Sennheiser replacement cables

I believe that the 580 & 600 cables are terminated with a mini-plug [1/8"], while the 650 cable is terminated with the standard 1/4" plug.

Not correct, they are interchangeable and they all have a 1/4" plug.

The 650 cable is by far the best of the two, and cheaper to boot.. A no-brainer. :)

All after-market cables are better than the Sennheiser one though, so you might want to check these out before doing anything.

My fairly new Sennheiser 600's have a 1/8" mini plug and came with an adapter to 1/4".

Really Sfar? They're all 1/4" where I live. :) Perhaps they can be ordered with either, that would explain things!

In any case, the three phones can all use the same cables since they have the same connectors. The 600s sound slightly better with the 650 stock cable, so that could be a worthwhile upgrade. However I still recommend getting something better, there's plenty of good ones out there. :)

Yes, Osgorth, really. I have two headphone amps, one with a 1/4 jack and the other with a 1/8 and I use the 600's with both.

According to the Sennheiser USA site, the 600 comes with a 1/8 plug and an adapter to 1/4, as did the now discontinued 580. The current 500 series all come with a 1/4 plug and an adapter to 1/8, as does the 650.

I have no idea why they use 1/8 plugs on some and 1/4's on the other but, as you said, it's not really material to this question as long as you have the right adapter.

Right, thanks for clearing it up. Weird, my 600s came with a 1/4" stock cable, no adapter included either!

But you're right of course, it doesn't really matter since it's so easy to go from one to the other. :) I guess they've made it so due to all iPods and such, that only has the 1/8" connector.

In any case, the 650 cable works fine in all three phones, and is considered the better cable.

Osgorth, if you bought your 600's several years ago, they came with the 1/4" plug...now they come with the 1/8" plug.

Strange, because no portable device has high enough voltage output to adequately drive the 600's, probably due to the headphone's high impedance.

Fatparrot, you're right that if you try to drive the 600's directly from a Zune, iRiver or iPod the results aren't very satisfactory but there are quite a few small heaphone amps with 1/8 jacks that work fine with a portable player as a source.

Thanks for the info. I just had a chance to briefly listen to the 600s with the Cardas cord. Wow! That is a major league improvement over the stock cord, but it should be for another $150.

Ah, thanks for clearing my confusion up, Fatparrot. Yes, mine is a few years old.

84audio - glad you tried it! Next time, try to hear the Zu Mobius (preferably on a headphone amp too) it's in my opinion a lot better than the Cardas, which in itself is much better than the stock chord.