Stanton Nichols—January 25, 2026✓ Verified purchase
TL;DR? The Sennheiser HD 560 S are extremely comfortable, lightweight, and easy to wear all day, with a secure fit that settles in nicely over time. Sonically, they offer outstanding value around $200 with an exceptionally neutral, well-balanced sound, wide soundstage, and strong resolution—making them excellent for critical listening, mixing, and mastering. --- These headphones are simply fantastic! For me, maybe the easiest headphones I have ever worn "all day." The clamp pressure is a bit tight out of the box, but not TOO tight. They WILL loosen up over time, so if you're sensitive to clamp, you might find yourself needing to "break them in." On some over-ear headphones, I can struggle in finding that "this is where they sit on my head" position. Beyerdynamic Headphones can sound great, but it can be annoying fiddling with how they sit on your head until you find the "just right" position. The HD560s? Easy. Put them on, adjust, and you're good to go! The materials here are what you expect! The earpads and headband are soft enough to comfortable, but firm enough to provide support. If you use them CONSTANTLY, you will eventually need to replace the earpads (1-2 years). The plastic is high quality, and there are nearly no metal parts. With that in mind: you could break these if you tried, but the plastic shouldn't fall apart any time soon. This makes them VERY lightweight, which is fantastic for comfort! SOUND: the single most important aspect of this product. These sounds good. Really Really good. I would argue that this is potentially the best sound you can get around $200. These are extraordinarily well-balanced. What does that mean? It means they are very very neutral. They are not hyped, they are not "exciting." They are perfect for checking a mix and more critical listening. These have enough resolution to pick out fine adjustments in sound (like slight tube saturation). The soundstage is wide without being "too much," allowing for a solid depiction of the "Stereo Image" without adding additional confusion. Overall? They sound incredible! Very Neutral; not too "warm," just the right amount of balance for critical listening. Overall? These are a fantastic choice for mixing and mastering. You can certainly use them for every day tasks as well, but some of the "punchy" or "crunchy" music might feel a little "anemic" under the microscope of the HD 560 S headphones. These are a true neutral. If you want to check balance? Pick these! The only scenario I have ever found myself "reaching for something else" is grabbing my Beyerdynamic DT 900 Pro X headphones for better resolution/ detail in the high frequency. The 900 Pro X are not as neutral (or wide) as the HD 560 S, but their additional top-end extension makes them solid for "sanity checking" high frequency information. For tracking and monitoring, I would reach for something else (ATH-M40x or DT770 (maybe the DT 900 Pro X, they are basically semi-open back)). Read more
wjones14—September 21, 2023✓ Verified purchase
I'm not an audiophile or headphone expert. I played drums as a teenager and later took guitar lessons for 10 years, still play the guitar almost daily, and love music in general. Hard rock has always been my favorite genre. I use headphones with my PC while watching YouTube music videos and concerts and also while playing video games like Cyberpunk 2077, Skyrim, Diablo IV, etc. I also have a pretty big library of old and new music on a 7th gen iPod Touch (now discontinued) and do some critical listening with that. I had been using budget headphones like the Koss KTXPro1 and Logitech G333 gaming earbuds, but always wanted to try something considered as "audiophile" headphones. My son is somewhat of a headphone expert, so I reached out to him for buying guidance. His ideal headphones would be completely neutral, with no emphasis on either highs or lows. To start, he gave me a FiiO K3, which is a DAC/headphone amplifier. I didn't know I needed one, but he insisted. He also convinced me to download and install the open-source Equalizer APO application and its companion Peace UI component. It's a bit daunting for a newbie to get started with the headphone amp and equalizer software, but there are plenty of YouTube tutorial walkthroughs available. In a few hours I had the headphone amp and the Peace interface working, and had separate configurations saved for the Koss and Logitech headphones. I downloaded pre-configured settings for each pair of headphones, which are set with the preferred "Harman Curve". I had no idea about any of this stuff previously. By the end of that day, I had learned how to tweak and save additional configurations, and now could choose between multiple pre-sets for each pair of headphones. For example, I created a pre-set that boosted the bass, another that boosted the highs, and one that boosted both bass and highs while leaving the middle frequencies at the standard Harman curve settings. That allowed me to experiment and decide my own personal preferences for music listening. Just a primer - the headphone amp connects to the PC by USB, and it disables the built-in PC audio chip with a more powerful and clean signal. Then you plug your headphones into the headphone amp instead of the PC headphone input jack. Windows audio and volume is bypassed, so now the volume is controlled by the volume knob on the headphone amp. (You can turn off the headphone amp to listen through PC speakers or with the standard PC headphone jack.) With the headphone amp and equalizer software, both my Koss and Logitech headphones sounded better than ever and I was hearing details that I wasn't hearing before. I had heard of headphone amps before, but never thought they were necessary. I couldn't imagine not using one now. Then my son lent me his AKG K702 open back headphones to try. He likes them because they are pretty neutral. As he puts it, "you hear the music as the producer and engineer intended it to sound." The AKGs were the best headphones I had ever tried, hands down. I downloaded the pre-configured parametric EQ file for them and listened for a few days. I learned that I preferred a more bass-heavy sound, especially with the hard rock I usually listened to. (I am currently obsessed with a band named The Warning, but like many other artists including Spiritbox, Breaking Benjamin, Band-Maid, Evanescence, Muse, and older classic rock like Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Hendrix, and Van Halen.) Given that I liked a bit more bass emphasis, my son suggested the Sennheiser HD 560S. I love them. With the standard EQ configuration, the low bass is a little lacking for my taste. I want the bass drum emphasized. So I created a pre-set with the bass boosted at 52 Hz and left the rest of frequencies alone. Perfect! I created another pre-set with the same 52 Hz boost and an additional boost at 5K Hz. I have some high frequency hearing loss, so this compensates for that, and allows me to hear the cymbals a little better. Normally I listen with the bass boost pre-set only and can hear everything fine. The only minor gripe I have with the Sennheiser HD 5600S phones is the comfort level. The ear pads are soft and comfortable, and the clamping force isn't too much. But the headphones are somewhat bulky, especially compared to the Koss which are feather light and have almost zero clamping force. The Logitech earbuds are another story since they weigh virtually nothing and there's no clamping force. That said, I have used the Sennheisers for hours at a time and they're fine. You do forget they're on once you're immersed in the music or the game. I'll definitely choose the Sennheisers every time for critical listening. Occasionally I will use the Logitechs or Koss when watching non-music videos like interviews or product reviews, for the improved comfort level. Here's a good website for scientifically tested objective headphone ratings: https://www.rtings.com/headphones Definitely recommend the HD 560S as an entry level audiophile headphone. They're a tier above sub-$100 headphones for sure. Read more
