Sennhesier hd 558 weak vocals

JimBobWales

Honorable
Oct 7, 2013
84
0
10,630
I recently bought a pair of these and I gotta say, the vocals overall seem kinda washed out.

Every review mentions the Bass being weak but if anything the base is kinda overwhelming the vocals on these.

I wonder if something's wrong with the cans? I updated my realtek drivers, made sure no "enhancements" are taking place by windows and lowered the volume to a medium level.

Right now for example Im listening to Cold Play strawberry swing and the guitar is completely overwhelming Chris's voice. I have to try to hear him where as the guitar and bass are in my face.

 
Solution
10 Ohms is the output impedance of the Xonar DG and it's the same for all their cards. Most sound cards have a higher output impedance. In this price range, the Xonar DG is really the choice there is. There is no other card for this price that comes with a AMP.

If you could spend $75, the Fiio e10k has an output impedance of 1.08 Ohms and would likely sound better than the xonar dg.
I read up to " I updated my realtek drivers" and then stopped. Realtek makes onboard solutions, not something you are supposed to use with a pair of HD 558.

You need a sound card with an AMP or a DAC and AMP. They will not sound good at all until you get this.

If you give me a budget, I can recommend something good.
 



I was under the impression that anything under 50 ohms doesn't require an amp?

Edit: as far as budget goes, Im comfortable spending another ~50$ for improvement in sound quality, specially vocals.
 
These are exactly 50 Ohms. Really, anything over 20 is going to see an improvement with an AMP. Too much bass is a common complaint with these when they are under-driven.

Your best choice is going to be the asus xonar dg 5.1. It has a built in amp and sports decent audio quality, much better than onboard. You can find pretty good pricing on ebay, new for around $30. Just make sure you see AMP in the name so you don't buy an older model that doesn't have an AMP.
 


I read somewhere that the 558s are sensitive to output impedance of the headphone jack? and that the lower impedance the better sound in lows and mids. Now I'm not at all savvy when it comes to audio tech but do you happen to know what the impedance of the jack on the xonar dg is? I can't seem to find it on amazon's page.
 
10 Ohms is the output impedance of the Xonar DG and it's the same for all their cards. Most sound cards have a higher output impedance. In this price range, the Xonar DG is really the choice there is. There is no other card for this price that comes with a AMP.

If you could spend $75, the Fiio e10k has an output impedance of 1.08 Ohms and would likely sound better than the xonar dg.
 
Solution


I did the foam mod and it's expanded the soundstage somewhat. I'll just order the e10k and see how that works out. Thanks for the help.
 


No problem at all. Hopefully the e10k will bring your experience to the next level.