Recently I went to CanJam NYC, a headphone convention that took place on the sixth floor of a Marriott in Times Square. Can Jam rocks because it’s full of old dudes and shut-ins with tons of opinions, some exceedingly arbitrary and others backed by painstaking, objective measurement. You’ll see vendors big and small, from up-and-coming dorks who 3D print accessories in their home to big players in the industry. It was in that context that I decided to compare the best the audio world has to offer to two of the most recommended headphones around: the classic Sennheiser HD 650/HD 6XX and a relatively new upstart, the Fiio FT1. It turns out that everyone is correct, and both of these headphones rock.
I should contextualize this by saying that there are, of course, better headphones. And unlike speakers, where the consensus is that they should have a ruler flat frequency response, how people feel about headphones can differ wildly based on personal taste and individual biology. Psychoacoustics is incredibly complicated; there are objectively bad and good headphones, and there is tons of research into what the largest percentage of people will enjoy, but people are also tremendously fickle when it comes to what “sounds good” to them.
A headphone convention is like a tasters’ platter for obscenely expensive gear; you wander from booth to booth sampling a bit of everything and seeing what agrees with you. Assuming that sharing floor models with a bunch of dorks (complimentary) doesn’t gross you out, it’s a fantastic opportunity to try headphones you may never buy in a million years and see exactly how far your money can go.
There was a lot to be excited about at Can Jam. I got to try closed back headphones from French company Focal, and they were just as clean and defined as people made them out to be. Foxtex was there showing off their new T50RPmk4 RP, the latest revision to a headphone with a lineage so complex that several other companies only exist because they modded them. YouTuber turned IEM tuner Crinacle was there showing off his line of IEMs, including the new “Meta,” and they were indeed beautifully tuned, although not yet for sale. The Headphones.com booth was inviting, and DMS is an aggressively nice person to talk to. I even got to try a bunch of goofy 3D printed meme headphones I had seen making the rounds on reddit, and some cans from Dan Clark that were wonderful but required a very powerful amp and were too rich for my blood. There were wonderful boutique magnetic planars from severe German companies that cost more than a used car.
There were countless tiny rooms and booths, so much to explore, and with all that choice I did the most basic thing I could think of: I went to the Sennheiser booth.
SENNHEISER HD 650/6XX
In that small space, Sennheiser had a significant presence, with several small tables all laid out in Apple Store fashion. I know what Sennheisers sound like; I have heard many pairs in my life and have always found their house sound to be agreeable. What I wanted to hear is what Sennheisers sounded like next to countless headphones outside of my price range.
I listened to most of their entire range, including their new closed back HD 620S, which sounded perfectly fine to me although not life changing. I finally got to try the infamous HD 800 S, one of the most beautiful and intricate sets of cans I have ever seen at that scale. Unlike a lot of the boutique, niche headphones there, I was able to put them on and say “Yeah, I can hear that these cost $1599.” Though the sound signature is not everyone’s cup of tea, few headphones can match the gargantuan soundstage. While I listened, my girlfriend found a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s. “I like these a lot,” she told me. “Are we getting these?” She had picked one of the most popular headphones of all time.
If there can be any agreement on what a person’s first “real” pair of headphones should be outside of a pair of inexpensive IEMs or some Koss, it is one of Sennheiser’s Open Back HD 600 series – the Sennheiser HD 600, HD 650, HD 660 S2 and the new HD 490 Pro (which I count here despite being from the pro division). Sennheiser has sold an untold number of these over the years, starting in 1997 with the HD 600. There are distinct differences between models and everyone has preferences. Many people prefer the HD 600 to the HD 650, but ultimately they are all quite close to each other. The model my girlfriend picked up was the HD 650: It’s neutral to slightly warm, comfortable, oddly durable and thoroughly agreeable.
Several years back Sennheiser collaborated with direct-to-consumer brand Drop on a variant of the HD 650 called the Sennheiser HD 6XX that is functionally the exact same headphone except it costs roughly $200 instead of $400. This has remained one of the single best deals in the headphone space since its introduction, to the point where dorks get nauseated by the suggestion, but they can go to hell because for most people it’s a fantastic headphone to start and perhaps even end on.
