Tom's Views

I’ve owned the  Sennheiser HD-650 headphones  for several years now.  In that time, I’ve used them with various CD players, iPods, headphone amps, and stereo receivers.  So let me review them here, as I’ve accrued quite a bit to say about them.

The HD650 headphones highly impressed me with their notably full sound.  There’s no part of the audio frequency spectrum that this HD-650 audio head gear fails to reproduce well, and loudly besides if required.  These are by far the best-performing headphones that I’ve ever owned in terms of sheer sound quality, and I’ve owned numerous headphones from Sony, Koss, Grado, and Apple over the past 35 years.

But unfortunately, with great sound comes a high price for the Sennheiser HD-650 headphones for the audiophile.  In fact, their cost seems just as high today as it was when I bought my set in 2006.  But after using them a while, it’s easy to see why people continue paying this.  The HD650 earphones establish a high audio standard that’s hard to beat for the less expensive units.  Even some of the higher-priced sets do not out-sound the HD650 unit.

So if you’ve got the roughly $550 (current retail) to spend, I’d highly recommend the Sennheiser HD650 headphones.  While you may be sorry for how much you must shell out initially to own them, their overall extreme quality will more than compensate emotionally for those big initial financial losses.  The HD-650s won’t return your money (unless you resell them while still new). But they’ll please you with their durability and accurate sound reproduction for all types of music.  They seem to have a high resale value as well, in the even that you ultimately decide that you wish to part with them; though why you would do that, I’m not sure, unless you needed the money to eat or something.  Be sure to shop around however when buying or selling, as the price on these headphoness varies widely.

Benefits Of The Sennheiser HD-650 Headphones

• I found them very light given the large size of the ear units; especially after I’d gotten used to wearing the Koss Tech 2 headphones for more than a decade.
• Due to their lightness and very large size of the “ear muffs,” you can wear the HD-650 headphoness for hours at a stretch without discomfort.  You’ll get tired of the music before these headphones wear thin on your head.
• The HD650 headphones feature velour ear cushions with big enough openings that your ears fit inside them (completely over-the-ear design).  Thus, they rest on your head, around the ear.  Neither the cushions nor the back wall inside (where the drivers are) touch the ear at all when positioned properly, and this indeed enhances the comfort of these phones.
• The silky soft ear cushions are very large, and this prevents points of high presser from forming anywhere on your head while wearing the HD-650, even when wearing glasses as do I.
• The headband itself includes spongy soft padding as well that further enhances overall comfort.  Sennheiser definitely paid as much attention to comfort when they designed these units as they did to great sound.
• The HD650 cushions appear quite durable.  Mine look brand new still after several years of use, and so far, have not shed any fuzz balls.  These earphones have hold up better than some of the Sonys I’ve used such as the MDR 7506 and   MDR-V500   units.  I had to replace the cushions after a couple years on those, but not on these Senheisers.
• The HD-650 looks as great as it sounds.  It features black with silver trim that gives these headphones a modern, hi-tech air.
• The HD650 headphones play plenty loud, with the wide dynamic range over the entire audio frequency band.  This makes them particularly grand for widely-varying musical volume levels such as found in classical music.  For pop music listening, the HD-650 headphones can play loud enough to hurt my ears without any noticeable loss in fidelity or increase in distortion.
• You can unplug the cable from the these headphones; a feature that is particularly helpful if you ever need to replace the cable.  I’ve experienced cables failing in my Sony headphones and replacing them was a bit of a chore that required taking them apart.  But not these.  New cables are readily available as well from numerous Internet vendors.
• The HD-650 headphones can be worn with equal comfort either way (left earphone on left ear, or left earphone on right ear).  The angle adjustment on each earpiece probably accounts for this nice feature that I use sometimes when listening to hit compilation CDs, where they mastered the stereo left and right channels backwards from the original LP or single releases.

What I Dislike About The Sennheiser HD-650 Headphones

• As mentioned, the price is high for the HD650 headphones.
• There’s a black, glaze-coated grill on the back of each earpiece that’s an integral part of the open-air design of these earphones.  However, be careful with this because it scratches, dents, and chips easily.  Otherwise, you’ll begin noticing little silver “freckles” appearing on this screen.
• The HD-650 headphones, perhaps owing to their lightness, seem quite delicate to me.  These are not earphones that you’d want to throw down on the table when finished with them.  They may not be fragile, but because they seem like they would be, I’m afraid to subject them to much serious abuse.
• These headphones do not come with a protective carrying or storage case, except for the original packing materials.  But as easily as they can be scratched, a padded tote would have been wonderful, not only to protect them, but to keep dust away from them.
• More a drawback of open-air design itself than specifically the HD650  these phones does not reduce surrounding noise much.  So to listen to the quieter forms of music such as classical or soft guitar, you need to listen in low-noise place.  Even a softly-running refrigerator nearby can be heard clearly while wearing these HD-650 headphones.
• Also, sound from their drivers can be heard clearly by others, even when not playing them very loud.  So this is not a good headset to use when your partner is trying to sleep beside you in the bedroom.  The audio spill into the surrounding environment will likely disturb others.
• An iPod does not sufficiently drive the HD-50 headphones.
• The sound you get via an Ipod is quite bass-loaded.  You can cut back on the bass with the built-in equalizer in the iPod to a degree however, but at a loss of overall loudness in the HD650s.  I would thus, advise against these phones for iPod listening, unless you run the signal through a headphone amplifier first, as I do.
• The velour ear cups readily collect dust and lint.  So I must periodically run a horse hair vacuum brush over them.  Thus, we have another reason why a rugged and sealable tote case for the HD-650 headphones would be highly useful.

On the whole, I found the   Sennheiser HD650 headphones   to be top-notch for my listening purposes, and so I doubt that I’d ever look to buy any higher caliber earphones than these. But I did get a peak at the HD-800 (HD800) set recently, and am anxious to try them.  So perhaps I would by better units at that.  But the HD-650 phones lack none of the features that I expect from a great pair of headphones.  So I would definitely purchase them again, even at their high price, if I had to.

I’ll add any new information I discover to this post, about these earphones.

Tom Hesley

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References

• Sennheiser HD650 Headphones   review on CNET
• Sennheiser HD650 Headphones   specs on CNET

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