High Quality Open-Back Headphones

I do love my HD650, but they are a bit on the hi-fi smooth side.

It's kind of a tossup for me between AKG and Sennhieser. I compared and bought the K701 AKGs but it could easily have gone the other way.

Used to use Grados and they were superb. Haven't heard these new ones.

Grados are amazing. Very natural sounding, but the models I've tried are seriously lacking in terms comfort.

I to love my Sennheiser HD 650. I'm in fact starting to use them more and more then my main monitors.

I have been using Sennheiser HD600 for a few years now .

They sound wonderful, and are very comfortable, never give me ear fatigue when using them for many hours (non-stop).

The Sennheiser HD650 is their newer model, it is a great sounding open-cone headphone, you will love it.

You can't go wrong with the HD650.

Hey Guys,


Thanks for all the input.

John,

I have the AKG K271 MKII and while they are balanced, they are not very comfortable o use after sometime. They also lack bass response which is misleading at times. The AKG K702 looks really nice and I am definitely going to give it serious thought since you are using it.

Grado looks great but the new headphone PS 500 is not cirumnaural and that is a bit of a turn off for me. I like headphones that sit around my ears. The PS 1000 are too expensive for me right now. Would rather pick up HS and HB! I am not sure which other ones are great and it will be a bit of trial and error I am afraid.

At least, I am familiar with AKG and Sennheiser.

I did listen to the HD 600 or 650 cant rememeber breifly. They sounded all right. Definitely the highgs were smooth but also slightly accentuated. Thats fine, at the end of the day they are headphones. I do cross-refer on my Dynaudio BM 6A's and the car speakers.

At this point, I am really looking at decent headphones that do not cause ear fatigue easily. No headphone can have the best response I guess.

So I think its going to be a stand off between Sennheiser HD 650 and AKG K702!


If the 702's are smiliar to the K271 MKII then I might given them a pass. If on the other hand they are better and retain the similar balance of sound, I might just pick them up. They dont seem to be available for demo here. I am going to look for it still.


Thanks.


Best,

Tanuj.

I can give a thumb up for K701/702 too. I have been using the K701's for almost 2 years now and am happy with them. Very well balanced. It's possible to mix with these alone (without even switching on my main monitors), I've done so on several projects and received positive feedback on the final sound from the clients.

They are comfortable to wear, barely noticable. I've done 10h sessions with these on my head

Some say the K701/702 are a bit thin in the low end but I think for scoring and non-brickwall-limited music the low end stands out enough. I know that the HD650 feels a bit deeper and for that reason probably more inspiring to work on pop or dance music on (where you need to 'feel' the groove).

This post rendered some good advise, at least that's what I thought:
(broken link removed)

And here you'll find a list of headphones ((broken link removed)) ranked by guys who can discuss the differences between the HD-800 and LCD-2 for 92! pages and counting. (https://www.head-fi.org/t/496130/audeze-lcd2-vs-sennheiser-hd800)

Tanuj,

Have you considered the Ultrasohn Pro 900? They get good reviews.

EDIT: Nevermind. I see you were looking for open backed.

Carry on.

Mahlon

I adore my HD600sss (along with a headphones amp from Grace Design of course... I think it makes a difference).

ozmorphasis @ Tue Sep 20 said:

Grados are amazing. Very natural sounding, but the models I've tried are seriously lacking in terms comfort.

Click to expand...

yep - ouch! - apparently there's a "sock trick" (!) where you cut the toes off a pair of socks and roll the tubes into doughnuts, leaving the elasticated tops to hook around the cans - et voila! ... weird looking but comfortable Grado's. I've been meaning to do it for ages... if only all my socks didn't smell of mould.

I have been using the Beyerdynamic DT880s for about 4 years now. I don't use any other monitoring equipment. They're ultra-comfortable and very transparent; can't recommend them enough.

I have the HD600, driven with a creek obh-21se amp and it feels like a good combo. Althought haven't had the chance to test other amps with these.

I love the hd600s, very fitting for orchestral/cinematic work. I would recommend getting a dedicated headphone amp for them, but that's gonna about double your budget if after good quality. Same goes for the hd650, 300 ohm headphones as they are.

I've also owned the dt-880 older model and they were actually quite similiar to the hd600. I felt they had an even more linear frequency response thro the same amp than the hd600. The hd600 get a nice natural boost to the low end with the creek obh, so I chose them in the end. I don't feel it colours the sound, more like brings the low end that was meant to be there with the hd600.

AKG701