Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
That's what I thought too, for about 6 months. But as I listened more and I learned new things, I realized it's actually a rather poor sounding headphone. It has a high degree of driver coloration, and is muffled and dark sounding. Others have described the sound as "subtle sounds lost", "muddy, indistinct", "seemed like I had noise dampening earplugs in", "very thick sounding". They sound like a set of mediocre box speakers - a sound that many people are familiar with, but lacking clarity and definition. Instead of an end-game, it really is just the beginning.
You must have ludicrously high standards.
Tube amps often have a high output impedance which affects the frequency response and sometimes boosts some frequency ranges -- this sort of coloration should not be considered a "benefit" of vacuum tubes, however. As @Asheikm noted, the HD6XX headphones are less sensitive to this problem than low impedance headphones, and furthermore headphones in general have relatively flat impedance curves so are less affected by amplifier output impedance than loudspeakers are.
I think what is more important is the class of the amp. Even with tubes, a push-pull class AB design will produce significant odd-order components. On the other hand a class A amp's distortion products will go to zero with low signals levels.
Class A amps also let you simplify amplification and power regulation circuit design significantly (at the expense of requiring much larger heat sinks and high temperature components than a similarly-rated AB amp). Likewise one of the real advantages of tubes is that they simplify circuit design because they do not require as many correction factors as transistors. Great sounding class AB transistor amps exist, but they involve relatively complex circuits and highly skilled engineers.
Regarding your comment about transient response, be aware that in frequency response theory there is a direct relationship between transient response (a time domain metric) and high frequency cutoff (a frequency domain metric). If an amp has a high frequency cutoff above the hearing range (say 20 kHz) then it's transient response is automatically going to be "fast" enough. Nearly all tube and solid state amps are flat to 20 kHz so transient response is not a differentiator.
That's the technical standpoint. Now for casual use, if an amp has a high frequency emphasis then this makes it sound "faster" than an amp with a low frequency emphasis, so I think this is what some people are thinking of when they use the term transient response. For example when people speak of the transient response or "speed" of the bass (which makes absolutely no sense from a technical standpoint) what they are referring to is whether there is a frequency response emphasis in the bass. If there is, then naturally-occurring harmonics will be overshadowed and in the absence of high frequency clues the ear will hear a "slow" attack. On the other hand if the frequency response has an early bass cutoff or a mid-high frequency emphasis (like smaller speakers) then you hear the harmonics of bass instruments and the high frequency components of the kick drum beater more clearly and your ear translates this into a "fast" attack.
The point is: just look at the frequency response curve. If you think one system sounds "faster" than another, it is likely that the faster one simply emphasizes high frequencies, possibly due to a high output impedance coupled with well-damped speakers. If you have tone controls or an equalizer, turning down the treble will "slow it down"!
I don't know how the HD6XX fares in sample to sample variation, but before writing it off (or declaring it perfect) make sure you get a listen to 3 or more samples.
Not trying to be a flat-earther... I use a Class A headphone amp and appreciate its benefits. I'm just trying to clarify usage and shed some light on some misconceptions that are spread by unscrupulous marketing departments and ivory tower audiophiles.
Multi-way loudspeaker systems are much messier. Each driver has resonances at its own frequency extremes (say around 60 Hz and 1 kHz for the woofer and 1 kHz and 10 kHz for the tweeter) as well as more complex resonances in its plastic, paper, and/or metal cone materials, acoustic resonances in the enclosure, resonances in the enclosure walls. The resulting system can often still be termed linear, so the time domain and frequency domain responses can be derived from each other. All the tiny time-domain resonances appear as irregularities in the frequency response well within the audio band. Extremely careful engineering is required to produce a reasonably smooth frequency response, and this in turn will indicate well-controlled resonances and good time-domain response.
Getting back to (open back) headphones, the low power levels and absence of an enclosure simplify the design tremendously. That's why we can have this Sennheiser series paired with a sub-$500 amp sounding as good as $10,000 loudspeakers paired with a $20,000 amp.