Sennheiser’s HD 505 and I have had a good long time to get acquainted, and after having more time with it, I am pleased to report that the HD 505 is one of Sennheiser’s most compelling offerings since the HD 800.
There are still flaws worth touching on and criticizing, and there’s still plenty of room for Sennheiser to improve their headphones going forward, but the HD 505 is one of the few headphone releases in recent memory that I think both fills a gap in Sennheiser’s catalog and offers something solid for the people buying headphones in this price range.
With HD 505, Sennheiser demonstrates that they’ve been listening to criticism about the HD 560S. Is it enough for the HD 505 to be a valid alternative to the 6 series? Let’s find out.
What we like
- Exceptional, if slightly center-mid focused midrange tuning
- Bass extension of HD 650 without the extra low-midrange bloom
- Meaningfully more relaxed in the treble than the HD 560S
What we don’t like
- Still a bit thin and sterile compared to the 6 series
- Not as comfortable as it could be
- Remains in the shadow of HD 6XX when it comes to value for money
Build, Comfort, Accessories, and Design
In case you didn’t see it, I have a video of my first impressions of this headphone if you’d like to watch instead of read, but I’m definitely going to go a bit deeper here than in that video.
Watch the video
When it comes to accessories, you basically just get a cable and a bag. Nothing special, but that typically doesn’t bother me with open-back over-ear headphones. The bag will at least moderately protect it from dust and the cable is soft and short enough to not be a bother or a tangle risk, though there is one downside I’ll touch on in a bit.
Touching on the design of the headphone itself first, the look of HD 505 harkens back to the colorway of the HD 660S2 while still retaining most of the visual DNA of the 5 series offerings prior. While I like the color, I must say I really don’t like the rest of the look typical of this lineup.
The swirly single yoke structure from the side view looks dated and inappropriately whimsical. Adding to this the headband’s lack of consistent conformity to the curvature of the top of the head (weird gaps between head and headphone), wearers of the HD 5 series headphones can look a bit silly depending on the angle they’re being viewed from.
Additionally, the use of a proprietary locking 2.5mm cable connection on the earcup side means you’re tied to the cable that comes with this headphone—you’re not likely to have suitable replacements just lying around. It would be worse if the cable that came with it was outright terrible (which it isn’t), but it’s still less than ideal for someone like me who cares a lot about how pliable and light their headphone cable is.
A benefit of Sennheiser’s 5 series is that the parts that are subject to continuous wear—the headband pad, the earpads—are both easily replaceable by end users and purchaseable directly from Sennheiser. Or at least that’s the intention, availability of replacement parts is not always guaranteed.
In terms of build, the 5 series’s main benefits are durability, weight, and ease of production. I’ve obviously not had the HD 505 for an exceedingly long period, but I traveled with my pair to and from CanJam NYC and around a few places in NYC with no issues. I think at this point the 5 series chassis is well-known to hold up for a long time, and there are few if any real changes here so I don’t foresee anyone having issues with longevity.
Lastly, comfort. The HD 505 is uncomfortable for me long-term, and not for the reason I thought it’d be. The ear and temple comfort is actually fine, unlike on the HD 560S, because the clamp is significantly lower on the HD 505. The rear of my ear doesn’t touch any of the hard plastic on the baffle-side of the headphone, only slightly grazing the earpad at the rear.
However, the headband padding is flat-out insufficient for me when it comes to long-term comfort, and this is where I will yet again plead with Sennheiser to embrace suspension straps on their designs going forward. None of the 5 series or 6 series designs are comfortable long term because the contact area of the headpads are too small/narrow: the weight is distributed on too small an area, causing a hotspot. A well-designed suspension strap fixes this, so please just find a way to implement one already.
Finally, a closing observation I’ve made regarding this headphone, one I’m going to attribute to a mix of comfort and design: I think people are going to wear and measure this lineup of headphones in two meaningfully different ways, and one way is likely to sound much better (but is less likely to naturally occur).
I come from the “Tyll Hertsens” age of headphone reviews, and a piece of wisdom he dispensed long ago was that headphones tend to sound best when oriented forward + low on the head (with the ear as far to the top + back of the earcup as possible). For me, this means with headphones that have space between the earpad and baffle for the ear to rest in—like Sennheiser’s HD 800—I typically put my ear between the earpad and baffle since there’s ample room for it.
This is relevant to the HD 505 because when I first placed it on my head, I found a similar position with my ear tucked slightly under the pad to be the most comfortable, and that’s how I naturally listen to this headphone.
In talking to other enthusiasts who had a chance to hear the HD 505, I’ve learned that not everybody does this, and some opt to just put their ear in the center of the earpad. This sort of placement, placed a few millimeters closer to the front of the headphone, will almost certainly result in a treble boost, so it must be said that the below evaluation of sound is based on how I wear the headphones, and based on how you wear the headphones, you may find the sound to be brighter than I do.
