Hey there fellow Audioholics; as some of you know, I recently picked up a set of Sennheiser HD560S headphones along with a Hidizs S9 DAC / headphone amp. The ‘phones retail at $200, while the S9 is $109 on Hidizs’ website, or $120 on Amazon.
Opening with the S9, this is a flash drive sized DAC/amp combo that connects to your source via a (directional) USB-C, with a USB-C to USB-A adapter included in the package. A USB-C to Lightning connector is also available, but not included by default ($20 upcharge on the Hidizs website). Upon receipt of the S9, I promptly hooked it up to my Dell XPS laptop to hear….mostly low level pops instead of music. I spent a little while upgrading my laptop’s drivers, downloading the drivers on Hidizs’ website, and generally pulling out what’s left of my hair. I was about to write the unit off as defective when I decided to try the USB-C to USB-A adapter. With the adapter in place (and obviously using a different port on my laptop), I was in business.
So, how just how good can the S9 be? Pretty darned good.
Amir over at ASR measured it, and the petite Hidizs received the coveting golfing panther from a guy who’s not renowned for being super easy to please. Outside of the teething problems I had, I haven’t heard a hint of noise, and the S9 has sufficient power to drive the headphones I have on hand to respectably high volumes. Thumbs up once you get it working....
Moving on to the Sennheiser HD560S, these are an open back headphone visually similar to the rest of the HD5xx series. Build quality is decent, certainly more than adequate to sit on my desk or on my head
, though the overall design isn't exactly flashy. Specs of interest are a rated impedance of 120 ohms, and a sensitivity of 110dB @ 1kHz with 1V. You can also find real measurements over at
rtings.com instead of relying upon the lies that are a 6Hz – 38kHz frequency response rating.
So how do these things sound? Out of the box, they aren’t half bad. The tonal balance is mostly defined by a couple treble peaks, and a shelved down low end. It’s tolerable to listen to, but stock vs stock, I’d rather listen to a more full bodied headphone like my Momentums (also Sennheiser). In terms of imaging and soundstage, things are a bit better. While I won’t describe the experience as speaker-like in any sense of the term, there is a stage that extends a bit outside of your head, and instruments / effects have well defined locations within that space with adequate source material (Pink Floyd’s DSOTM for example). I won't recycle the old trope of hearing things I've never heard before in my music, but overall the sound is clean and crisp, with the small details coming through just fine.
Given that I wasn’t overawed with the tonal balance of the HD560S, I decided to try out a bit of EQ via Equalizer APO & settings from
Oratory1990. The settings include a low shelf filter to bump up the bass a few dB, as well as some targeted cuts in the treble to better match the Harman preference curve. Suffice it to say, the Sennheisers handled the EQ without any complaints, and my ears give Oratory's work an A+. I've spent the last couple nights listening for 4+ hours at a crack without a bit of fatigue or discomfort from the headphones themselves, just able to sit back and enjoy the music. Overall, for the relatively modest investment in time and money, I'm quite pleased with my new laptop rig.
