx can be a valuable companion because it will give a familiar reference point along the way. I recently reacquired a 6xx myself and it sounds really good on higher tier amps like Liquid Platinum, G111, or ZDT jr.
My 6XX with the HD600 head band/padding ($10 I think from Sennheiser directly) and Dekoni Suede pads ($50) with Hart Audio Cable.
I know that learning what you like is just part of the journey, but if I had been given these to start with I probably would have never gone down this audio rabbit hole to begin with lol. But hey, itâs not the destination, itâs the friends we made along the way!
I bought these along with the fenestrated sheepskin pads from Drop and used those for a long time, then switched back over to stock pads. I didnât really think much of them until I got the suede Dekoni pads for the 177X GO and was really blown away at how comfortable they are as well as how much more they emphasize the bass.
So I looked to see if Dekoni made any for the 6XX and sure enough they did. Iâve been listening for a few hours now and I just find them to be way more comfortable and they also emphasize, to my ears, the bass and mid-bass frequencies more. Those always had to be EQâd up a little bit for my tastes but now they donât.
I got a pair of 58x that came with the Drop Hybrid and Drop Velour pads. Those Drop Velour are comfortable. Much better then stock pads and, maybe this is placebo or bias, but I think they improve the sound a bit. SoundsâŠcleaner. Having trouble articulating this. What did the Fenestrated Sheepskin do to the sound if you donât mind me asking another question?
So I just did some A / B testing with them⊠I prefer the sound of the sheepskin pads more. Theyâre comfortable but itâs weird⊠itâs like the longer I wear them the less comfortable I feel they are. They start off kind of cold and then almost⊠sticky. I constantly feel the need to shift them around a little bit.
The Dekoni are much more comfortable to me and markedly darker. Bass and mid-bass are much more emphasized but⊠eh, now that Iâm comparing them, not in a good way. What makes the 6XX special is their mids and the suede pads overemphasize the low end over the mids. I mean theyâre still good, but the sound of the stock or fenestrated pads are better to me.
So it looks like for me itâs a trade-off of comfort vs. sound.
You mentioned you have 6xx, orignally plugged it directly into your PC, then got a Modius and Jot 2. Iâm curious, what did you think of the performance increase of the 6xx with that Schiit stack?
While I certainly noticed a difference, Iâm not by any means an experienced listener, so Iâm not sure how to describe it. I can say that itâs a larger difference that going from balanced to single ended on the Jot2 since I have both RCA and XLR connections going from the Modius to the Jot2, but beyond that, I canât say much.
Can anyone recommend a 4.4mm balanced cable for my trusty HD650âs? The two criteria are that the 2 pin plugs fit snugly in the headphone itself and they are not microphonic. Thanks!
Hi All,
Iâve attempted to ask these questions in other forums, with little response, but now that I have ordered the 6XX from Drop, and I keep reading how much these headphones like tubes, I was wondering if the following would give me a taste of what people are talking about:
(1) I have a JDS Element II - would using a cheap tube âpreamplifierâ like those sold by Fosi, nobsound, fxaudio, etc. and passing it through the element give me a good idea of what tubes would do for the 6xx?
(2) Has anyone tried using (or would any owners be willing to pretty-please try and compare) something like this to âreal tubesâ and tell me if this would give me a decent idea of the sound off of something like a Little Dot II or Crack?:
PS: this is a VST plugin and requires a host program. Having a Mac, I attempted to use MenuBus as it is free, but it is also out of date, and did not output sound to my usb for some reason. I found that SoundSource works very well, was made by the same person, and allows for system wide eq, etc. on Mac, and while it is $40, also has a trial that would allow fellow tinkerers to check it out:
No, it might give a bit more fullness and some roll off, with a bit more space but less accuracy to your element, potentially better timbre depending on the tube, but itâs not going to be all that similar to an actual tube amp driving them imo. Personally Iâm not the biggest fan of adding one of the cheaper tube preâs, as I donât really feel they typically add worthwhile coloration and typically diminish technical performance, but they are cheap enough to grab one and try without having to worry about wasting too much money if you donât like it (but there is added cost of trying out different tubes if you do that, but donât throw too much money into tubes for a cheap pre)
That also sounds nothing like an actual tube amp, typically plugins like that add some enjoyable/desirable coloration for better richness and fullness, sometimes adding a bit of extra artificial space, but it doesnât really accurately recreate the sound of driving something from a tube. Again also free to try and could be desirable depending on the person (and are pretty nice for actual studio work if you donât have real tube gear on hand and want a specific sort of sound), but itâs moreso an eq with a bit more play in the time domain than it is running something through an actual tube.
