Howdy, DocStefan, if you (or anyone else) have any of the following or other similar open-back headphones, I’d be curious to know how you think the HD550 stacks up with them for comfort and sound quality…
Audeze MM-100
AudioTechnica R70X or R70XA
Beyerdynamic DT900 Pro X
Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro
Drop+Sennheiser HD6XX
Fiio FT1 Pro
Focal Hadenys
HFM 2020 Sundara
HFM Edition XS
Sennheiser HD490 Pro
Sennheiser HD600
Snnheiser HD650
Sony MDR-MV1
Any other impressions of the 550 would also be appreciated.
Hello ADU, I do not have any headphone from your list, I can only compare it to my Hifiman Ananda OG and Sennheiser HD560S. But up to now I only compared the HD550 to HD560S, a comparison to my Ananda will follow later.
After a long weekend of listening with the HD550 I can state the following:
The HD550 sounds full and rich, with a lot of body and rumble, has enough bass (at least) for me, with very natural sounding voices, details and separation is also very pleasing, there are details in the music I can here directly with the HD550 whereas with the HD560S I have to focus on.
In all aspects the HD550 is the better headphone compared to the HD560S, the one thing I complained earlier (“S” and “T” are more pronounced) do not bother me anymore, maybe because I’ve gotten used to it or because the other aspects are just so amazingly better.
Appreciate the additional thoughts. Comparison to the Ananda would be great too. Thanks for weighing in on this, and giving us your impressions of the 550.
These are amazing headphones for their price. I have heard better, but you’d have to spend 3X the price. These greatly accelerate the concept of diminishing returns. I love them!
Any recommendations on a some small EQ tweaks would be great. Don’t want to change the many things this headphone does well, just a little minor shaping of some of the minor flaws in the treble and a touch more bass. Been playing around on Listener’s squiglink with the preference tilt, but not sure i’m doing it right without altering the things this headphone does very well.
I don’t own the HD 550. So bear that in mind. Based on the available graphs though, there are a couple minor bright spots that could probably come down a couple dBs at around 1.25 and 9 kHz. Bass really begins to sag at around 50-60 Hz. So you could try lifting that area a few dB.
Looks like there may be a little brightness in the 5-6 kHz area as well.