Review: Sennheiser’s excellent HD600 open-back, over-ear headphones
Put them on without preconceptions and listen to the music. Let the headphones be what they are.
The Sennheiser HD600 headphones are the ones that typically sit at the lowest price point for the 600-series Sennheisers. They are also the oldest model in that series. I put them on in the evening, after having spent a while listening to music through a pair of Focal Clear Mg’s, which are at a much higher price point. It would be unfair to the HD600’s to compare the two. Surprisingly, I could approach the HD600’s with a fresh mind and fresh ear, and I was impressed. I’ve been listening with them exclusively over the past four days. Hearing the music clearly through them has been a re-realization that many people—most people—are not interested in spending at higher price points, and the HD600s provide listening that is good enough for just about anyone to be impressed with their performance.
The HD600s have a wide sound stage and a good low-bass response (though the HD660S2 model has the highest sub-bass response. Listening to some orchestral music with the HD600’s, with the contrabass in the string section, brings out the robust low-end of the HD600’s, comparable to the successor HD650 model. The headphones are more toward reference headphones than, say, the HD6XX model. They reproduce orchestral music well; with decent imaging and the wide soundstage I have found the 600-series headphones to have. I love a wide soundstage.
The Sennheiser HD600s are, as I said, toward the reference type of headphone. They are not mid-forward, though they are not lacking in the mid area. Pizzicato acoustic jazz bass comes through strongly, with the lowest notes having a surprisingly deep, resonant quality to them. I compared them, first, with my first pair of headphones that were advertised as being “hi-fidelity” headphones, the Edifier/Hecate Gx gaming headset with USB connectivity or analog wired connectivity. Their price-point is within the “budget headphone” range. They’re closed-back and advertised as being especially good for music (that is, for music and not just for gaming). They’re more mid-forward than the HD600s, and they’re much lighter in the treble, leaving the highs of cymbals to sound faint or not to be heard, and the bottom end is lighter than the HD600s. Neither headphone compares to the HD660S2s, which sell at a higher price point. The HD600s are much closer to the HD660S2s than the Edifiers are. I’m not going to compare them to phones in the next higher price-point range above the HD660S2s.
I’ve been listening almost exclusively to the HD600s, noticing that they are very good-sounding headphones. Ron Carter’s bass is supported well by them, including his low glissandi, and, on this duo collaboration with saxophonist Houston Person, Remember Love, he gives his bass a “woody”, “rosin-laden” tone rather than an all-low tone that he commonly used on his 1970s CTI records, such as All Blues and Yellow and Green, both of which are excellent albums and feature Carter on piccolo bass (an acoustic or electric bass tuned one octave above standard tuning. Wikipedia credits Carter as one of the two inventors of the piccolo bass, the other being bassist Stanley Clarke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccolo_bass).
The sound of Philip Catherine’s singing guitar on the Enja recording of Strollin’, featuring Chet Baker on trumpet, comes through magnificently on the HD600s. “Sad Walk” is the first track on this album, and I love it. Baker’s trumpet is sweet, a bit breathy at times, and always in tune. It’s a well-produced live album, giving it that zest I love in jazz recordings. Catherine has one of my three or so favorite jazz guitar tones, two others being Kenny Burrell and Kevin Eubanks on Another Land (a 2021 release with bassist Dave Holland as co-composer and performer/leader) and East West Time Line. I don’t mean to slight any of the other greats such as Wes Montgomery or Charlie Christian, or Grant Green, Django Reinhardt or Johnny Smith, or Herb Ellis and on and on. I don’t say “best” tone but my personal favorite, not to disagree with anyone else’s personal taste in the matter. Unfortunately for Christian and Reinhardt, I think the low quality of the recordings I’ve heard them playing on, due to the technology available at the time, does not do justice to what they must have sounded like in person.
