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Thread: Upgrade Sennheiser 555 Headphones ($200) To Sennheiser 595 Audiophiles ($350) - FREE

  1. #1
    Moderator Duncan Glenday's Avatar
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    Upgrade Sennheiser 555 Headphones ($200) To Sennheiser 595 Audiophiles ($350) - FREE

    Interesting article :
    The Sennheiser HD 555 headphones are great—so great that I've neglected to upgrade for many years. Thanks to a discovery by clever human being Mike Beauchamp, it turns out you can perform a free upgrade to these headphones and make them equal to their high-end counterparts.

    It costs companies money to create several distinct products, so they often create a high-end version and then cripple it for the steps down. Such is the case with the Sennheiser HD 555s, which can become HD 595s by opening up the headphone casing and removing filters for each speaker.
    ...
    Full article here:
    http://lifehacker.com/upgrade-a-pair...8Lifehacker%29

    And details about how to do the conversion - here:
    http://mikebeauchamp.com/misc/sennhe...to-hd-595-mod/
    Regards,

    Duncan

  2. #2
    Member Brian Griffin's Avatar
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    I preformed the upgrade a while back - pretty easy

    BG
    "When Yes appeared on stage, it was like, the gods appearing from the heavens, deigning to play in front of the people."

  3. #3
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Wow, that intentional crippling is really interesting. I wonder if it bothers them that people have figured out how to bypass it.

    Edit: Wait, the way they crippled them was by inserting some foam to actually cripple them? That f'ing sucks! I thought it was going to be that there were resistors you need to remove or something like that. They actually do something that makes the cheaper ones worse, instead of adding something to make the more expensive ones better? That's like selling two kinds of beer, one is cheaper and is pissed in, the other is more expansive and isn't pissed in.
    Last edited by JKL2000; 11-01-2013 at 04:01 PM.

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    Moderator Duncan Glenday's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    Wow, that intentional crippling is really interesting. I wonder if it bothers them that people have figured out how to bypass it.

    Edit: Wait, the way they crippled them was by inserting some foam to actually cripple them? That f'ing sucks! I thought it was going to be that there were resistors you need to remove or something like that. They actually do something that makes the cheaper ones worse, instead of adding something to make the more expensive ones better? That's like selling two kinds of beer, one is cheaper and is pissed in, the other is more expansive and isn't pissed in.
    I know for a fact that several mainframe computer manufacturers have been doing this for decades.

    About 20 years ago I was the VP of technical services for a mainframe vendor. If a customer wanted to upgrade their mid-range system to a high-end system, we could complete the upgrade in about 3 minutes by setting a software "switch" over a modem - without even shutting the system down. I.e. we'd basically change a few license-codes, and the software knew it had to run differently, and activate certain parts of the hardware that had previously been dormant.

    But after spending all those hundreds of thousands (in those days) for such a huge upgrade, we had to make a big deal of it ... we'd send system engineers in with all kinds of hardware. They would shut the system down, tinker with boards for a while, re-start the system - and quickly enter the new code into the system. then they'd come back to the office with all of the SAME equipment they took to the customer's site. In summary - they did nothing - but the customer believed they were getting their money's worth!

    This Sennheiser "upgrade" is the same sort of thing.

    I wonder how many other items have an easy upgrade, like this?
    Regards,

    Duncan

  5. #5
    Just make sure you don't already own the 595s. ;-) I opened mine up, no foam, then, and only then did I look on the bottom of the headband and see the #s 595. LOL. I barely paid over $200 for mine maybe $250 so I just assumed they were the 555s.

    I thought they sounded pretty good even with my deaf ears to high frequencies. I had some sort of Yamaha studio headphones for years that I thought were good, but these blow them away. Anyone here try a headphone amp?


    "What is a headphone amp?

    A headphone amplifier is a miniature power amplifier specifically designed to drive the tiny speakers inside headphones. A headphone amp provides more clean power and volume for high-end headphones, but can also benefit most headphones with improved musical detail clarity and faster dynamic response.