Sound
The presentation of bass instruments was honestly the first thing that jumped out to me about the HD 505, so lets start there. I’m on the “bass light” side of the distribution of listener preference, near the very bottom of our preference bounds, so I really don’t like a ton of bass. This works to the favor of open-back headphones like the HD 505, which extends reasonably well into the sub-bass but doesn’t have any appreciable emphasis in any part of the bass response.
I was actually kind of caught off-guard by the bass response because I expected something more like the HD 560S—well-extended, but incredibly thin—but instead got something more like a mix between HD 600 and HD 650. It seemingly has the extension of the HD 650, but considerably less bloom such that it evokes a presentation more like HD 600.
Kick drums don’t have a ton of weight or decay, tending towards the snappier side, but also have a slight roundedness to their attack which means that even if they’re a bit small sounding, they’re not annoyingly clicky or plasticky. Bass guitars sound a bit biased toward their harmonics instead of their fundamentals under 100 Hz, which can make them sound a bit blunted and incomplete. However there’s a slight extra midrange presence that helps elevate the “texture” components of electric/distorted bass and synth bass nicely to balance this.
Moving to higher pitched instruments, with HD 505 I essentially get a mix of very good things, and slight but noticeable annoyances. In short, the midrange is excellent here but right on the edge of my tolerance for upper midrange elevation.
For well-recorded/mixed/mastered music, there aren’t any issues and everything is as close to ideal as I could reasonably expect from a headphone. Vocal chest resonance is well balanced with upper midrange intelligibility, guitars sound focused up top but full down low, and pianos sound delicate when necessary but resolute and fully represented across the dynamic spectrum.
But once I started getting into punk music and 90s hip hop, some guitars and snare drums were either too crackly or straight up harsh. I think this has to do with the fact that this headphone has a bit extra 2 kHz relative to Sennheiser’s 6 series headphones while also having a bit less bloom in the lower midrange. So be aware, while this is what I’d call a solid midrange—better than 99% of headphones I’ve heard—it’s not what I’d call a forgiving midrange.
When it comes to the treble, unfortunately this is where I think HD 505 is likely to be extremely divisive, both because of the fact people will wear them differently (which will lead to some people hearing it as brighter than I do), but also because the treble isn’t what I’d call “smooth”.
The character of the upper half of HD 505’s tonality is defined by a low treble resonance around 5.5 kHz on my head, which brings a dry, papery timbre to the reproduction that is noticeable on most recordings, well-done or not.
HD 505 is actually one of the better headphones I’ve heard in terms of how it handles the area above that; with most headphones I usually get a dip around 7-7.5 kHz + a big peak around 10-11 kHz, but HD 505 somehow avoids both of these issues on my head. Unfortunately though, the lack of problems elsewhere in the treble does mean that the 5.5 kHz resonance gets magnified in terms of how much I notice it.
The scratchiness on vocals alone is enough for me to consistently notice this coloration on all of my recordings, which is a shame because otherwise HD 505’s treble is exceptional on my head. But again it’s worth noting that readers’ experiences will differ wildly from my own above 3 kHz or so.
Overall, I think HD 505 is a tuning that makes a ton of sense for Sennheiser’s lineup. Historically, many have called the HD 6 series “veiled” due to the combination of upper-bass bloom and dips in the treble above 6 kHz, and the HD 505 seemingly offers an alternative option to perhaps mitigate both of these issues. It provides a presentation less likely to be heard as occluded or blurry, while not going the same route as HD 560S and offering something way too lean in the midrange or bright in the treble.
Presentation
Right out of the gate I don’t think this headphone is going to wow anyone when it comes to things like “detail” or “speed.” HD 505 is a sensibly tuned headphone, and sensibly tuned headphones don’t aim to blow people’s pants off with exciting, vivid colorations that demand attention and get audiophiles excited about little details or a perception of quickness.
In terms of the “detail,” I actually feel like for midrange elements HD 505 is quite good. There’s great textural resolve on things with significant overtone presence above 1 kHz like acoustic guitar, bowed strings, and synths. The treble cues are where I feel people may find it a bit indistinct and blurred sounding, but that’ll be highly individual.
HD 505’s dynamics are okay, if a bit too focused on smack in the midrange and a bit underfocused on note weight, size, and decay (bass) and attack and precision (treble). Mixes with fast cues or wide volume swings in the midrange are handled really well by HD 505, but one unfortunate downside is that most things still sound pretty thin while also being a bit too rounded for a feeling of perfect transient representation.
However, I think the thing people will most like about HD 505 is its sense of imaging precision and overall placement. I wouldn’t call HD 505 an incredibly spacious headphone—it’s very much a “headstage” presentation that is not externalized at all—but its layout of sonic elements within the mix is very predictable. Across the panorama of the stereo field, it subjectively feels very accurate and sense-making to me.
