My New Sennheiser HD600 (vs Goldring DR150)

Hello, hello... How are you guys? Sorry for the long interval between my posts, but my work life is getting into my blogging life. Pardon. So, here I am, wanting to post about my new Sennheiser HD600. Okay, maybe not so new, as I buy it as B-Stock, but well, its still new for me. Not bored yet? Well, read on!

I was happy with my Goldring DR150. For the price I paid, I got this wonderfully smooth and dark sound, with good sound-stage and positioning. It was easy to drive too; my FiiO E10 is more than enough to drive it. But I was growing unhappy, mainly because the grain on the sound, and plastic-y timbre which more and more apparent as I used to the sound.

So, I’m saving for an upgrade, and then after searching and asking on head-fi.org, my choice fall to either Sennheiser HD600 or HD650. But the price is really high here in Indonesia, much more than in the Europe or US. I was going to search for another, cheaper headphone but my good friend, who was completing his doctorate degree (damn, I'm so jealous!), said he was going home to Indonesia for 2 month, and offered to hand carry things for me. Yay! God bless you, my friend!

My HD600 is a B-Stock. FYI, B-Stock also known as Open-Box, so when I open the box and saw how it was in completely pristine condition, I knew I'm very lucky guy. It's practically new!
I'm not going to write a full review of this headphone. Mainly because this headphone is a classic and there were so many review out there about HD600, I don't have anything left to add. So I guess I'll just write an impression versus my DR150.

HD600 comes with this nice box, very handy to store the headphone when not in use, but rather troublesome to store because its big size. The headphone itself is slimmer than DR150, and the build quality is much better. DR150 looks like a plastic toy compared to HD600. The grill is much more open, you could see the internal driver from outside the grill. It's heavier too, and the clamp, oh dear God, the CLAMP! It's practically head-crusher. After very, very carefully bending the metal headband, the clamp is tolerable, although still quite tight. DR150 sit feather light in comparison, although the velour is not as comfortable.

People said HD600 as warm, dull headphone, but I found them quite neutral, even little bit leaning on brighter side. Yes, it's brighter than DR150, which has this dark sound to it. The treble on HD600 is fuller, smoother with no nasty peak. The bass isn't as big or as hard hitting as Dr150, but still punchy, more detailed and well controlled. Then the mid, oh dear God... So beautiful, detailed, and natural, my Dr150 sounded so mushy and plastic-y in comparison. But, I wish HD600 little bit darker. Just little bit, not as dark as my DR150. Maybe changing the tube (or valve) on my Aune T1 could remedy it?! (I'm NOT going to spill some 450 bucks for HD650!)

Ok, now, the not so good parts. First, as I said before, the clamp is quite tight. And it not exactly light headphone either. The impedance is quite high, 300 Ohm which need some amplifier to sound best. My FiiO E10 could drive it loud, but the sound is not as good as my Aune T1 which much more powerful. And the sound still has some grain in it, not so much as DR150, but its there. I guess the aging driver showing its weakness. Oh, and as I said before, I wish the sound little bit darker.

So that's my impression of my new HD600. I keep going back to it, especially when I listen to acoustic and vocal songs. The sound is so smooth and organic, and natural (I really can't stress this enough). For 250* Euro I paid, it was no regret.

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*note: HD600 usually priced closer to 300 Euro, or 400 USD.