The cheaper preamp will give you a more accurate sound of what driving it off a tube may sound like vs the plugin, but both are still somewhat far off, the pre and the vst are more adding coloration than emulating the driving characteristics imo
M0N, I am not surprised (although a bit saddened for my pocketbook) that this is the reality - but I canât see why it would be impossible to produce the same sonic effect using software emulation. Any insights?
Just thinking out loud here, so please tell me if/where I am wrong, and know that I am not trolling, I just really want to understand: Unless one buys into literal magic and woo, it cannot be that a tube amplifier is ârecoveringâ lost information in the recording, only that tubes color the sound by rolling off frequencies and introduce second order harmonic distortion. Granted, it might be that the way in which tubes react to the load of the Sennheiser HE6xx etc. is such that it introduces it in ways/places that are pleasing and compliment/cover over the weaknesses of the headphones and the mix, or that the kind of distortion added gives one a better sense of space that appears to be lost in the antiseptic studio rooms where many original recordings were made and when, if one likes e.g. 60s Jazz, sound engineers would have been mastering using gear that would itself have had such sonic characteristics, and more importantly were mastering for people who would be listening to LPs. That said:
(a) I can understand that different tube amplifiers with different tubes will sound different, and so the specific character of distortion introduced by the above program might not accurately represent what something like a little dot or Crack would give
(b) Likewise, I can understand that the kind of coloration/saturation one might get from a preamplifier (especially a cheap one) might not be the same as one would get if driving from a proper tube amplifier, as opposed to hybrid, in part due to the weird ways that tubes react to different loads, in part because they produce more of the characteristic sound coloration when substantially amplifying a signal rather than just acting as little more than a potentiometer with minuscule gain.
So right away, I am not an expert in how things work, I just listen to them and say what I hear, I am not too concerned on how things get to the result but the result itself. So there are likely others more apt to give you a better technical answer to this question
Well, it comes down to how convincing and realistic it can be, it can alter harmonic structure, add roll off, and screw with the time domain, mess with distortion characteristics, etc, but can you do that as convincingly as a real tube? That is the question. Itâs most likely possible, but at least to my ears we havenât really got there yet. When you compare a tube vst plugin, you are more trying to emulate the sound of a tube preamp into your solid state gear rather than trying to emulate actually being driven by a tube at least in this case, thatâs 2 very different things. Actually being driven by a tube isnât going to interact as similarly. Itâs like if you compare a real guitar to a synthesized one via a plugin, they might sound similar but how actually close they sound will depend on how good of a plugin it is and how good of a listener you are, it can likely fool someone who is untrained but not someone who is an experienced listener, again it all depends on what level of quality and realism you actually demand. And thatâs also a more limited example, since running actual music through something is much more demanding and exposing of flaws compared to running a single thing like a guitar into it
I donât think anyone is claiming that, if they are, they really shouldnât be
Also heavily affects time domain performance as well, which can be a massive factor in how tubes sound, at least from what I know. You also arenât taking into account the fairly linear increasing distortion as you continue to push tubes harder, soft clipping that can occur when driving tubes hard, and the damping factor you get depending on the design of the output stage which can also affect things as well. And so on (again from what I know)
Thatâs going to be a big factor that you just wonât get by running either a tube pre or modeled pre into a solid state amp
That is correct, the studio plugins are more designed after replicating mic preamps or tube buffers for studio gear, which arenât exactly what you want for playback and arenât designed after typical playback gear
