[Diamond Dog]

I do know that there are indeed some who prefer the less expensive 600 over the 650. Diff'rent strokes I guess.

I'm one of those folks. I auditioned both and ended up preferring ( and buying ) the 600's. Like you said, diff'rent strokes - and if I compared them now, who knows? The 650's are certainly really good cans and I'm sure you'll enjoy them immensely. 

D.D.

[dB Cooper]

Just a followup after some more break in time (and after hearing a bunch of other cans at Capital Audiofest.)

These things have a pretty good number of hours on them now and to my mind at least could probably be considered "broken in."

At the show, I heard for the first time: AKG K702 Anniversary, Beyer T50, Audeze LCD3, Fostex "Mad Dog" modded T50's, and revisited the AKG K701's , Sennheiser H800, Audeze LCD2.

While all of these had their strong points, only the AKG K702 "Annies" made me waver on whether or not I had made the right decision. The others all either had some "deal-breaker" issue (brightness in the case of the K701s, clamminess in the case of the modded Fostex) or were unjustifiably expensive (the HD800 are "better" but are well along the diminishing-returns curve for three times the price.)

The combination of smoothness and detail presented by the HD650 work great for me and they mate well with my O2. No wonder these things are a perennial favorite.

Back to some music now