Recently I stumbled across a site called
http://www.headphile.com and became intrigued by the option to put custom made wooden cups on to my HD600's. I was on the verge of selling my 600's due to the fact that I listen to headphones frequently when my wife is watching TV in an adjacent room, and I need more isolation than the fully open 600's provided.
So, I figured I'd give the woodies a shot and see how it worked.
Ordering and product quality impressionsAfter I placed my order for a pair in gloss black finish, it took about a week for the cups to be made and arrive at my door. I pulled the mesh grills off the 600's immediately and popped on the woodies. They are a tight enough fit that they could stay on by friction, but not very firmly. Luckily there are pre-drilled screw holes in the 600's, and the woodies had some holes pre-drilled to line up with them. There were 8 small screws included to allow the woodies to be firmly attached.
But before I screwed them on, I wanted to play around a bit with acoustical damping first. I tried them with nothing in the cups at first, just empty. Then I tried them stuffec with cotton. Overall I preferred the cotton in there.
So, I went with the cotton for sound. Without the cotton the separation of instruments became a bit smeared. With the cotton the highs and mids kept separation very nicely.
At this point I screwed the woodies on and it feels very solidly attached. The overall look is "very" cool, since the fit and finish is very professional and high quality. I think the 600's look much cooler with the black gloss cups.
SoundOverall impressions are that the sound is much closer and more intimate, the “veil” is gone, and music sounds a lot less distant. Coupled to that is that the overall sound presentation is much more “life sized”. Before, with the mesh grills, it sounded like the musicians were physically smaller than real life. The woodies change that dramatically, bringing the overall size presentation much, much closer to life sized.
Upper bass gained impact, and most surprisingly, dynamics took a big jump up. I can now safely recommend the Senn’s for people listening to rock.
Tonally, they are less dark, so detail retrieval and transparency have also been improved noticeably. Combined with the stronger upper bass and better dynamics, they are a much more energetic sounding can now.
But they manage to keep the smoothness and sweetness of the mids that the Senn’s are known for.
Only one negative I’ve noticed – the very very deep bass is not as strong as before. On the VAST majority of music this is irrelevant because bass that deep simply does not exist on most recordings. And since the mid-bass and upper bass are as strong or stronger than ever, the overall impression is that the 600’s are actually “more” bassy, not less. But, if you have those recordings of pipe organs or synthesized bass at 30hz or below, you will notice it is not quite as loud as before.
IsolationSince my primary motivation was to increase isolation, how did it work out? They definitely isolate more that before, but still not as much as something like the Sony V6 or Senn HD-280. The isolation increased enough that it's good enough for my needs. However if a person wanted to increase isolation more, a small sealing strip (like a weather sealant strip) placed between the woodies and the driver piece would make the cups airtight. The other place that is pretty leaky is the felt pads. If these pads could be replaced with pleather or some other material that would offer a good seal against the side of your head, then these headphones would be very isolating.
Overall ImpressionsI bought the woodies for increase isolation which I got. The fact that sound quality improved dramatically was an unexpected and pleasant bonus. I'm very happy with my purchase. I've heard it stated on this board that the HD600's and the HD580's are exactly the same except the 600's have a better grill. If I were doing this from scratch, I'd probably just buy a pair of 580's, buy the woodies, and have a world class headphone for less than the cost of a pair of 650's.
PicturesPics will be posted tonight after my digital camera has recharged.
