Hey I'm JR, training manager here at Crutchfield, and these are the Sennheiser HD 560S. They are
a pair of open-back, wired, over-ear headphones. In 1996 when I started working at Crutchfield, we
carried two brands of headphones; Sennheiser was one of them, and they've been making headphones
for a lot longer than that. They're really good at making music sound good right there on your
head. One of our favorite headphones that we sell here at Crutchfield are the Sennheiser HD 660s,
and these 560s are inspired by those. They're kind of the little brother to them, and they really do
give you most of the performance of the 660 for less than half the price. We really like these.
I actually took this pair of 560s home and put them through their paces. I listened to
some vinyl on my stereo receiver, and what I found was that they sounded nice and open
and spacious, but most importantly they were true to the original recording. They were very
transparent. I didn't feel like they were adding or taking away anything, just precision, accuracy...
exactly what Michael Jackson laid down when he recorded "Thriller." These headphones have
plenty of bass, but it's natural, it never feels accentuated or emphasized in any way that's not
exactly what was on the original recording. And I also didn't feel that you got bass at the expense
of the mids and highs, so very transparent and pretty crystal clear across the board. That's
thanks to the 38-millimeter drivers, nice, big drivers that can give you all those frequencies
and they're placed in these headphones where they're sort of angled at your ears, which
is something Sennheiser calls "EAR," or "ergonomic acoustic refinement." It's a fancy name for just
making sure those drivers are really forcing all that music directly into your ear holes.
The '560s use an open-air design. That means there's holes on the outside of the ear cups that allow
music and air to escape out of the headphones, and that's by design. These because of that will sound
nice and open and spacious. It'll sort of allow you to feel like you're listening to music in a
big room rather than just in small headphones on your head, which means they're perfect for critical
listening. If you're in a room by yourself with your music, these are everything you could want
them to be. They give you all the detail you'll need, or maybe you're mixing or mastering some
music you've created and you're going to plug them into, like, an interface connected to your computer.
These are great for that because they are so natural and without coloration.
So that open-air design, open and spacious without adding or coloring your music at all,
and if you are going to be listening to the '560s for long periods of time, you'll find them very
comfortable. We found them extremely lightweight and snug, they kind of fit securely on your head.
So if you're listening to metal and you're headbanging, they're not going to fall off. Also, they're
very soft and comfortable. The earcups are a nice padded velour, there's a padded headband, you really
can wear these for hours and kind of just forget that they're on your head. They're that comfortable,
and the open-back design compared to a closed-back headphone will allow your ears to breathe so they
won't they won't cause your head to get all sweaty and stuff while you're listening to your music.
These are designed as a wired headphone, which you kind of would expect for something that
we would call "audiophile grade." They come with a 10-foot detachable cord with a quarter-inch
jack on the end, and that nice long straight cord will allow you to sit in your comfortable chair
rather than being right on top of your audio equipment so you can get comfortable for doing
your critical listening. And when you plug them in, make sure you're plugging them into something
that's got plenty of power. The headphone jack on a stereo receiver or an integrated amp would be
just fine, or you could use a dedicated headphone amp to power these headphones. If you were to plug
them into just straight up to your phone or to a small, inexpensive portable device, they'll work
but they won't have...that device probably won't have enough power to really give you
all the sound these headphones are capable of. And if you're going to pick out a headphone amplifier,
you don't need to go to the top of the line, most expensive thing available. In fact, we've tried
them out with things like the Audioquest Dragonfly, the iFi Zen Dac and the Zen Can, some very much more
affordable headphone amplifiers and d-to-a converters, and we loved how they sounded. So these are the
Sennheiser HD 560S over-ear, wired audiophile-level headphones. If you're looking to get into the world
of critical listening, high-end sound with some headphones, these might be a great choice for
you. Let us help you figure out what's the right headphone for your head here at Crutchfield. Go
to crutchfield.com/contact, and you'll be able to chat or call one of our advisors live. You can also
post your questions right here in the comments on this YouTube video, we do look at those and we will
respond accordingly. And as long as you're here, hit that like and subscribe buttons, and go ahead
and turn notifications on so you'll know when we put out another video. Thank you for watching.