Sennheiser HD 650、HD 6XX、およびHD600レビュー用のYaxiイヤパッド | Yaxi Earpads For Sennheiser HD 650, HD 6XX, and HD 600 Review – Altered Images
Pros — Comfortable; good quality materials; package also contains foam filters.
快適; 良質の材料; パッケージにはフォームフィルターも含まれています。
Cons — Tonality much different from the out-of-the-box version of both HD 600 and HD 650: congested sound with reduced resolution, clarity and balance; midrange too recessed; no storage box (to be used for the stock pads).
HD600とHD650の両方の標準バージョンとは大きく異なる色調：解像度、明瞭さ、バランスが低下した混雑したサウンド。 ミッドレンジが凹みすぎています。 収納ボックスなし（ストックパッドに使用）。
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY エグゼクティブサマリー
Yaxi offer a comfortable, high quality earpad that alters the sound of the Sennheiser HD 600/650 headphones substantially by emphasizing the lower frequencies. This results in increased body in the lower half of the frequency spectrum at the expense of midrange and most technicalities.
Yaxiは、低周波数を強調することにより、Sennheiser HD 600/650ヘッドフォンのサウンドを大幅に変更する、快適で高品質のイヤパッドを提供します。 これらの結果、ミッドレンジとほとんどの技術を犠牲にして、周波数スペクトルの下半分のボディが増加します。
INTRODUCTION
The Sennheiser HD 650/600/6XX headphone have been long-lasting standard staples with audiophiles to the present day. One of the characteristics of these headphones is that they can be easily disassembled by amateurs (check for YouTube videos) and therefore easily repaired or modified. Spare parts by Sennheiser and third-party companies are readily available. But even with the utmost care will the day come when wear-and-tear will have consumed the elasticity in the stock pads. The owner has the choice of replacing the stock pads with the original Sennheiser ones or go more adventurously with after-market pads. Yaxi are one of the providers for the latter.
Yaxi are a company out of Japan that have delighted us with their earpads for the Koss PortaPro (that also fit the Koss KSC75/KPH30i and Sennheiser PX100/100-II) – which made it onto our Gear-of-the-Year list of 2020. We found that these earpads were thicker and cushier than the stock ones and that they altered the sound to the better. One of the main incentive to get the Yaxi pads was appearance: instead of the usual black, the Yaxis came in various luscious, inviting colours.
Yaxi also supply pads for full-sized headphones, albeit less flashy and more focused on functionality than looks. Their Yaxi HD 650 earpads fit the Sennheiser HD650/HD600/HD660S/HD580/HD565/HD545/660S.
So far, all reviews of these Yaxi earpads have focused on the Sennheiser HD 650 – to the best of our knowledge. In this review, we treat the HD 6XX variation of the HD 650 (sonically identical) but also the leaner sounding Sennheiser HD 600.
ORDERING
Ordering was done from the Yaxi website and was very easy as worldwide shipping from Japan is included.
https://www.yaxi.jp/product-gallery/hd650/
SPECIFICATIONS
Outer Diameter: 106 mm*81 mm
Inner Diameter: 75 mm* 51 mm
Thickness: 25mm
Tested at: $54
Package contains two pieces of earpads and two pieces of filters marked L and R.
PHYSICAL THINGS AND USABILITY
Yaxi’s presentation is always impeccable. The plastic bag contains the two earpads but also the two inlay foams for the earcups as well as a small poster and a sticker. I wished that Yaxi had shipped their pads in a box instead of a plastic bag (for storing the stock pads) while understanding that shipping from Japan is pricey.
The Yaxi HD 650 earpads are a hybrid construction with the inner walls and the surface area are of a synthetic suede (“alcantara”) and the outer wall is lined with protein leather. The inner and outer walls are straight and the contact surface is flat in contrast to the curved stock pads.
It is obvious from the photos that the Yaxi HD 650 earpads have a 20% bigger opening than the Sennheiser stock pads and a 40% smaller contact surface (both estimated; see photos below). The Yaxis are also marginally deeper. This leaves more space around the ears and less contact area between pad and skin is thought to provide less clamp pressure and therefore more comfort. No information on the fill is given by either Yaxi or Sennheiser but both are approximately equal in terms of elastic rebound.
But do the Yaxis really provide more comfort considering the Sennheiser’s have been known for being particularly comfortable (ootb). I wore the HD 600 for longer period of time and found both earpads equally comfortable. The Yaxi’s smaller contact area may become advantageous in hot & sweaty climatic regions when attempting to save on air conditioning.
JÜRGEN’S TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SENNHEISER HD 600
OOTB, the Sennheiser HD 600 are characterized by their neutral, natural sound that is fuelled mainly by that wonderful clear and transparent midrange with their realistic, organic, and intimate vocals. Another trademark is the well extended and well resolving treble. The Sennheiser HD 600’s Achilles heel is the bass, which is not well extended, not as fast and articulate as in more modern headphones, and it can be muddy at times.
While dynamics are good, soundstage is not the widest for an open-back headphone. That all with the stock pads. The slightly more expensive Sennnheiser HD 650 (and its HD 6XX drop.com version) is thicker, less clear sounding with a poorer staging so that many audiophiles prefer the leaner HD 600.
