I bought the Sennheiser HD 560S

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The End

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Do you mean that if I connect HDMI eARC out on the tv to HDMI eARC out on the AV receiver the video and sound goes both ways? That sounds a little too good if You don't mind me saying...
 

Gray

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Well, you don't have any functioning 4.4 mm Pentaconn balanced. Didn't such a cable com with the headphones?
That is a functioning 4.4mm balanced - and the one that I use most.
No, they don't supply a balanced cable with the 560S.
The long one (top right in my photo) is the one they supply - but, as supplied, a 3-pole (TRS) plug is fitted at the amp end.
You'll see that the headphone end is a 4-pole plug and crucially they use a 4-core cable to it (where they could have used 3-core, with negative poles paired at the 4-pole plug).

Which means that fitting a Pentaconn plug gives you 4 separate poles from the amp to the drivers - hence balanced operation.
 

The End

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That is a functioning 4.4mm balanced - and the one that I use most.
No, they don't supply a balanced cable with the 560S.
The long one (top right in my photo) is the one they supply - but, as supplied, a 3-pole (TRS) plug is fitted at the amp end.
You'll see that the headphone end is a 4-pole plug and crucially they use a 4-core cable to it (where they could have used 3-core, with negative poles paired at the 4-pole plug).

Which means that fitting a Pentaconn plug gives you 4 separate poles from the amp to the drivers - hence balanced operation.


Yes, sorry, it was a brain-fart from me. Do you know that the headphone plugs on the 660S and others are the same as on the HD 414 from 1968 and maybe even earlier phones?
 

Gray

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Yes, sorry, it was a brain-fart from me. Do you know that the headphone plugs on the 660S and others are the same as on the HD 414 from 1968 and maybe even earlier phones?
No, I reckon the only similarity between old and new will be the fact that they're 2 pole connectors.

I had the old HD-420 which had a couple of sharp pins - the 660S, for example, has a wider connector, so even if it uses pins, the diameter / spacing between them is likely to be different.
 

Kenneth Fernandes

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It would be really great if those full-range single-speaker drivers in the headphones could make their way into bookshelf speakers, with different specifications and sizes, in Hi-Fi setups.
 
It would be really great if those full-range single-speaker drivers in the headphones could make their way into bookshelf speakers, with different specifications and sizes, in Hi-Fi setups.
It's a different acoustic environment though - bass only has to travel very small distances and benefits from the effective infinite baffle of being attached to your head. Even very high end single-driver speakers (to the best of my knowledge) have their shortcomings, so in a budget speaker I suspect you invite in a whole range of unhealthy compromises.
 
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Kenneth Fernandes

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It's a different acoustic environment though - bass only has to travel very small distances and benefits from the effective infinite baffle of being attached to your head. Even very high end single-driver speakers (to the best of my knowledge) have their shortcomings, so in a budget speaker I suspect you invite in a whole range of unhealthy compromises.
The headphones already sound great in my view, the Hi-Fi setup would go like this, a pair of bookshelf speakers with full-range single-speaker drivers, with a freq from 100Hz - 20 kHz and above, along with a separate subwoofer. Wouldn't it be great?

All I'm saying is that the speaker driver in those headphones has exceptional audio reproduction, so having them in a bookshelf speaker would be something extraordinary with an audio experience like never before.
 
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Kenneth Fernandes

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I'd be going for separate drivers every day myself.
Most of them sound very metallic, even silk dome ones, like banging metal pots and pans, unless there is an internal filter to smooth and even the high frequencies with sophisticated components, which one might argue whether the speakers themselves represent a true audio reproduction and even sound natural.
 

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