Yep. Also itâs moreso that just putting a bad preamp inbetween your chain will give you a lesser result, the chain is only as good as the weakest link, if you have to run everything through a crappy pre thatâs not going to be the best for sound quality regardless of the tech the pre uses. And from my experience really good preamps arenât cheap
Also to be clear, tube products can sound wildly different. Personally I have and have heard tube products that you would never be able to tell apart from a solid state, all depends on what the designer is going for. I really dislike that âtube soundâ people describe, I prefer something that is more going for organic and realism rather than messy bloated warmth and body. You can have insanely fast, clean, extended, and detailed tube amps, or you can have a warm gooey mess. All depends on the quality of the product and the goal of the design
You also arenât taking into account the quality of amplification, you might be able to replicate itâs signature, but you wonât be able to replicate itâs enhanced technical abilities depending on what amplifier you compare. You canât really use a software plugin to improve the detail of your jds labs, nor improve other technical aspects either. Same goes for trying to replicate some aspects of a tube amp, depending on the amp of course
The reason the crack is highly suggested here is mainly because it helps address some of the weaknesses of the 6xx, by increasing stage width and spatiousness, adding more bass body and warmth without sacrificing clarity and speed too much, giving more macrodynamics while reasonably preserving microdynamics, still being decently detailed. Also further improves timbre as well. How it accomplishes that really isnât something Iâm personally concerned with, all that I care about is that it sounds good to my ears lol
If you boil things down, the question really becomes âcan I use software to make one piece of hardware sound like anotherâ, and it all depends and there isnât a clear cut answer, but from my experience itâs typically no
Basically you can start to approach this question yourself by comparing running your tube pre into your amp, and compare that to just using the plugin, and compare your results. If that gives you the result you want, great, if it doesnât, then try out something like a bhc+sb or if you canât push for that try a darkvoice or little dot and see what happens
Tldr thereâs more that goes into it than you think, Iâm not exactly qualified to explain why, but itâs something you really need to experience for yourself and see how things turn out. One of those things that makes sense in theory, but fails/isnât feasible in practice
Also one of the reasons why some feel the 6xx is better served by tube amps is because they are more voltage focused/oriented devices which will work better with higher impedance loads
Another problem with software processing is that when you process via software typically you have more signal deterioration from said processing compared to an actual tube amp, depending on the quality of the emulation and plugin, but I havenât heard one good enough to fully avoid this detriment to my ears given that you are running pure music through it. If it was a single channel just pure guitar recording the effects are sometimes less noticeable. You have to realize that those tube effects are more for creative purposes than actually recreating a tube accurately, itâs there to give you another color pallet/option not really there to truly recreate the sound of a tube
I will mention @Polygonhell since heâs much more experienced with tube designs and how software audio processing works than I am
There is no end of woo that one can find if one searches through audiophile land, and this was indeed something I saw someone say (albeit on a different site) such as people insisting that a magical puck placed in their room somehow transforms the sound. The cross-section between marketers that want to sell stuff, technology that few of the consumers actually understand, and consumers themselves who are prone to confirmation bias, marketing suggestibility, and the sunk cost fallacy has produced a perfect storm. I know that long ago I convinced myself that changing a cable and CD player made a difference, even though I knew deep down that it really didnât. The last time I remember being in an audio boutique to hear amps and CD players, the salesman left me to listen to a couple of players, telling me that he was sure I would like the more expensive unit. Being young at the time, I told him I actually liked the other one, which he explained away as due to some âsynergyâ between the amp and CD player. In reality, I was too shy to just admit that I did not hear a damned difference at all.
