So I recently purchased a pair of Sennheiser HD6XX from Massdrop, expecting a complete eargasm going from my HD598SE. Much to my disappointment, the 6XX sounds TERRIBLE in comparison to the 598SE. The bass is not impressive, and the highs are harsh. In some basic A/B comparisons with a few of my favorite tunes, I wanted to wrap up the 6XX and send them right back.
However, before doing so, I figured I'd try to find out what may actually be the problem here. My setup is as follows:
PC -> HDMI out -> Marantz NR1508 AVR -> Headphone out
I listen to a variety of different music, with rock and alternative being my preferred genres. Most of my collection is 128kbps encoded MP3 (yeah, yeah, I know, I know....), with quite a few rips having higher bit rates upwards of 320. No matter though, they all sound like trash on the 6XX compared to the 598SE. The 598SE's have some punchy, but not overpowering bass, and the highs roll off at a good clip to where I'm not fatigued by them after just a few minutes.
I've been reading that the headphone out in most AVRs are not that great, lacking a dedicated amp and not supplying enough oomph to properly drive higher impedance phones. So, before I go drop another $100 on a dedicated headphone amp, do you think that the 6XX would actually benefit from one given my current setup, or are these two pairs of headphones just fundamentally different in how they reproduce sound and I simply care more for the signature of the 598SE?