if you are looking for an enjoyable headphone. One that is pleasant and pleasing to listen to after a long day at work, just get a pair of these. I have had mine since the end of 2016. I was able to jump into the original drop of the HD6xx. I have bought several other headphones throughout this time and I always ended up with these.
the 6xx lacks quantity in bass, but it does not lack quality. it has enough for genres like Jazz, not enough for other genres though. I am currently powering my 6xx through the Massdrop Liquid Carbon and it just such a beautiful pairing. There is zero fatigue. the liquid carbon adds a bit of umph on the bass too.
these are great headphones for vocals. Male & female
After almost 3 years of buying and selling headphones, these are still sitting on my desk, because I have not found a better value than these anywhere
From the painless ordering process to making sure that the product arrived on time professionally packaged, along with an invoice to the actual product itself - the HD 6XX - Wow! I have been listening to music for over 40 years and have never heard my music like this before. Little nuances that were never heard before come out here. Not like hearing it for the first time, but like hearing a different mix of the same song. Very impressive Drop, please give yourselves a big hand for making these beautiful headphones even more available for all to enjoy!
Open backs project sound both towards your ears and out the sides of the earpieces.
This makes the sound feel as if they are coming from further away. Good for replicating the directions of where each vocals and instruments are coming from; like at a concert. Close backs sound as if the music is coming from the centre of your head; you get less "directional" experience but they feel more intimate.
Open backs leak sound so if you are riding on public transport, the people sitting next to you might look at you sideways wonder why you are playing music for everyone around you.
Most high end headphones are open back so don't worry about losing any sound quality from the leakage!
Because of the high impedance of the headphones, you'd get the most out of it using an amp/dac. However, I've used that kind of adapter before and it worked well enough. You're volume may not get as loud as you would like though.
There's no real right or wrong answer. I would go with the $150 amp and then add a DAC later. The nice thing with separate boxes (as opposed to combos) is you can change one component at a time, and see if the new flavour suits you or not.
Is this still good in 2023? I like to know how this is good for listening to classical and jazz music. I have a zen dac v2 for the amp. I heard this is weak at bass. Anyone?
It’s not weak at bass, but the sub bass does roll off like most open headphones. Vocals and even the bass guitar or cello will sound great, but thunder effects in movies and synthetic sub bass notes in electronic music will have a lighter impact than a bass guitar.
I just finished reviewing an iFi ZEN Air DAC and ZEN Air CAN, the CAN is more powerful, and engaging the XBass on both the DAC and the CAN even makes my HD 8xx have a nice bass rumble. The Zen CAN HD 6XX specifically expands the function of the xBass function to add more sub bass and highs to the HD 6xx.
Yes, this HD 6xx still slays in 2023. While computers (and DACs) have greatly improved every few years, headphone drivers performance have been well understood for decades and these days it’s mostly about finding the tuning you like, and improving sensitivity for portable use. The HD 58X Jubilee and new HD 660S2 (specifically the S2) both have more bass than the HD 6XX, but the HD 6XX still has a bit higher performance than the much newer HD 58X Jubilee.