sub $500 replacement for hd569

[piratemonkey]

I broke my 569s recently. They were really comfortable, this reddit thread details what I think are problems much more than I can https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/16nin6o/sennheiser_hd569_opnion/

The main issue I found was just that the mids and trebles were not balanced, and the bass was pretty much non existent. I guess you can expect that for a low power headphone. I have a focusrite 2i2 that I love for handling audio. Apparently it can handle 600ohms. The 569s were not great at bass.

I want a relatively inexpensive pair of headphones that are relatively neutral. "reference" in a way, but I will also be using these as my regular headphones for both wattching youtube as well as listening to and producing music. Thus my want for something as neutral as possible without sacrificing a natural/pleasant sound. Don't get it twisted though: mastering is done through phones and cars, not headphones. Something that can run off the preamp, sound great, and be comfortable is what I'm looking for. I can sacrifice on any of these, I just would like to know how I am before I buy

[Psittac]

So I heard the HD599 over a decade ago and it had the same issues as you're mentioning with the HD569.  They were flat and uninteresting.  Low impedance headphones can have plenty of bass, the Rode NTH100 has gob's of it and so does the moondrop para which is very low impedance.  Don't let impedance be your driving decision maker.  Also my friend had that same interface and he said the headphone out isn't so stellar, He got some Audeze's and didn't like them on it, nor his focal clear mg.  He went with an ifi dongle and is happy now.  I seem to remember it having low power for output.

 

 

I wouldn't drive a 600ohm headphone off it, 22mw isn't much so depending on how sensitive the headphones you get are.  The Schiit Magni for comparison

 

 

The Magni is a very powerful amp so it's not an apples to apples comparison.  But if it were me I would split your budget between a decent entry level amp and run it off your focusrite as the dac.

 

What I noticed when underpowering a headphone is that the bass is the first thing to go, it start's to get bloomy and boomy.

 

With that said many people are happy with the USB-C Dongle dac from apple.com and I can't find any spec's on it.  I can't imagine that it would put out much power and I've never tried it on a harder to drive headphone, maybe I should do that.

 

Eventually total volume becomes an issue, but the sound quality will go long before that.

 

With all of that being said, you might consider the Sennheiser HDB630 and forego all of the issues with properly powering.  They are wireless and that means it has dac and amp built in.  They're easy to EQ and you can make them neutral.  If I had a $500 budget right now that's probably what I would choose.

 

Oh and take a look at the hifiman kithara reviews. I haven't had great experience with hifiman because I typically don't get the right ones.