The Yaxi alcantaras change the tonality of both headphones substantially – and I am speaking for the Sennheiser HD 600 only. Adding the pads moves the weight downward – just like in middle-aged people like me. What is removed from the upper end is added to the lower end. The sound becomes fuller bodied, warmer, and darker but also less balanced – and congested. Detail resolution goes largely out of the window while note weight is increased. The result is a middle-of-the-road meat-and-potato sound. The Yaxis essentially create a cheaper “nothing special” headphone.
So what happened? With the Yaxis, the low end becomes boosted and perceived as better extended – but it does not get any faster (driver speed does not change). The low end is rather fuzzy, even less articulate than before, and bloated — which thickens and congests the lower midrange. Vocals sound fuller bodied but also less energetic, and they lack air in comparison, as there is also upper midrange removed. Also strongly compromised are midrange clarity and transparency, filigree, and finesse that the Sennheiser HD 600 are known for and that have made them so popular since 1997. Treble is also toned down, cymbals are ultra thin, less crisp than before, and they run danger to disappear in the mix. All this results in a deeper but still narrow soundstage, and the whole image can sound “tuby”. Separation and layering have also become strongly compromised.
I find the sonic image with the Yaxis simply crude – maybe for people who do not care for detail resolution or balance but rather for volume. The earpad creator(s) ignored both, Sennheiser’s idea behind this headphone and the love of this particular Sennheiser sound for the last almost 25 years. The thick gooey lower midrange/bass may work for simple rock or country music, which would play equally well on a much cheaper headphones. And sure, “gooey” can be glossed over as “coherent”.
BIODEGRADED’S TECHNICAL ANALYSIS OF THE SENNHEISER HD 6XX
The Sennheiser HD 600 & 650 live in the midrange. Neither have a lot of bass, although the 650/6XX has a mid-bass hump, and in neither is the bass of the best quality, being a bit loose and boomy. OOTB, the balance through the mids, though, and the midrange technicalities, are excellent. Additionally, some listeners might wish for brighter treble. Any pads or other modifications to these headphones that aim to increase their bass and treble might suffer from highlighting their less than stellar bass quality, and might upset the balance through the mids. This is the case with the Yaxi pads.
With these Yaxi pads on my HD 6XX (early model made in Ireland, so similar to pre-Romania versions of the HD 650), bass becomes exaggerated & muddy; midrange timbre is killed, male vocals and piano in particular having no life; and imaging and layering suffer badly. The graph below illustrates the effect well: with the amplitudes roughly leveled through the uppermost mids and treble, the measurement shows the exaggerated downslope through the midrange due to the introduced mid- and upper bass hump. The sub-bass doesn’t roll off as much as the green curve suggests (this is a shortcoming of my measurement setup with some headphones), so the bass boost is actually fairly broad.
I had hoped these might do a little bit better with the HD 600s, which don’t have as much midbass hump as the 650/6XX and also are a bit higher around 3kHz, but from Jürgen’s description above it seems not. So for either model, if your standard of music is how you’d hear it in a crowded nightclub you might call these an improvement over stock; but otherwise not.
CONCLUDING REMARKS 結論
It is not clear why Yaxi are offering these earpads: sure they have a bigger opening and less contact area and may therefore be more comfortable to some than the stock pads, but they alter the sound characteristics of the Sennheiser cans to the point that it should be explicitly stated on their product page. The paradox is that the Sennheiser HD 600s and HD 650s are the poor man’s sonic endgame headphones, but the Yaxi HD 650 Earpads undermine this idea by worsening their technicalities and coarsening their tonalities.
All our analysis of the Yaxi earpads revealed is that there is nothing wrong with the Sennheiser stock pads. Yaxi certainly did much better on their PortaPro pads.
Yaxiがこれらのイヤパッドを提供している理由は明らかではありません。開口部が大きく接触面積が少ないため、ストックパッドよりも快適な場合がありますが、Sennheiser缶のサウンド特性が必要なレベルまで変化します。 製品ページに明示的に記載してください。 逆説は、Sennheiser HD600とHD650が貧乏人のソニックエンドゲームヘッドフォンであるということですが、Yaxi HD 650イヤパッドは、技術を悪化させ、色調を粗くすることによって、このアイデアを弱体化させます。
Yaxiイヤパッドの分析で明らかになったのは、Sennheiserストックパッドには何の問題もないということです。 Yaxiは確かにPortaProパッドではるかに優れていました。
DISCLAIMER
The Yaxi HD 650 earpads were kindly provided by Yaxi and we thank them for that. We also apologize for our delay in publishing this review. There was simply a learning process involved with earpad reviews.
Yaxi HD 650イヤパッドはYaxiから提供されたもので、感謝しています。 また、このレビューの公開が遅れたことをお詫び申し上げます。 イヤパッドのレビューに関連する学習プロセスがありました。
Get the Yaxi HD 650 pads from the Yaxi website
Our generic standard disclaimer.
You find an INDEX of our most relevant technical articles HERE.