Where I part ways with the âobjectivistsâ is that I am certain that âa straight wire with gainâ and 0 coloration can sound worse, less life-like, less realistic, harsh, and pleasant on some recordings. It might admittedly have been the mastering, but I had a song by Mingus on CD and LP and listening to them back to back there was no contest - the CD sounded good, but sterile and artificial, while the LP, despite its flaws, felt alive, realistic, and as though the music was being played in the room. That is what I want to hear again. If tubes (of the right sort) would give that to me, or even if they would just make Charlie Patton listenable by softening/rounding off and covering up the aggressive static in the background of those recordings, it would be well worth it to me. But yeah, the only tubes I have heard sounded like solid states and had just as much, if not more, of that sterile, artificial character that bothered me on lesser gear. If it werenât for lockdown, I would likely go into one of those audio boutique viper pits with some headphones just to have a listen for myself. Of course, the fact that this is not possible only makes me yearn all the more for the ability to be transported into a jazz club (rather than a recording studio.) And with my wife being locked inside with me, I really canât just crank my speakers and subject her to loud musicâŠ
Itâs not really that simple, an FR graph doesnât capture everything.
You can go look at actual FR measurements across the whole chain, and the only thing that has any real visible effect are the headphones, you literally canât distinguish a -60dB SiNad amp for a -140dB SiNad amp because the distortion from the transducer (headphone) is orders of magnitude more and so they all look the same.
That doesnât mean the amps or other components sound the same, just that the test doesnât capture that difference.
On the 6?? in particular there are a number of things that using especially lower priced tube amps does. The impedance curve for the 6?? has big spikes at the upper end and lower end of the frequency response, so amps drive them differently in those areas, and with the generally higher impedance output of tube amps that is more noticeable, and generally results in a better balanced headphone in the case of the 6??.
They will add varying degrees of harmonic distortion, which will make the midrange sound richer, though not all tube amps do this to the same extent or even at all when you get to more expensive amps.
The third thing is they provide a different feel to the start and end of notes, and the way Macro and Micro detail is portrayed than most SS amps. There are other things they do which have to do with the sort of noise they do not introduce especially if they have a tube based rectifier.
Most of this outside the 2nd order harmonics and marginal FR changes are changes in the time domain, they are subtle, but they add up.
Tube emulators IME work well for scenarios like guitar amps (though lots of guitarists would disagree) where your after the macro effects, specifically lots of 2nd order harmonics and how tubes behave when the input is overdriven. Iâve never heard one that sounded like an actual good audio tube amp.
Now my unpopular opinion on tube amps, Iâm all in on tubes, though I prefer the cleaner sounding ones, but they arenât worth it at the budget end of the scale, just too many things work against them, and in the favor of SS amps. I think the BHC, SW51+, Haggerman Tuba, probably the Quicksilver, possibly the Felix Audio amps are where tubes start to make some sense.
Now lots of people like the Dark Voice and Little Dot Mk2, but to me they are really just novelty sounds, and not what tubes are about.
The circuits in tube amps are trivially simple, but that means they depend heavily on the quality of component and especially the power supply, coupling caps and if they use them the output transformers.
I understand the desire to want to hear what a tube amp does, but entry level amps donât demonstrate that.
You can get something that sounds more realistic and convincing if you just move up to the next performance bracket, it doesnât exactly matter what technology it takes to get there imo
A cd player can totally make a big difference, or not, depends on the setup and the quality of the player
Synergy is pretty important and so is preference, so yes some things just do or donât sound good together despite differences in technical level. Now if you can hear/care about those differences depend on lots of things.
It just flat out doesnât exist. You canât escape coloration, so no such thing imo
Quick note on the differences between cd and lp, they can sound equally as good, but it all depends on your setup and the source material. Sometimes you find that the LP is mastered better than the cd, or that your vinyl setup outclasses your digital setup, all depends
If you get specific tube gear that is tuned to do that, itâs totally attainable. The bhc comes to mind in doing just that imo
Itâs been the current trend in audio, that âhifiâ bright clean and slightly dry tuning that emphasizes some technical performance over realism
