Congrats on the 660S. Resolution-wise, I think this driver plays almost in the same league as the HD800S.
I have these two sets from the post below installed in my 600 and 660S, and they are holding up quite nice. They’re a little thicker than stock:
Given the good experience I had with the fenestrated sheepskin for the HD800S, I’m currently itching myself in trying the same fabric for the 6x0 family. The only thing that holds me back is the Choice Leather version which is sitting in the drawer. Sound was awful.
Oh no, I bought the unfenistrated (solid) sheepskin! Do you think it’ll sound as bad as the choice leather? Maybe I should order the fenistrated ones instead?
The Elite Sheepskin feel wonderful, but the sound is clearly affected and doesn’t sound “right”. The change isn’t subtle, and I don’t really like it.
The Earpadz Velour earpads sound great, I can’t really tell the difference. But they feel weird. They’re much flatter than the stock pads, and I think the 6XX pads feel better, at least right away. I’m going to keep using them for a bit and see if I can get used to it, maybe it won’t bother me after a while. I still wish I could just buy the 6XX-style pads on their own, it’s very annoying that I can’t.
Yikes. The Choice Leather I have is even worse in that regard.
What do you mean by flatter? The 2 sets of Earpadz Velour I got were both thicker than stock pads – I still have my brand new 660S stock pads saved for the foreseeable future. Not to mention they will break-in, i.e., they will conform to your head.
Maybe you have a sample in your 6XX? Manufacturing issues are well known for foams in general.
You can see the 6XX pads are nicely rounded. The 660S pad tapers a bit at the edge. The EarPadz meanwhile are much wider, which accounts for the “flatness” that I’m experiencing. The first two pads don’t touch my ears when I put them on, just go around them, while the EarPadz do touch part of my ears which is annoying and makes them feel like on-ears rather than over-ears.
On the contrary. Manufacturing issues hit everyone in the foam business.
I don’t know. I never really paid attention to this “flatness” issue.
What I’d probably do in your case is keeping the 6XX pads with the 660S while installing the brand new EarPadz into the 6XX – which is about to be sold, right?
Or, start flipping the pads around, as they seem to be asymmetric and eventually there may be one configuration (out of 4 possible) that may be less irritating.
I still have the stock pad in my HD58X, and my ears do touch the inner foam disk. With time you’ll also develop tolerance for that (a.k.a. callus).
If anyone is interested, while I sold off my Sundara I’ve kept the 6XX along with the 660S. I’m finding more and more I like going for the 6XX when I want something more relaxed or I’m feeling treble-sensitive. It’s still a really great headphone.
If you look at Crinacle’s measurements for the 650/6XX, he does the headphone both with fresh and with worn ear pads. The main difference is that the treble is a few dB more rolled off with the worn pads. So you can fine-tune just how dark a sound you want simply by keeping both fresh and worn ear pads to hand, lol.
Oh I forgot to mention about the pads. I put the 6XX pads on the 660S because I like them the best and put the velour Drop pads on the 6XX because they’re a pretty reasonable second-best from the ones I’ve tried.
Got the Fenestrated Sheepskin pads in today. They made the 6XX even darker when compared against the 650 with Earpadz Velour installed, also from Dekoni. The latter per se is also darker when compared to stock.
Made some pad swapping and ended up with the following:
HD58X: Choice Leather – my brain burned in ;
HD600: Earpadz Velour;
HD650: partially worn-out stock pads – from one of the 600/660S I have here;
HD6XX: worn-out stock pads – it will go back to the drawer (or B-rig).
HD660S: Fenestrated Sheepskin – tolerable given the added comfort;
I should be good with pads for the foreseeable while.
Great thread @ericrosenfield . I just re-ordered the HD 6XX and a Qudelix 5K to go with them. I owned the 6XX a few years ago and ended up selling them but have missed them a lot.
Price-wise the 6XX is very hard to beat, at least for me in Canada where the Sundara is nearly $500 all-in (Amazon.ca) vs about $280 all-in for the 6XX (though there might be some duties to pay, TBD). That’s a pretty huge price difference % wise (and even $ wise) for two headphones that are considered pretty comparable, albeit different sounding. The over $200+ saved on the 6XX easily covers the cost of the Qudelix 5K and gives me a great wireless EQ devices for not just the 6XX but other user cases too like PC, car, etc.
I was starting to question my 6XX + Qudelix orders after hearing more about the Sundara’s but am felling pretty confident it’s a really solid setup. EQ can tune things up a little to compensate for some of the aspects “missing” from the 6XX, though of course I realize I can’t turn them into the Sundara or anything else, nor would I want it to.
sample in your 6XX? Manufacturing issues are well known for foams in general.
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