Upgrade from Sennheiser HD650. Planar?

[Zamiel]

hello, i have a pair of sennheiser hd650 and i'm thinking of upgrading. ofcourse i'm looking for something with less distortion and better tonal response.
my budget is around 500$. i was looking at some planar magnetic headphones. any ideas?

 

[Sal1950]

hello, i have a pair of sennheiser hd650 and i'm thinking of upgrading. ofcourse i'm looking for something with less distortion and better tonal response.
my budget is around 500$. i was looking at some planar magnetic headphones. any ideas?

Only to hang on to your 650s till your absolutely sure you're happy with the replacements.
I've seen folks have remorse many times.

 

[suttondesign]

I've been a dealer and user of planars. They're just not worth it. Too heavy, too difficult to EQ to get an acceptable result.
I always return to my Sean HD800 and HD600, going on 20 years.

 

[jhaider]

I think an upgrade from HD650 for $500 is hard to pull off with headphones. The best upgrade paths are electronics - for maybe $150 a Quedlix 5k and “balanced” cable, for around your budget you can add a miniDSP Flex if you have separate DAC and amp, or for over your budget an RME ADI-2. The reason is then you can play with bass shelves (this headphone doesn’t really need anything else), crossfeed, and (for RME) loudness in the included DSP.

 

[Dunring]

I've had the chance to use over 200 headphones for the business. For $500 you won't get a clear upgrade. The Hifiman Ananda Stealth is the one you'll notice and used or open box will be out of reach unless you sell stuff first. Don't get the original, the upper mids are forward and it's annoying without EQ to smooth it off. At that price they shouldn't require it.

 

[Zamiel]

I've had the chance to use over 200 headphones for the business. For $500 you won't get a clear upgrade. The Hifiman Ananda Stealth is the one you'll notice and used or open box will be out of reach unless you sell stuff first. Don't get the original, the upper mids are forward and it's annoying without EQ to smooth it off. At that price they shouldn't require it.

The non "stealth" version received a bad review from Amir. Did the stealth version fix the issues regarding distortion and resonance?

 

[Dunring]

The imaging is better and haven't noticed any distortion or resonance, even when gaming. It's really consistent. I've had both at the same time, and wouldn't use the regular one anymore. Same with the Arya stealth, the fixed everything on the original and did a good job.

 

[solderdude]

hello, i have a pair of sennheiser hd650 and i'm thinking of upgrading. ofcourse i'm looking for something with less distortion and better tonal response.
my budget is around 500$. i was looking at some planar magnetic headphones. any ideas?

What do you want your upgrade to improve upon ?
Comfort ? Tonality ? maximum loudness ?
Or is it the idea something 'better' is out there ?