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Sennheiser HD 600 headphones

Sometimes, the only thing that'll soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of man is kicking back and letting glorious music wash over you. Isn't that why we're all here? But no sooner do you sit yourself down in the sweet spot and cue up, say, Mozart's 40th, than you hear:

Duh-da-dee duh-da-dee da-du-dee-dah—
WHHHRRRRRR! WHAM! BASH! CRASH!
duh-da-dee duh-da-dee duh-da-dah-dah—
RNNRRRNNRR! beepbeepbeep!
Dee-da-dee da-dee-da dee-da...

Dag-nab it! The City's finally started repaving the street. Now what are you going to do for succor?

Headphones to the rescue!…

Sennheiser HD 600 headphones Page 2

John and I have certain tools that experience has taught us we can rely on for location monitoring: though now I tend to use the HeadRoom Max headphone amplifier, in previous sessions I've relied on the Sennheiser HD-580 Jubilees. This time, however, I substituted the HD 600s, which led to a series of comic doubletakes through the two nights of recording. When you use headphones for hours on end, especially headphones as comfortable as the Sennheisers, you can almost forget you're wearing them—but usually there's a raft of sonic cues to remind you that you're listening to canned rather than…

Sennheiser HD 600 headphones Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Sennheiser HD 600 headphones: Open-air dynamic diffuse-field-compensated circumaural headphones. Transducer: dynamic diaphragm. Frequency response: 16Hz-30kHz, ±1dB. THD: <0.1%. Nominal impedance: 300 ohms. Sensitivity at 1kHz: 97dB. Headphone caliper pressure: approximately 2.5N.
Weight: 9.3 oz (260gm) without cable.
Serial number of unit reviewed: None found.
Price: $449.95. Approximate number of dealers: 550.
Manufacturer: Sennheiser Electronic KG, W-3002 Wedemark, Postfach 10 02 64, Germany. US distributor: Sennheiser USA, 6 Vista Dr., P.O.…

Sennheiser HD 600 headphones Associated Equipment

Sidebar 2: Associated Equipment

CD Playback: Audio Research CD2, Mark Levinson No.39.
Preamplifiers: Conrad-Johnson ART, Krell KRC-HR.
Headphone amplifiers: HeadRoom Max, HeadRoom Supreme, Musical Fidelity X-CANS.
Headphones: Grado SR-1, Sennheiser HD580 & HD580 Jubilee, Stax Lambda Nova Signature.
Interconnects: AudioQuest Opal, Kimber KCAG.
Accessories: Audio Power Industries Power Wedge 112, Magro Stereo Display Stand.—Wes Phillips

Sennheiser HD 600 headphones Sam Tellig on the HD600s

Sidebar 3: Sam Tellig on the HD600s (also from February 1998)

The Sennheiser HD580s have long been one of my headphone references, too. I had the '580s for a while, then gave them to my father-in-law, who plugs them directly into the headphone jacks of his now-discontinued Arcam Alpha 5 integrated.

The HD600s are better yet, offering greater speed and resolution. They're among the most resolving headphones I have heard, of any type.

Okay, the HD600s lack the warmth, body, and generosity of bass found with the mahogany Grados. Quite possibly, they have slightly greater…

Odeon La Traviata loudspeaker

Interest in super-efficient, horn-loaded, compression-driver loudspeakers has grown in the past few years, fueled in part by a renewed fascination among many hobbyists with low-powered, single-ended triode tube amplifiers. But staring down the maws of two Tubby the Tubas is not every audiophile's idea of a good time—even when the resulting sound is spectacularly fast, coherent, and extended.

I've sat before arrays of unadorned horns and marveled at their rapid-fire transients and super-clean high-frequency extension, and—as designers have made great progress integrating cone woofers to…

Odeon La Traviata loudspeaker Page 2

Colored links in the chain
Go room to room at a Consumer Electronics Show and you'll hear more sonic signatures than are on The Declaration of Independence. That's especially true when you compare speakers using different methods to move air. Every technology has particular characteristics, whether it's a paper cone, a ceramic-coated metal cone, a sheet of Mylar, or a tiny compression driver loaded into a horn. You have your point-source crowd, your line-source true believers, and on and on. Partisans conveniently ignore the specific character each design imparts to the sound,…

Odeon La Traviata loudspeaker Page 2

The ear is far more sensitive to peaks than to dips, and there was only one peak in the bass: +4dB at 63Hz. But the in-room response from 500Hz to 2kHz (beyond the 1.80kHz crossover) was +/-4dB, which I consider pretty good. A 3dB dip at 1.25kHz might have been related to the crossover a few hundred Hertz up. From 2kHz to 8kHz, the measured response was an excellent +/-1dB. Between 10kHz and 16kHz, the response was down 6dB, which doesn't contradict my subjective observations because the microphone in the cheap RadioShack meter doesn't offer flat response above 10kHz.

Problems
The…

Odeon La Traviata loudspeaker Specifications

Sidebar 1: Specifications

Description: Three-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: ring-radiator supertweeter, 1" horn-loaded tweeter, 8" plastic-cone woofer. Crossover frequencies: 1.8kHz, 16kHz. Frequency response: 35Hz-24kHz, +/-3dB. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Sensitivity: 93dB/W/m. Power rating: not specified.
Dimensions: 45" H by 9-13" W by 17" D. Weight: 95 lbs.
Finishes: Gloss black, burled veneer adds $3000/pair.
Serial numbers of units reviewed: A.01.90.01.
Price: $9500/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 7.
Manufacturer: Odeon, Germany…

Portal Audio Panache integrated amplifier Specifications

Sidebar: Specifications

Description: Solid-state integrated amplifier with four line inputs. Output power: 100Wpc into 8 ohms (20dBW), 200Wpc into 4 ohms (20dBW). Input impedance: 22k ohms.
Dimensions: 17" W by 5" H by 11.5" D. Weight: 32 lbs.
Price: $1795. Approximate number of dealers: sold direct.
Manufacturer: Portal Audio, 6626 Charter Hills Road, Charlotte, NC 28277. Tel: (888) 737-4434. Web: www.portalaudio.com.