    With good headphones, a good source, and a good headphone amp you'll be surprised at the level of audio performance you get since top headphones can deliver much superior resolution and detail versus speakers. The most common reaction folks have with their first experience listening to audiophile headphone systems is “I’ve heard stuff I’ve never heard before, I’m going to have to listen to my whole music collection over again!"

  6. #6
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duncan Glenday View Post
    I know for a fact that several mainframe computer manufacturers have been doing this for decades.

    About 20 years ago I was the VP of technical services for a mainframe vendor. If a customer wanted to upgrade their mid-range system to a high-end system, we could complete the upgrade in about 3 minutes by setting a software "switch" over a modem - without even shutting the system down. I.e. we'd basically change a few license-codes, and the software knew it had to run differently, and activate certain parts of the hardware that had previously been dormant.

    But after spending all those hundreds of thousands (in those days) for such a huge upgrade, we had to make a big deal of it ... we'd send system engineers in with all kinds of hardware. They would shut the system down, tinker with boards for a while, re-start the system - and quickly enter the new code into the system. then they'd come back to the office with all of the SAME equipment they took to the customer's site. In summary - they did nothing - but the customer believed they were getting their money's worth!

    This Sennheiser "upgrade" is the same sort of thing.

    I wonder how many other items have an easy upgrade, like this?
    That's a great story! Except what you're company was REALLY doing was pretty valid, as you were allowing access to different code or something like that. This Sennheiser thing is bad, because they're doing something to make the less expensive headphones sound worse and only fixing that if you pay more. They should really only sell the more expensive model, and charge whatever they want to charge for it.

    They're not saying "This is as good as we're capable of making them sound at this lower price," they're saying "We're only going to let them sound this good at this lower price." A subtle difference, but major as far as doing what you can to meet your customer's needs and expectations.

    Actually, Duncan, maybe what your company was doing was the same, but somehow software is the type of product where we're used to having to pay more for certain features, or a demo version is hobbled until you pay up.

  7. #7
    Moderator Duncan Glenday's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    ...maybe what your company was doing was the same, but somehow software is the type of product where we're used to having to pay more for certain features, or a demo version is hobbled until you pay up.
    All of the hardware and software were there. They simply elected not to use all of the hardware's power on the less expensive models. And they allowed the software to use all of the the capabilities that were already built into the hardware - by removing a software blockage.

    So I think it was the same thing.
    Regards,

    Duncan

  8. #8
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Duncan Glenday View Post
    All of the hardware and software were there. They simply elected not to use all of the hardware's power on the less expensive models. And they allowed the software to use all of the the capabilities that were already built into the hardware - by removing a software blockage.

    So I think it was the same thing.
    I see what you mean. Still, if additional software was unlocked, the coding for that software had a cost that probably needed to be covered by the higher price. I guess I'm splitting hairs - it just seems like Sennheiser took a presumably good product and found a way to make it perform worse, and sell it to those customers who wouldn't spring for the more expensive version. That's at least better than taking a presumably good product, and charging more for it to work to its full potential. You know what I mean? Unless your company did say, hey, let's take this product and add this software blockage and sell it to some customers for less. Then it really is the same thing.

  9. #9
    Member Plasmatopia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JKL2000 View Post
    I see what you mean. Still, if additional software was unlocked, the coding for that software had a cost that probably needed to be covered by the higher price. I guess I'm splitting hairs - it just seems like Sennheiser took a presumably good product and found a way to make it perform worse, and sell it to those customers who wouldn't spring for the more expensive version. That's at least better than taking a presumably good product, and charging more for it to work to its full potential. You know what I mean? Unless your company did say, hey, let's take this product and add this software blockage and sell it to some customers for less. Then it really is the same thing.
    Except that neither pair of headphones was probably worth the price.
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