Welcome to my review today of the Sennheiser HD 598 Cs, one of the new models in Sennheiser’s revised HD 5 series. And as one of the higher-end closed headphones in Sennheiser’s line-up, the 598 Cs is targeted for serious music listening, so if that’s your primary use for headphones, then it may be something you might want to consider.
And the 598 Cs does indeed sound pretty good with most types of music, but unfortunately it does have some sonic drawbacks as well that cause it to lose quite a bit of ground to some of its more popular competitors, which I’ll cover in this review.
Now the current suggested retail price for these is $250, it’s been as low as $100, went up to $150 and now is currently just under $115. So I’ll include links in the description where you can check updated pricing and availability as well as any additional information about these headphones.
Accessories
So included with the 598 Cs are two cables, one of which is a short 4-foot cable with an inline 1- button remote for smartphones. The other cable is 10 feet long and is terminated with a ¼” TRS connector for home use if you need a connection to a higher-end device such as a dedicated headphone amplifier. And both of these cables use a 2.5mm connector on the headphone end that twists to lock for a secure connection.
Ideally I would have liked to see some sort of carrying bag included to protect these from dust and lint. Especially since the earpads and the outside of the earcups are covered with a velvet material (which is super comfortable) but it also acts as a dust & lint magnet.
So if you don’t have something to store these in already, I’d consider covering these in between listening session if you want to keep them a little cleaner looking.
Design & Build Quality
But aside from that, the 598 Cs is a well-made, solidly-built headphone with a soft headband and large and thick memory foam earpads that are very comfortable to wear. The fit is more on the snug side right out of the box, but still very comfortable to wear given the excellent weight distribution and comfort of the padding for the earpads and headband.
Sound Leakage & Noise Isolation
Now the 598 Cs isn’t very good at blocking sound from leaking out of the earcups and leaks quite a bit of sound even at moderate volumes. You definitely won’t want to use it in any kind of 2 really quiet environments like a library, but it should be fine for most other purposes like in a private office or home setting.
And as for isolation, it’s not great at blocking sound either, as you’ll definitely hear background noise when no music is playing. However, with music playing at a moderate volume, that should be sufficient to drown out most kinds of background noise.
Sound Quality
Now of course, the big question is how the headphones sound, and they do sound pretty good and work acceptably well for just about every type of music from classical and jazz to more modern stuff like electronic music. They basically provide Sennheiser’s classic laid-back type of sound and are very easy to listen to, and have an appreciably large soundstage for a closed headphone.
And like the original 598, they maintain their sound at low volume pretty well, which makes them excellent for background listening for hours at a time. But unlike the original 598, the 598 Cs actually has a good amount of bass, sub-bass in particular, and has very good sub-bass extension as well, so as a result it sounds much better with bass-oriented electronic music than the original 598.
And if you listen to electronic music at all, the 598 Cs is probably a good choice for you as it can go low enough to audibly hit the most common bass notes, but do be aware that the mid-bass range, roughly 80 to 200 Hz, isn’t nearly as strong as the sub-bass so the bass can sound quite unbalanced, with the sub-bass sounding quite a bit more forceful than the mid-bass.
This basically means that the 598 Cs won’t have a lot of thump and boom factor, but to make up for that, it will certainly let you hear what’s going on in the bass region more clearly. So the 598 Cs does have bass, but I wouldn’t say it’s quite enough bass overall that it could be called a bassy headphone, at least in comparison to something like the Audio-Technica M50X, which can be called bassy on the other hand.
Then, moving on up to the mid-range, the 598 Cs doesn’t have really have what’s typically called a “warm” sound, as it lacks some presence & body in the lower regions and doesn’t really have the traditional “full” sound that’s associated with Sennheiser’s higher-end headphones like the HD600 and HD650. So it’s not exactly ideal if you’re looking for a particularly full-bodied sound for instruments like cello, bass, or bass guitar, but it can still work if you don’t mind just a bit of a thin sound in the lower registers. And then as far as the treble goes, it’s not quite as smooth or clean as on the original 598, and can sometimes sound quite grainy.
However, it’s really only noticeable if you’re paying close attention to the music and how it’s sounding, so it’s definitely more of a minor issue. And that sort of segues into the flaws on the 598 Cs, which might not be noticeable if you’re not paying close attention to the music, but once you do notice the flaws, they can actually be bothersome and even aggravating, depending on how well you can put up with them. And the first major flaw on the 598 Cs has to be its positioning & soundstage, which can come across very weird at first, but as you listen more and more, it’ll probably end up confusing you more and more.
Now the 598 Cs does sound about as open & airy as the original 598, which was an open headphone, but in terms of the positioning it’s almost the inverse and allows 3 everything that’s not mixed either hard left or hard right to float to the center and aggregate into something of a large congested mass. Additionally, it doesn’t sonically breathe very well and can leave you feeling like everything that’s in the center is in a box and not properly spread apart.
And on top of that, the mass that forms in the center is also placed upfront way too much, so upfront in fact that it can sound invasively in-your-head, instead of sounding out-of-head as other headphones would usually do. So the 598 Cs does sound open, but the sense of openness & airiness is very deceptive and is actually placed behind the music, instead of virtually being placed between you and the music to give you a sense of some distance.
There’s really no distance at all on the 598 Cs, and in fact, the lack of distance to the center is so invasive & in-head that it can actually feel negative! Fortunately the left and right sides do sound appropriately distant, mostly due to the thick earpads creating a wide soundstage, but the invasive-sounding center can make for some very confusing-sounding music, particularly music that’s very dependent on the imaging like classical music or ambient types of electronica.
The second major flaw on the 598 Cs is its lack of clarity, as it just doesn’t sound clear and the instruments never have a sense of sounding distinct, like they could be virtually right in front of you. In fact, instruments often sound like there’s a blanket or veil over them that’s muffling their sound. It’s sort of like the music is being played behind a thin curtain and sounding like it, so that if you wanted to reach out and touch an instrument you would just touch the curtain instead.
And finally, the third major flaw on the 598 Cs is its unusual tonality that affects quite a lot of types of music. Specifically, most female vocalists just don’t sound accurate on it, and often sound either raspy or throaty, or like they have a cold. Male vocalists don’t often have enough presence either, making rock & metal in particular sound weaker & wimpier than they should. And if you listen to any folk or bluegrass music, the 598 Cs also has a tendency to make banjos sound slightly honky, or if you listen to classical, violins often have a nasal quality to them.
So all in all, the 598 Cs has some pretty major flaws that prevent it from being a particularly great-sounding headphone for music. It’s not that good for either action games or movies either, mostly because of its lack of immediacy and impact in the mid-bass, which affects how things like explosions and gunfire sound. So when you consider the combined effect of all of these flaws, along with the price of the headphones and its closest competitors, the 598 Cs is really only worth buying if you can get it for $100 or less, otherwise you might as well buy one of its competitors that will sound better for the same price. And we’ll definitely do a comparison but we’ll save that for the next video and leave this one focused solely on the 598 Cs.
Bottom Line
While I’m impressed with the comfort, I’m not as impressed with the sound quality
So to wrap up, the bottom line on the 598 Cs is that it’s not really a great revision on the original 598 from Sennheiser, and you should only consider it if you need a closed headphone that you can comfortably wear for hours for passive background listening to music or other media. Because if you listen even a little bit critically to it, it’s very possible that you’ll discover its flaws and find them too bothersome to put up with, particularly when it has competitors with less significant flaws. And we’ll compare it to some of them in the next video, so please stay tuned!