There are, of course, caveats. The biggest Achilles heel of the HD 600 series remains the pads, which sound and feel lovely but get compressed within a year. Headphone pads are tremendously important to how a pair of cans sounds and should be refreshed every once in a while as they degrade and compress. There’s an entire industry of aftermarket headphone pads to improve the comfort and (ideally but not always) sound of a headphone. It is notoriously hard to find a pair of aftermarket pads for these headphones that last for a while without meaningfully making the beloved sound signature worse. I have heard good things about these high end ZMF pads and I ordered these inexpensive Aliexpress pads on a stranger’s recommendation, but for the most part you can’t go wrong getting legit Sennheiser pads every now and then.
The HD 600 series are slightly difficult to “drive” if you have never had high-quality headphones before, and they benefit from having a really nice, substantially powerful headphone amplifier. Luckily there’s no shortage of cheap, high quality headphone amplifiers these days. The HD 650/6XX are also open back headphones, meaning they don’t block out much external noise and sound can bleed out of the side. These are not the best pick for streaming or voiceover; they were never meant for that, although I’m pretty sure Northernlion has some Sennheisers and uses them without too much difficulty because he’s a man of refined taste. Most of the really good-sounding headphones, as a general rule, tend to be open back or semi-open because it’s way harder to make a closed back pair of headphones sound nearly as good. The HD 650 doesn’t have a particularly strong bass extension, which is fine for a pair of reference headphones. People sometimes call its sound “veiled,” but that seems to come down to personal preference and can be EQ’d. The imaging is not the greatest, and you don’t get the same sense of space as other headphones, but there are few headphones that sound so thoroughly agreeable and measure so well out of the box.
In that small booth I went back and forth between the HD 800 S and the HD 650. Without question there was nothing quite like the gargantuan stage of those $1600 headphones. But I asked myself: were they eight times as good as the HD 6XX? I can honestly say no, but few headphones really are.
FiiO FT1
Closed back headphones are tremendously hard to get right. Part of this is the physics of sound in an enclosed space, and part of it is personal biology. For a long time the closed back segment has remained an under-served market particularly in the midrange of around $150 to $200. There are a handful of closed backs that I enjoy with caveats, but mostly those are for studio use like tracking vocals and editing video, not for personal enjoyment. But in the last year or so, a Chinese company named FiiO that has mostly been known for their amplifiers, DACS and portable music players put out a pair of headphones that kind of blew everyone away and disrupted the market thoroughly: the FiiO FT1.
The FiiO FT1 is a shockingly well-made pair of headphones with some minor flaws. It is not to be confused with the FiiO FT1 Pro, which is a totally different open back headphone.The drivers are large: 60mm and made of biocellulose. The cups are made of durable wood in two varieties, Beech and American Walnut. I don’t think either is particularly showy, and I would love to customize or paint the cups, which someone has already in a beautiful shade of dark blue. These cans are bass monsters, a quality which I mostly do not enjoy in headphones, but they are so well tuned and the bass they put out is so beautifully detailed that I don’t mind. The pads are plush and fit well, a hybrid of leather on the outside and velour inside, and the clamping force is perfect. FiiO use removable cables for this release, which should be mandated by law on all new headphones, and they generously come with both a balanced and unbalanced pair cable. There’s also a fairly well-made rigid carrying case, all for the fairly low price of about $150.
The FT1 has some imperfections. The early models have a defect with the screw connecting the headband that caused the cans to fall apart. FiiO has owned up to this and has already been addressed in new models, changing the construction, although you should still check yours if you buy one to see which version you got. The other is that the cables, though very solidly made, are slightly microphonic, meaning that if they rub against your chest you can hear it. There is no shortage of high quality microphone cables on Aliexpress and so neither of these are dealbreakers (I have heard good things about Openheart cables and put an order in after getting them). I have read that some people also find the strap uncomfortable (I don’t personally), but there’s an aftermarket strap mod from Capra Audio to alleviate tension that I plan on getting soon.
