Sennheiser HD 559 Open Back Around Ear Headphone - Black/Anthracite

Product Information

All of these criteria, through extensive searching on web, led me to the Sennheiser HD 559. There's not a lot out there, but I was able to find enough matches to my query that prompted me to pull the trigger on these.

What's worse is they're very uncomfortable. The pads are extremely stiff and the plastic is extremely rigid, making them instantly painful to wear. Alternatively, pads that look identical in their line (the HD 560s for example) are soft and supple with softer, more flexible plastic for the frame. To be completely honest, at the price these sell for the only serious complaint I have is the recessed treble. Note that if you're a basshead this headphone is not for you. If you're used to the V-shaped sound signature with bass region elevated by as much as +10dB compared to the Harman curve, these will seem like they don't have bass. BROWE, William Dalton - F/S (A/G) - possibly killed whilst flying in either Marauder III, HD559 or HD446 of No 70 OTU, which collided with each other near El Shatt during a formation flying practice. The cups are very large and deep, so your ear will stay suspended inside the cups, not really touching anything.As already stated, don't expect the sound signature on these to be neutral (at this price I would not expect this anyway). While not very far from neutral, the recessed lower treble and missing sub-bass rumble are obvious. While everything I said above about the HD 559 is true--the sound stage, the resolution, the scaling, the speed, punching way above their price point, etc., I need to make a correction. I used to be active on these forums for years, and I thought I did a decent job of building a mostly endgame system for myself within my budget: Teac HA-501 amp, Schiit Gumby mulitbit, HD 600, HD 650, Shure 1540, DT990/600, and LCD-2F. I even had a Trafomatic amp in rotation before it developed a static. Still never got that repaired, mainly because the Teac sounded so good to me. McQUEEN, Alastair Norman Leigh - F/L(Pilot) - He was attached to TAC HQ 21 Army Group B.L.A and was flying in Auster, ? of No 2 TAF Comm Flt when he was killed by ground fire near Beuningen, Nijmegen.

The first device I tried was a walkman with modest output power (2 x 5mW) and it was able to drive them nicely without feeling the need for more power. Volume wasn't super loud, but more than enough for casual listening. This sounded promising. disclaimer: i have pretty much 0 experience with headphones, this is the first pair i've bought that wasn't under 30 dollars so i don't have a very high bar. I decided I needed to get some new headphones to use in my newly revived system. I'll eventually replace the pads in my HD 600, Shure 1540, DT990, and LCD-2F, but they're not a priority right now, especially if I don't end up using my headphone system as much as I did in the past. Single-entry cable. I've grown tired of the double entry. Ok, that wasn't a must, but it would be a bonus. Depth and placement are okay here, delivering a sense of soundstage that is present, but far from arresting. This is about what I expected from the entry-level model, though the overall dynamic sound probably lends some improvement to this modest impression.

Said to myself to give it some time to break-in and see if there was a difference after a couple of days. The literally added plastic pieces to the inside and outside of the headphones to make them sound more isolating and dull. They couldn't have made these worse if they tried. Like the other review said, this kind of tuning with recessed lower treble will be much more forgiving to flaws in mastering compared to a neutral or bright headphone which can give the sensation of piercing your ears with some music. So in regard to comfort, for the money you're paying (as of 2023 these are available for ~70euros) you really get very good comfort. EQ can make this headphone close to neutral sounding, apart from the sub-bass region. Elevate the sub-bass in EQ and distorsion will rise exponentially, allowing you to only listen at low to medium levels.