HD 560S

I personally don’t like the 560S; it’s unpleasantly treble-y for me AND it’s not a very cohesive tune. It’s hard to pick a volume and stick with it, and I end up riding the volume dial to get the balance I want on individual tracks. I probably wouldn’t grab the 600 as a first headphone; if you can,

HD 550 and it's not close. The 599 are fine, and the 560S a bit too bright in the treble and physically pretty uncomfortable on my head. The HD 550 is everything the 560S was supposed to be but fell short on. Comparison here: https://daemonxar.com/2026/05/12/sennheiser-hd-550-review-best-alternative

The 560S is ... fine. It's a bit too trebly on my head to be comfortable and the overall tuning isn't very cohesive, especially for a Sennheiser. It's also substantially less comfortable physically on my head than most of the 500 series. As a first headphone, it's ... fine. If you can afford it, the

The 505 just isn't cohesive on my head; individually the bass, mids, and treble are all mostly fine (I even prefer the bass on the 505 slightly; it's marginally cleaner and crisper than the 550s), but the balance between sections is often shaky on my head. On some tracks the main vocals are great bu

The measurements taken where L+R and summed. So probably they are also fixing other known issues to give you a better flat response. Same headphones measured a couple of times from different reviewers and still measure same, same but differeeeent. haha Also the values given like oratory1990 does are

505 and it's not close. The 505 has a few issues here and there but they're much better tuned than the 560S for my head at least. Full comparison here: https://daemonxar.com/2026/05/30/sennheiser-hd-505-review-meh/#sennheiser-hd-560s

imho I was expecting something more from the 560s when I tried them, but I assume that's because I use my momentum 4s everyday and without any analytical listening, these two sound absolutely the same. I know there is a difference and you can spot it, if you try to, but as far as I tested, all the S

I wouldn't pick either given the options on the market (the HD 505 and 550 are both under $200 right now in the US), but between those two it's the PC38X and it's not that close; the 560S sound pretty poorly tuned on my head with a weird scoop between bass and midrange and deeply unpleasant treble.

I bought some Sennheiser 560s on sale from Amazon expecting the sound quality to "blow me away" like many claimed....my 1st gen A50s blew it away no comparison.

Owned and used HD560s for a quite while until i got ATH R50x, similar Sennheiser’s mid-range and sound characteristics with extended lows, bit more natural, bigger sound stage and better imaging. Never go back to 560s again🥰