Home Headphones of the Year under $1000
HEADPHONES
You can have your Bluetooth, your noise cancelling, your True Wireless buds — when you’re at home, indulging in some evening entertainment, there’s no substitute for plugging a pair of open, wired headphones into a decent headphone amp and letting the music flow.
Sennheiser’s $319.95 HD 560S is so open (meaning the headshells allow music out, as well as external noise in) that when we first checked them for fit and comfort, we were astounded at how little they curtailed the sound of music then arriving from our hi-fi speakers. Comfortable they are too, firm not clamped, and with velour earcups and headband, not the common pleather which we find deteriorates far faster in a challenging Australian climate.
The cable (for there is no Bluetooth) terminates in a full-sized quarter-inch stereo jack, but an adaptor cable is provided for minijack sockets, a nice statement of sonic intent by Sennheiser, given such an adaptor must cost them far more to include than a mini-to-jack plug.
The 120-ohm transducer within is new for Sennheiser — a polymer, but one which improves sonic sparkle over 10kHz, says the company. The open design assists that further, and a sweep showed them to be remarkably linear through the frequency range, which is stated as a slightly ridiculous 6Hz to 38kHz, though that’s allowing a -10dB tail-off.
Specs aside, it’s the quality of music at the price which wins this award, demonstrating what Sennheiser does best — natural and high-value shining sound. Driven by laptop or portable device you’ll get 90% of their performance, but give them a good headphone socket on a hi-fi amp or standalone headphone driver and their dynamics improve further still. Listen thus to the new live Roger Waters set ‘Us+Them’, and the clocks of Time slam and tinkle before the kick drum’s worthily strong and tight thumps, the synths fizz in all the right places, with monumental levels (not advised, natch) available without any sign of distress. It’s a reminder of the headstart to performance granted by cable over Bluetooth, and open designs over closed.
More info: en-au.sennheiser.com