Cans are a necessary evil for most of us, but we will still want a decent pair that gives us a shot of our beat not sounding like dogshit when we play it through another system later.
If you are a cheap bas***d like me you may also want to spend less than $35 on your pieces of plastic with micro drivers and unusable earpads, enter Superlux.
So I’ve owned both of these Superlux headphones for a year or so now and use them as my main headphones for beat making.
If you’re considering buying a pair of ‘Lux cans this review may be of some use to you as there are several very similar headphones in both of the product lines.
Haven't Heard of Superlux?
Superlux is a Taiwan based company and are well known for making drivers and other bits for a large variety of other headphone manufacturers and indeed, for almost anything pro audio related, like mics, preamps and accessories.
Eventually, they thought f*** this and built out their own line of product ‘closely inspired’ by key pieces from other manufacturers but sold at often one third of the price or less.
The general consensus on the internet is that their headphones are very decent, and in some cases even ‘better’ than the ones that inspired them.
There are plenty of Headfi et al detailed tech reviews of these headphones with frequency graphs and roll offs and all that stuff where Audiofools will say they are OK but you MUST have a $150 titanium and wheat grass headphone lead to make them worthwhile.
I will not be covering this at all – I will simply give my experience of extended use and subjective opinion (feels) of these and how they compare to one another, and possibly to like models in the ‘Lux lineup.
The Superlux Contenders
Our two subjects are the HD681and the HD660, see the Superlux website for specs etc on these but briefly:
HD681 (Based on AKG K240 mkii) Semi open back, 2x 32 Ohms
HD660 (Based on Beyerdynamic DT770) Closed back, 2x 150 Ohms
Why am I comparing these two? I own both, that’s the only reason, and as you will see, I think there is a very strong case for owning both of these for under $60 and covering pretty much all your audio production basic needs.
Superlux HD681 and HD660 Comparison
Earpads
To start with, the pads that come with both of these are terrible, with the more expensive HD660 ones being slightly better.
They were both replaced almost immediately hence this review is made without consideration to the original pads which you WILL replace.
On the HD681 I have some Chinese velour ones of the exact same size as the originals, on the HD660 I have some much fatter cloth style ones. I don’t do affiliate stuff but here’s a pic of the branded 660 ones, surely available all over Amazon, AliExpress etc, they are decent and worth considering for the price.
Build Quality
HD681 – Plastic but decent, have dropped multiple times, no issues.
HD660 – Mostly plastic but with a ‘leatherette’ top band covering that’s a bit padded and metal joins. Feel a bit sturdier.
Cord
Subjective, but on the straight long cord of the 681 VS the VERY TIGHT and springy coil of the 660 the straight cord wins hands down. I genuinely use the 660’s less because the coil cord is a huge pain in the ass and is non swappable.
Packaging
As we are firmly in the realm of sub $50 here we are not expecting much or could care less anyway as I would much prefer cost savings in packaging VS components:
HD681 – Literally in a clear plastic blister wrap.
HD660 – Boxed, black plastic carrying case, PU bag if I remember correctly.
Sound
HD861
They sound amazing, you can hear a lot of details when tweaking individual drum hits for transients and reverb etc, but they seem to have a gelled together sound that makes it less easy to hear clear detail and frequency spectrum when you have a full track playing.
From trial and error, and without referring to frequency response charts and eq recommendations etc I would suggest the 681’s under-represent bass with a fairly pronounced roll off under 80hz or so and continued underrepresentation all the way up to maybe 400Hz, but this is not significant for me. They also seem to over cook the high mids quite a bit.
My reasoning for this is, as I stated, non technical, simply that after finishing beats using only the 681’s and playing back thru something else I invariably have boomy lower bass and less mid than I expected, I now leave the bass lower than I would like and add on to the midrange a bit when using them and this seems to largely fix the problem when playing back thru e.g Genelec 8010’s, a harmon Kardon Boom Box, Apple laptop speakers, earbuds etc.
HD660
These are closed back so can’t really compete on ‘presence’, ‘soundstage’ or whatever you want to call it. They are pretty much the opposite of the HD681 bass wise and add a good bump to whatever bass you are running thru them.
Aside from that I did not find any other frequency range that was notably cut or boosted COMPARED to the HD681, which likely means they also have a bump (but less of one) in the high mid area.
As above when finishing a beat using the HD660 and running thru another system I had a lack of bass but no issues in other areas.
They also sound really good in general and are very detailed and more clinical when assessing an overall production than the 681’s that make everything sound kind of better.
Which is better the HD681 or HD660?
Difficult question and I can only answer by saying I use both, in fact I have both of them plugged into my SP404 Mkii simultaneously and kind of A/B as I’m working before C’ing thru monitors later.
This is especially useful for me personally as if I can dial the bass in to where it sounds good on both these headphones it will likely be pretty much what I want.
That being said I am using the 681 almost 70% of the time because they have a much more enjoyable sound for production with a lot more width, and they are a LOT comfier to wear for extended periods. They are also cheaper so if you just want to dip into the Superlux world get the HD681’s it will be one of the best $25 you have spent on production equipment.
The 660’s are obviously better if you need more isolation either for monitoring recordings or just not annoying people on public transport.
Both of these are great Headphones
Both of these blow the ATH M30x and the Sennheiser HD599 out of the water at less than half the price, I own all 4 and the non Superlux ones have been sitting on a shelf gathering dust.