The freshness of each listening session in the last couple of days, using the HD600s, has been refreshing. Not insisting upon the misguided notion that headphones must be very expensive to allow great listening experiences, I find that I adjust my ear to the headphones’ sonic characteristics. This is not to say there’s no reason to spend a lot on headphones! My Focal Clear Mgs are probably the best-sounding headphones I’ve heard. Swapping out headphones brings out some important differences, but this is not a comparison article. It is a focus on what my listening experience is with the HD600s, attempting to reproduce that early-stage wonderment when I bought my first pair of Sennheiser 600-series headphones, the HD650s, the successors to the HD600s.
The low end is a lot better than the Edifier/Hecate Gx headset, as I’ve said, and while I haven’t tried Skull Candy or Beats, I have tried other headphones in that price point, a pair of Sony wireless headphones, and I was impressed. There is more than one factor to consider when purchasing a pair of headphones and, though I might be accused of blasphemy here, sound is not everything. A pair for traveling needs to be smaller, perhaps lighter, and less attractive to potential thieves. For example, I do not recommend going just anywhere while wearing a pair of gold-plated Sendy Peacocks. Also, if lost, the headphones should not be some $2000 things that would be a serious loss (depending upon one’s view of money) but some relatively low price point phones, such as the Sennheiser HD600s. I don’t talk about money or prices, for a few reasons, if I can help it.
But I’m going to talk about price. I want to encourage music lovers who might be using less expensive headphones, such as the Edifier/Hecate Gx or similar gaming headsets, or Skull Candy or Beats, to try a pair of the 600-series Sennheiser headphones. The HD600s are the lowest priced model, typically about $300. That is not much more than the Skull Candy headphones. While not Bluetooth, I encourage trying wired headphones for the improved sound quality, especially the potential for better low-end response, below 20 Hz. The manufacturers will often give frequency response specs, typically 20 Hz-20,000 Hz for Bluetooth headphones. With the same headphones in a wired configuration, such as the Sony wireless types, the manufacturer frequency response range extends to lower than 20 Hz* (4 Hz for some Sony wireless headphones when used with a wire). The HD600s have a similar low-end response.
Listening with the HD600s these last few days, I find my Android Motorola moto g 5G 2023 supplies just enough power through the headphone jack to power the 300-Ω headphones to a moderate listening volume. I recommend even a budget headphone amp for the HD600s. A digital audio player (DAP) works wonders with such headphones, allowing for better sound and greater headroom for extended dynamic range—especially important for jazz and classical music. Over the last few days, I’ve been using the Astell & Kern A&futura SE180 with the audiophile SEM3 interchangeable all-in-one DAC module. A lower price point DAP works well too, having tried my Sennheiser HD650s (also 300-Ω) with the Fiio BTR7 decoding headphone amp, and the Surfans F20 DAP, both relatively low in price. The headphones sound great. Not only do they sound great, but they feel good. Their clasping force is 6 newtons, which is a few pounds of force and feels firm. These are not easily falling off the listener’s head. I love them for walking for this reason. And the headphones are very light, weighing 9 ounces. Their ear cups are covered in a light fuzziness, and firm, providing good spacing between the head and ears, and the drivers. They are also easily replaceable with genuine Sennheiser ear cups, which fit all the 600-series headphones.
My listening has been an experiment in letting the headphones just be what they can be. The sound stage is wide, and when not comparing the HD600s to headphones that cost a lot more, it is more than satisfactory, providing an immersive feeling. The low-end response reached down to 12 Hz, and the high-end response goes out to 40,500 Hz, far beyond human hearing. This means that the is no roll-off on high audible frequencies. My ears adjust, to the world of sound the headphones and source provide, and accept what they hear as what the headphones are capable of delivering, without asking for more. This might sound blasphemous to some audiophiles, though I think it is important to recognize that there are many ways to approach music listening.
