Sennheiser HD 650 Studio Headphone Review

They could definitely lack volume if plugged directly in your phone or a built-in headphone socket on your laptop, especially if you’re using them with Sonarworks calibration and “Safe headroom” enabled. But there’s no need to worry if you’re using an audio interface as any modern unit will drive them loud enough.

The manufacturing consistency is great. However, if you’re going to use them frequently, after a few years some parts might need a replacement – lower frequency playback may cause some rumbling and distortion, the headband will become considerably looser, and obviously, ear pads will need replacement as with any headphone used for critical work. Luckily, you can order and replace literally any part of these headphones with ease.

Sennheiser HD 650 are pretty much the most neutral headphones available on the market. However, their sub-bass response is lacking (frequencies below 100 Hz) and high-mids (around 2-5 kHz) need to be tweaked a bit. Otherwise, they are pretty much good to go straight out of the box.

You would expect from headphone manufacturers perfect matching between left and right drivers. Unfortunately, in the real world, this doesn’t happen too often – pretty much every other pair of headphones have channel inconsistencies even among the well established pro headphone brands. By contrast, Sennheiser is a true expert in offering headphones with matched left and right drivers so that soundstage stays consistent across the spectrum. With some minor exceptions, Sennheiser HD 650 has hardly any inconsistency between the two drivers. On a rare occasion, pairs have slight differences in bass and sub-bass region, but the magnitude is low enough to not cause audible issues with imaging.

Based on our experience with various headphone models, we would say that Sennheiser HD 650’s are very comfortable to wear. They are lightweight, fit very well almost any head size and shape and do not cause headaches by creating too much pressure on your ears and temples. Only the largest heads may find the clamping force of HD 650’s on the tight side, but keep in mind that with time the headband will become looser, so the comfort for those with larger heads should only increase over time.  These headphones are a great choice for extensive mixing sessions.

While the asking price of €389/$400 can’t be considered low, these are the flattest-sounding headphones out of the box, while being far from the most expensive, so we’re not complaining! If we compare HD 650 to other headphones and forget about calibration for a minute, Sennheiser / Drop HD 58X and 6XX or Sennheiser HD 600 are very close to HD 650 performance straight out of the box, while all are more affordable. However, when used with Sonarworks calibration, Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro offer a near-identical performance of calibrated HD 650 for about half the price.