Overall, it’s not a heavy hitter in any of the subjective aspects. But again, most reasonably-but-not-perfectly tuned headphones are almost definitionally not going to do well at those things, because those aspects are almost always a result of some deviation from neutral.
If a headphone gets tone mostly right, I’m willing to forgive a lack of excitement, since most times extra excitement is the result of a tonal defect that’s infinitely more distracting than the lack of excitement is disappointing. And indeed, HD 505 may not be exciting, but it’s definitely less distracting or disappointing than most headphones are for me.
Comparisons
vs. HD 560S
In my view, HD 505 wipes the floor with HD 560S. It is better in every way I can think of.
It’s more comfortable, better looking, better tuned across the board unless for some reason you prefer an incredibly thin midrange, has the same upsides for subjective performance—though personally I never heard the HD 560S as spacious despite people insisting otherwise—while not compromising nearly as much re: dynamics.
I’m keeping this brief because I have never liked HD 560S so there’s not much of a fight here, but for those wondering which to get: HD 505 is “more better” than the fairly modest price difference between it and HD 560S suggests. HD 505 is a headphone I could very well keep and use occasionally, whereas the HD 560S is a headphone I would basically never elect to use.
vs. HD 600
Now this one is tougher. I think there’s a possible reality where someone shopping between HD 505 and HD 600 would choose the former, but I have to confess that I think this would be a minority of cases.
In stock formation I actually do find HD 505 more comfortable than HD 600 due to a wider headpad and a deeper ear chamber, and I actually prefer HD 505’s bass response as well. In most cases I actually prefer HD 505’s less sibilant character too, but this is likely unique to me. In other words, I think bass is going to be where the preference for HD 505 ends for most people.
HD 600 has probably the most perfectly balanced midrange that exists in headphones, and while HD 505 is very close, it’s a bit too tilted towards intensity and throatiness at times, while the HD 600 is just a slight bit more lush in a way I personally find more versatile.
I actually think for well-recorded music I prefer HD 505 as it’s a bit better at things like keeping piano from sounding too sleepy, or coherently portraying texture on distorted electric guitars. However, HD 505 is less forgiving.overall. so HD 600 is likely to be less bothersome to the widest pool of listeners with the widest pool of music.
But that brings us to the treble, where I feel the HD 505’s tuning as well as its potential for placement variation makes it both less safe in the worst case and likely less pleasing sounding in the best case.
By that I mean HD 505’s treble response is pretty starkly defined by a single low treble resonance, whereas HD 600 has a similar elevation around 5-6 kHz but has it balanced by the 10 kHz elevation it also has. The 10 kHz rise has a balancing effect that makes the lower treble rise less noticeable and offers a different character to the sound overall.
HD 505 sounds gritty and sandy at times due to chiefly being defined by the 5 kHz peak, whereas the HD 600 sounds “sweetened” and slightly silken because that peak is balanced by another peak higher in frequency.
Even though HD 600 is too bright for me in this one region, which means I’d personally choose HD 505 for my own enjoyment, I think most people are likely going to find HD 600’s treble preferable since its timbre is less defined / marred by a single resonance like HD 505’s is.
That said, I did find HD 650 meaningfully better than HD 505 since it has the same bass extension, the classically lush 6 series midrange, and a treble response that is both “sweetened” and non-fatiguing on my head. So for readers that want to know if I’d still recommend the HD 6XX over HD 505: probably, yeah. The HD 6XX remains both my sonic preference and a pretty indisputably better value.
Conclusion
End of the day, HD 505 probably isn’t gonna change anyone’s life due to a fireworks show of “technical performance,” but unlike most headphones it offers a solid presentation that’ll basically never surprise you.
And look, I know that sounds like the exact opposite of what some people say they want when it comes to headphones, and that’s fair: HD 505 is probably not a good choice for those people…
…but it’s pretty dang close to what I want. No alarms and no surprises.
Nebulous as it is, I want to listen to my music in the way it’s supposed to sound, and HD 505 is one of the few headphones I’ve encountered that gets pretty close to this presentation out of the box with no EQ. It’s a bit lean in the mids, a bit chalky in the treble, but nitpicks aside, it’s a reasonable overall package in a way few headphones are.
For people like me who enjoy the HD 6 series for its splendiferous sanity, the HD 505 represents a valid entry into the arguably-still-too-small pantheon of Reasonably Tuned Headphones™ that I will always want to see more of. It’s a marked improvement over the HD 560S, maybe a valid alternative to HD 600 to some people, but not quite on the level of value or pleasantness as the HD 650.
It’s the least disappointing headphone to come from Sennheiser’s consumer division since the HD 800. Progress has been made, and I’m growing optimistic about Sennheiser’s forthcoming direction.
Here’s hoping the progress continues. I’d really like to see a new Sennheiser release in a new, more comfortable, more stylish chassis with a similar tonal profile to this, or hell even something like this but with slightly warmer mids, but we’ll have to see how that shakes out in the years to come.
Thanks!