The electronica group, Underworld, did a pretty good job with their A Hundred Days Off album, I think, and it tests the low end of the HD600s. The kick drum has oomph to it, and the highs in the cymbals come through, though not all the cymbal work in the first track, “Mo Move,” contain much high treble. The vocals are clear and not forward. These are headphones that are, as Sennheiser advertises, “[p]urpose-built to vanish when the listener presses ‘play’,” and “the HD 600 is the benchmark reference headphone for both analyzing and enjoying your hi-fi setup.” This dual purpose—“analyzing” and “enjoying” a stereo system—parallels the duality of present-at-hand and ready-to-hand in Martin Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time (1927), about which I talk here: https://open.substack.com/pub/hanscox/p/the-heideggerian-priority-of-the.
To really test the vocal and bass response, I put on Bibio’s Bib10 album (2022), starting with the first track, “Off Goes the Light.” Heavy-hitting bass synth and bass drum come through powerfully, thumping without imposing upon the higher-frequency components of the music. The separation of frequencies is great with the HD600s. Mids don’t mess with the lows or highs. Vocals are clear and uncolored as far as I can tell. Stephen Wilkinson’s voice goes into the falsetto range and, on “Off Goes the Light,” starts in the middle range and is then echoed in lower and lower-pitched reproductions. The clean guitar shines through the mix, almost like a George Benson tone but with a twang matched with reverb and chorus to good effect. The overlay of multiple guitar tracks allows punctuation of the main rhythm pattern on “Sharratt” with subtle, clean open harmonics. These are very high harmonics for an electric guitar, and the HD600s don’t hesitate to provide the upper range to accommodate them.
One of my favorite 1970s, early Latin-jazz/jazz-fusion albums is Return to Forever’s Return to Forever, my favorite track on it being the title track. So, there’s a fractal-like nesting with Return to Forever’s “Return to Forever” on their first album, Return to Forever. Airto Moreira’s frenetic-yet-calmly-exciting, syncopated drumming takes me back to childhood drives home from my parents’ friends’ house parties. Chick Corea’s electric piano and Fender Rhodes sounds were a staple of my early childhood. His use of the volume pedal to create a more organic tremolo effect than a fixed-rate and fixed-depth pedal, was one of the first effects I noticed in music. Flora Purim’s ethereal vocals, which can be quiet whispers and break into piercing screams at times, were the most far-out vocal performance I’d heard. I think the bass work by Stanley Clarke, using both electric and acoustic basses, is some of the artist’s best work. Joe Farrell’s flute typically doubles Purim’s thematic vocals, on the main motif of the piece. Notably, for listeners familiar with the later albums (post-Light as a Feather, 1973), there is no electric guitar, and the Latin aspect of the music is strong in these first two, more relaxed, albums.
I am hearing everything, it seems, through the HD600s, not missing any of the music. My mind probably fills in any gaps, and adjusts the tonal balance to, effectively, boost treble and bass. I love this piece, “Return to Forever,” and it sounds as good, it seems, as I’ve ever heard it, through the HD600s. I want to encourage lovers of music who wonder what’s above their current, budget headphones—which may have seemed like expensive headphones at the time of purchase—to consider these budget-priced Sennheiser HD600s for a large jump up in sound quality and listening comfort. Sennheiser is, as of this writing, selling open-box pairs for about $270 (https://headphones.com/products/sennheiser-hd-600-headphones-open-box), the lowest I’ve seen them selling for. Happy listening, and with the HD600s in your bag, your listening will be, I think—if you’ve been using low-price-point Bluetooth headphones with noise cancelling headphones—happier with the HD600s. They’re the best-sounding headphones I’ve heard at their entry-to-audiophile-listening price point.
* A 20 Hz-20,000 Hz frequency response does not mean humans cannot hear sounds below 20 Hz, contrary to what one might suppose. Such a range gives a figure for the frequency at which the low-end response has decreased by 3 dB (typically) and rolls off lower and lower. A decrease by 3 dB is not a huge decrease, certainly not below what person can hear. It is a misconception to think that there is no reason to have a frequency response that extends below 20 Hz, since 20 Hz is not the lowest frequency most people are capable of hearing, much less feeling. The high-end response is a different story I won’t try to address here.