You know something is probably a good deal when you start seeing “Is X overhyped?” on the internet, and the FT1 is no exception. The headphone reviewers I keep an eye on, such as DMS at The Headphone Show, Z Reviews and Gadegry Tech, all sang these phones’ praises. Objectively they measure well, with some pointing out they’re similar but frankly better tuned than the established AKG K361/K371 and definitely better built than those headphones at about the same price. Even the harshest reviews could not deny that they are an incredible value for the money, which is saying a lot for any closed back headphone.
I don’t have a B&K 5128 measurement rig to test headphones, although I did pester the good people at the headphones.com booth to use theirs on some freak headphones I have a personal soft spot for. I only have the flawed tool of my ears and several online measurements to go on, so I went over to the FiiO booth and tried a pair. My expectations were high and surprisingly met. Despite being bassy, I could not deny that they were beautifully tuned and felt better than many of the more expensive closed back headphones I had tried that day. The sound is somewhat V shaped and fun. There is slightly too much sharpness in the presence section, but nothing egregious that can’t be EQ’d, and fairly I have heard far worse when from closed back headphones. “You guys should be proud of this one,” I told the reps at the booth.
A gift to myself
Within a few days of leaving the show, I decided to purchase both the HD 6XX and the FT1, as both a birthday gift to myself and to commemorate a decade of not drinking. To be honest I would have gotten a pair of the Sennheisers years ago if I didn't already have a pair of Hifiman HE400i’s from 2018, but those had grown dog-eared over the last six years, and my girlfriend’s face lit up when I mentioned the Sennheisers. The HD 6XX often fluctuates in price between $180 and $220 on Drop.com and I had luckily hit it at the dip. A few days later both headphones arrived. The box of the HD 6XX was appropriately utilitarian, while the FT1 was replete with accessories and eager to please. I put them through their paces – it’s one thing to hear a pair of headphones in a crowded show floor, and another to live with them.
Living with the Sennheisers was as natural as I had always imagined it would be, and they are now the default for casual work and listening. This was an inevitability I had planned for years. They simply sound “correct,” natural, and relaxed, and require very little futzing. They can withstand abuse and have an iconic look. Meanwhile, I have grown increasingly fond of FT1s as time has gone by – they’re energetic and fun and take an EQ wonderfully. I usually dislike the exact sound signature that the FT1s are targeting, but there’s just something so satisfying and well-executed about their sound, particularly after taming some of the harsher frequencies. These are also fairly sensitive headphones, so you technically can use them with your phone and a cheap dongle without too much worry. I would probably not use them for studio work, but perhaps that’s an arbitrary distinction. Both the Sennheiser HD 6XX and the FiiO FT1 were worth every single dollar, and neither was a replacement for the other. I felt satisfied.
Mid-fi and diminishing returns
To the extent that I have a goal when I write about gear, it is never to write about the most expensive or glamorous tool in its category. Rich people are boring, and spending a lot of money on something because it is nice is almost never interesting unless there is a degree of DIY or craft to the endeavor. I always try to ask myself, “What is the best choice for the average Aftermath reader? What is an affordable object they will treasure for a long time?” Both the proven Sennheiser HD 6XX and the disruptive FiiO FT1 are that rare object. The former is classic and timeless, part of a lineage that spans decades. The latter is booming and changes the market. It has demolished everything in its specific price and category, and an entry that firmly establishes FiiO as a force to be reckoned with in the closed back headphone space.
In a hall full of beautiful headphones, including those HD 800s with their gargantuan soundstage, I came to accept the value of something being just good enough to become eternal. Headphones are a hobby you can spend an obscene amount of money on in the pursuit of perfection, but sometimes it’s nice to stop while you’re ahead. Sometimes hype and the boring wisdom of crowds is real. The sky is blue, water is wet, and the Sennheiser HD 6XX and FiiO FT1 are damn near impossible to beat for the money.
