Review: Sennheiser HD558 Open-back Headphones
This is a review of the Sennheiser HD558 open-back headphones. Here's the short version for the impatient: they sound wonderful and they're very comfortable.
I bought these things without actually having heard them. Why on earth would somebody, especially someone as picky and as poor as your truly, buy a pair of headphones without hearing them first? Well, as Elwood Blues might have said, it was
a message from god.
To start at the start, I owe it all to Melissa Etheridge.
A few weeks ago my daughter treated my wife and I to tickets to see Ms. Etheridge at a local casino. It was a great show, in a quasi-intimate outdoor venue. Straight-up no-frills energetic rock 'n roll. M.E. is an extraordinary talent and gave a 100% effort. The band was tight, the PA was just right, and a great time was had by all.
Normally, being a Sunday night, we'd have headed straight home afterward. But the casino was raffling off a guitar to concertgoers so we had to wait around for the drawing. No, it wasn't me who won it. No big deal, though - it was just an Ovation.
Though I had no desire to own an Ovation, it was autographed by M.E. so I was sure that if I
had won it I'd have found an instant buyer among M.E.'s adoring fans, who'd apparently already bought two of every item at the merch table.
[BTW, pot-smoke filled hippie love-ins never really died, they just became lesbian love-fests with Ms. Etheridge playing the part of the Grateful Dead. "I smell freedom", M.E. quipped, alluding to the recent legalization of pot here in Washington State. The atmosphere at a Melissa Etheridge concert is, um, happy.]
So I patiently stood in a long line to show my ticket stub and obtain a chit to drop into the barrel. Then waited another hour while the even longer line behind me snaked through the process before the drawing could take place.
To pass time I sat down at a slot machine, put in five dollars and began making 20-cent bets. (Yeh, I'm a big spender; what they call a "whale" at the casinos. I routinely get comped free soft drinks.) Long story medium-long, I quickly hit a jackpot. No, not a retire-on-a-yacht jackpot, but a surprisingly good return on a 20-cent bet: $113.
Next day I'm online, preparing to spend my windfall on Timeless2, when I stumble onto a very positive review of the Sennheiser HD558 headphones. I'd never owned any open-back cans, but always wanted to. So I looked them up.
Checking the graphs at
headphone.com (if you haven't checked this site out, you must!) I saw that the HD558 seemed a perfect complement to my workhorse ATH-M50's. Where the AT's frequency response went up, the 558's went down, and vice versa. Most alluringly, the Sennheisers lacked the hyped low end that is the ATH-M50's most obvious weakness.
I went to Amazon to check the price on the HD558. $150. A little more than the $113 I had to spend. Plus I really did want to get Timeless2. As I was waffling about the headphones I noticed a link that read "One Used, $108". It said the used item was in "Like New" condition, with full warranty from an authorized Sennheiser dealer.
With shipping it came to $113.
$113! Clearly,
a message from god. So I went ahead and ordered 'em. A week later they arrived. I'd been warned by several reviewers that the cable would be excessively long, and it is. 10' to be exact, and not coiled. Might come in handy some day, though. If I ever take up the drums, for example. Supposedly there is a shorter cable available. The cable is detachable, a feature all headphones should have, IMO.
I was also forewarned that using it on a portable device would be clunky due to the 1/4" to 1/8" straight adapter, which makes for a 3"-long contraption sticking stiffly out the top/bottom of an MP3 player, putting stress on the tiny jack inside. But I had a flexible right-angle adapter I could use instead. This turns out to be a must if you plan to use these cans on a pocket MP3 player. Such an adapter can be had for $3 to $6.
What I didn't know in advance was how they'd sound. After all, I'd bought them on the basis of a message from god and/or the Tulalip Indian tribe, with encouragement from some frequency-response graphs. Not exactly a scientific, nor thorough, vetting process.
Fortunately, they sound absolutely wonderful. And extremely comfortable. I've always found the ATH-M50s quite comfy, even though they've gotten a little scratchy over the years from cracking on the pads. But these HD558s redefine headphone comfort. Really, really comfortable. Velour pads and just the right amount of squeeze pressure. A couple ounces lighter than the AT's, too, and with larger pads, which you'll appreciate if you have large ears.
Sound-wise, they deliver just what I'd hoped for from open-back headphones: smooth, un-hyped bass and a flatter high end than most cans. They're flatter overall than my AT's, and vastly superior to my only other Sennheisers, a pair of HD280Pro's. They're even flatter than (but similar-sounding to) AKG K-701's, which had also been in the running to be my open-back addition.
There is a slight bump in the upper lows, overlapping the so-called "mud range". This, I think, may turn out to be a plus when evaluating my own mixes. Getting that range right is crucial, and the ATH-M50's are a little too forgiving there.
The HD558s have a 50-ohm impedance. A lot of people say you need to go out and buy a dedicated headphone amplifier for low-impedance cans. I think those people must be using iPods as their base reference, which are notorious for wimpy distortion-prone drivers. But plugged into my MOTU, although less-efficient than the ATH-M50s, the HD558's are easily driven by the MOTU's headphone output. I just turn them up by 3-4dB to achieve the same level as the AT's. Same for my portable player, which is of a much higher quality than an iPod.
I'm sure you're aware of the major downside to open-back headphones, but I'll restate it anyway: they offer almost no isolation. You can't use them for monitoring while tracking with a microphone. You can't use them on an airplane. You can't use them for live mixing. You may not even be able to use them in an office where coworkers are in close proximity. They are best when you're alone in a quiet room.
I am very happy with my new headphones. They provide an alternate reference for reviewing my mixes, extraordinarily clear detail for editing, and luxurious comfort for listening to music in the dark at bedtime.
I have just one reservation: they are so clean and clear that all of my mixes sound better with them. I guess I'll just have to live with that.