Sennheiser HD550

A new world of detail and precision

Hear details you’d never noticed before. Feel like you’re right in the middle of the action. That’s what the HD 550 sound gives you in a light, comfy, accessible package.

What acoustic sorcery is this?

Getting a headphone design just right is a balancing act. It helps if you’ve been on this tightrope before.

So light and comfortable they practically disappear

Has there been a contest for “most performance per gram”? If so, the HD 550 probably won. At just 237 g, they’re about as unobtrusive as possible.

But will they outlast my favorite band?

Depends who your favorite band is! Mick Jagger may very well be immortal, we can’t know for sure (Mick doesn’t consult us on these things unfortunately). What we do know: people are still using Sennheiser headphones produced in the 1960s.

Diving deep into the tech specs

Headphone frequency response graphs look very different from those for loudspeakers, which are ideally very flat. Here you can see a big rise on the right (treble) side and then it falls off a cliff. But this is in fact very close to what’s considered ideal for headphones. Because leading manufacturers base their goals on extensive psychoacoustic research about listeners’ subjective preferences.

For instance, it turns out that headphones negate the function of the outer ear, which otherwise amplifies sounds in the 3 kHz region. So, the ideal response for headphones is much higher there. Resonances in the inner ear also make sounds between 7 and 10 kHz louder, which is why the graph dips abruptly around 8-9 kHz. We can see here that the HD 550 builds on the already excellent characteristics of the HD 599, extending even further into subbass territory while still offering strong, analytic mids and brilliant treble without sibilance or harshness. The graph reflects the HD 550’s solid, satisfying bass response, balanced midrange, and precise and airy treble.