Sennheiser HD 559 Open Back Around Ear Headphone - Black/Anthracite

Product Information

Build-wise, this headphone is decent, featuring a lightweight if slightly-less reassuring composition of plastic, with comfortable velour padding on the headband and earpads. A few days ago we reviewed the new Sennheiser HD 599, and today we’re taking a look at it’s less-expensive home-audio entry-level counterpart, the HD 559. And maybe I will fix my DT880-600 that came with basted driver from warranty job by Beyer repair center in USA: they supposedly change the defective driver which measured way off (I have Clio since I play a bit with DIY loudspeakers). Compared to my Koss phones that have a very bright sound with particularly good reproduction of the high end registers (and give an outstanding bass sound too by their design), I initially found these bass heavy and very little of the treble registers, but wait! Lightweight yet robust design with luxurious velour covered ear cushions and padded headband deliver exceptional wearing comfort for long listening sessions.

My Teac HA-501 is also a pretty revealing amp, and has an adjustable output impedance, which I think further suggests these headphones scale well with better components.It is stuck on the magnet and makes the air hole in the driver magnet smaller so air can pass through it with more restriction. So, naturally, at that time I checked mostly subjective reviews (which said it was very good for the money), not looking at frequency response graphs or anything else technical apart from the impedance. Clamping force is on the high side and combined with the fact that pads are rather thin and hard, it can be a bit uncomfortable to some. The cups are very large and deep, so your ear will stay suspended inside the cups, not really touching anything. The successor to the HD 500 series, the Sennheiser HD559 is powered by Sennheiser's proprietary transducer technology, including the Ergonomic Acoustic Refinement design, which allows the audio signal to channel directly into your ear, whilst remaining comfortable in doing so.

While I can't tell if the smoothness I'm hearing in some recordings is just because these headphones are forgiving or if the dac truly makes the difference, I can say that the HD 559 does pick up the improved sound of cymbals that the multibit dac provides.It seemed to be hard to drive compared to what I was used to and would also distort bass pretty bad relatively early. They have a little bit a rough edge to them, especially when compared to the HD 650, but then again, which headphones don't in that comparison?