Okay so, I just stole them from Taron. Here are my initial thoughts:
Technical performance
- Much improved soundstage over the HD6XX. Not like an HD800 though by any means. It’s less about lateral space and more about forward space.
- Detail is ehhh… okay it’s fine but not as good as the HD6XX, flat out. And that may just mean it doesn’t scale as well, which I’m kind of not surprised by, since I’ve now listened to both from the SPL Phonitor X. At the price point, yes the HD560s is still really good in that department though.
- Speed & Dynamics - it does have a similar kind of tension and snappiness to the initial leading edge for a very clean and well defined sound. I still think image distinction and separation is better on the HD6XX but, on the HD560s the whole presentation is farther away from me and not as claustrophobic.
Tonal balance:
Here’s my initial measurements on the GRAS43AG. I still need to do more testing because it looks like there’s some noticeable positional variance going on for the treble. While the average is a decent representation, it’ll be interesting to see which of these positions is most common.
EDIT - Round 2 measurement with the most consistent result (explanation here) :
Channel matching:
It’s pretty good for the most part, with maybe a few gremlins in the lower treble depending on positioning. I think if anything I’m most impressed by the bass response. This is definitely better than the HD6XX there.
For anyone wanting a comparison with the HD6XX:
Of course the question is… does purple sound better? to which the answer is yes, yes it does - but only for certain things like treble smoothness, detail and scaling.