Music to my ears

OK now that I've got you all set up with how solidly built and well designed these are you're all ready for me to bowl you over with how great they sound, right? Well I will but I'm going to have to include a ton of caveats. Perhaps you've heard the saying "garbage in, garbage out." Well that's exactly what happens with the Sennheiser HD 580s. You know how the Riva TNT video chipset is dependent on how fast your CPU is? Well, the sound quality of the Sennheisers is directly related to how good your audio source is. If you think you can plug these into your $30 swap meet disc man and get blown away by the sound, you're wrong. Not that the sound will be bad, but you could have gotten about the same results with cheaper headphones like the $69 Grado SR-60s. Now if you take these Sennheisers and plug them into a high quality amp or receiver, you WILL be blown away.

The grating protects the driver but it's still open air

Lyle "Cross" Fong, Dennis' older bro, just blew a big wad of cash on a high end Parasound pre-amp and CD player (save your pennies - this little setup went over the four figure mark). We compared the Sennheiser HD 580 and Grado SR 60 on this system. The SR 60 gave its signature bright sound, with ultra defined mid range and treble. While it is impressive at first, prolonged listening to such bright sound is fatiguing to the ear - not to mention the fact that the SR 60 is probably the worst designed (ergonomically and aesthetically only) product I've ever seen. The HD 580s on the other hand, gave the same well defined mid range and high end, but in a more subtle and less fatiguing way. Imaging is fantastic when plugged into this kind of high end system too; you'll easily pick out the distinct sounds of individual instruments and hear background enhancements that you never noticed before. This contrasts with the way cheapo headphones "mush" all the sound together.

Put another way, listening to music with the Sennheiser HD 580s is like eating a multi course gourmet meal. The more inexpensive Grado SR60s give you that same meal, but with the food somewhat too seasoned and spicy. Cheapo headphones are like eating that gourmet meal after it's been through a blender.

We also tried the two headphones when plugged into an everyday computer CD-ROM. Here, the Grados out performed the Sennheisers, due to the shoddy audio output you get from the headphone jack of a CD-ROM. The bright, peppy sound of the Grados helped compensate for the poor quality output, whereas the Sennheisers fell victim to the garbage in, garbage out principle. Good sound, but not as well defined as the Grados. Finally, I tested both headphones in the number two jack of my Diamond MX300 sound card. I was pleasantly surprised that the MX300 was able to drive the Sennheisers pretty well. Of course it did not match the clarity of the Parasound pre-amp or my friend's Onkyo AC-3 receiver, but it was light years beyond the output my cheapo CD-ROM jack gave. In this case, the Sennheisers get the nod over the Grados.

Overall, the only downer I could find is that the bass output of the HD 580s doesn't really grab you. The lows are more refined and detailed than they are punchy. If you're a gangsta rap fanatic, look elsewhere to get your rumbles. For just about any other kind of music, the HD 580s are wonderful.