Sennheiser HD 650

The basics

You can tell these hardy Sennheiser veterans mean business. Metal construction gives a vice-like fit on your dome and speaks of their ineffably high-end sonics. You’ll need an adaptor to plug them into an iPod; these are built to be part of a nice little home hi-fi set-up. They’ll give fine results from an MP3 player, especially with lossless tracks, but it’s not really what they’re for.

The good

Sound is flat-out the best here. Across a full gamut of musical styles the HD 650s serve up smooth, subtly conveyed sound, but when you want them to kick out the jams, these metal mothers don some large-style boots. Treble and mid-range detail is superb and the bottom end well-deep, and as a result they make mincemeat of everything from dub reggae to classic rock and Floydian prog. They also sound great with more contemporary, grimy sounds, be they Burial’s downbeat dubstep or Future of the Left’s skronking punk rock.

The bad

The open-backed design leaks sound like a sonic sieve, so these are totally unsuitable for wearing on the tube, unless you enjoy “chin music” courtesy of your fellow passengers. Given that they’re thus intended for long, immersive home-listening sessions they could also be more comfortable. You’ll need high quality audio sources to get the best out of them, too. None of the above is exactly a kill criticism, but you need to be aware of these things before considering the HD 650s

The bottom line

The HD 650s sound mighty fine. In fact they sound better than that. They’re as mellifluous as the hypnotic pipes of Pan himself; they’re the aural equivalent of wagyu beef. If you’re in the market for a pair of headphones that cost around £300, you can’t go wrong with these.