If you are a professional music producer or an audiophile, then the Sennheiser HD 650 was built specifically for you! Of course, before you get a set of HD 650s, you must understand that they are specialized pieces, and the chances of under-utilizing or even completely misaligning their performance is pretty high. All you need to know is outlined in the Sennheiser HD 650 review below, read on!
Sennheiser HD 650 Review
Design and Build
There is a close semblance between most of Sennheiser’s high-end headphones. They are equipped with large earcups measuring about 4.5 inches at their peak. They also spot squashed ovals. To provide a better fit and a more natural appearance, the brand tilts each ear backward. We tested a pair of Sennheiser HD 650 headphones that spots a dark gray gunmetal plastic design that is slightly sparkly. It came with earcups that are of a darker shade of gray which offered a bit of contrast.
The exterior of the earcup spots a metal mesh cage that serves as the driver protector while also allowing a good view of the complex driver construction within. This design also makes the open-back soundstage possible. The open-back soundstage improves sound quality considerably but that will be discussed in another section.
Compared to the speckled blue Sennheiser 650, the design of the HD 650 appears simpler and more effective. Besides that, it is more stylish too. These headphones never fail to deliver a clean, robust, and detailed sound whether you are using them for your daily music enjoyment or a professional mixing session.
The exterior design is quite beautiful, one we find synonymous with the design of premium headphones. Besides aesthetics, we believe the Sennheiser HD 650 has a strong design, we consider it to be sturdier than the Sennheiser 650. It has a plastic headband which was a choice made to help maintain the 0.57-pound weight. Of course, the sturdy design on the HD 650 means you don’t have to worry about the plastic so much because they won’t just crack under simple pressure. The guiding metal band inside these headphones offers a little less flexibility than what the Sennheiser 650 offers. This assures us that the mechanism for size adjustment will stand the test of time.
Sennheiser HD 650 Performance and Sound
With headphones of this range, you always expect a bit of this and that when it comes to the quality of sound. It is often a difficult task to parse the sound of such headphones if you are not well informed about specs. The frequency response is the easiest bit of sound spec to understand; it covers everything between 10 Hz to 39.5 kHz. The human hearing range is pegged at 20 Hz to 20 kHz although you will find a narrower range among people who have experienced subtle hearing damages through the course of their life. With this, you understand that the Sennheiser HD 650 offers slightly below the human range of 20 Hz to allow users to hear every bit of bass including sub-harmonic frequencies.
They also offer a good amount of range even beyond the theoretical limit. This tells you that you shouldn’t worry about distortion since the range you are offered doesn’t climb up to the outer limits of these headphones. Summarily, with the HD 650, you won’t hear the impossible but you get accurate sound.
Accuracy is seminal here considering the Sennheiser HD 650 headphones are designed for studio monitoring with their flat response. With these headphones, you won’t find bass accentuation which is synonymous with consumer headphones. Also, you won’t experience the cutting highs common with earbuds and telephone headsets. What you are guaranteed to hear is an accurate reproduction of sound or something very close. The impedance on the Sennheiser HD 650 is super-high (with the measure of the power it takes to drive them at 300 ohms). When you add the impedance to the accurate sound delivery described above, you have a set of cans perfect for enjoying clear audio in a studio or as an audiophile. You should get yourself a headphone amp, audio interface, or DAC otherwise you will be losing a lot of detail and volume due to the high ohm count.
Final Thoughts Sennheiser HD 650
There aren’t a lot of issues to be found within the Sennheiser HD 650. They deliver as advertised with a lot of headroom on both sides of the frequency range and impeccable detail on offer. They deliver this sweetness with the same comfort and ease lacking in most products from other brands. As a professional or audiophile, you know you’ve got to get yourself this beauty!