My two pence:

I got my pair of 660S2 today and I’m not going to beat around the bush: they’re absolutely mindblowing.

I got the Meze 109 Pro’s in December, and my other over-ears are Focal Clear OG’s, Senny HD 560’s, Focal Bathys and AKG K371’s.

I’ve owned HifiMans ranging from Sundaras to Aryas and I’ve owned a pair of HD 650’s and the original pair of HD 660’s. I also have a small obsession with really nice IEMs that I won’t go into here.

But, basically, I’m here to say this: forget the talk from YouTubers (et al) about this being an incremental improvement on the previous 660’s and a different but equal flavour of the 600 series. These headphones, to my ears, fight in a different weight class.

I adore my Meze 109 Pro’s, but I can tell you immediately today after just a few hours of listening that the 660S2 are going to be on my head way more in 2023.

Others will disagree, and I totally get that. But to me, the 660S2 are everything good and great about the 600 series amalgamated into a single headphone. They punch, the midrange is great, they’re analytical like a pair of 600’s but warm like 650’s, 6xx or 660’s, the treble is just right, etc etc

I don’t know if this comment is meaningful or not, but I’ll finish on this point tonight: I’m a big EQer of headphones. This is the first pair I’ve had in years that I’ve been unable to improve via EQ. I keep just going back to stock tuning.

I really feel like (most of the) reviewers (we all watch) have misrepresented the quality of these cans.

I can understand that the price is difficult for a lot of people to swallow, but - in a vacuum - this is easily a $500 pair of headphones compared to others competing in the same range, and in fact I’d say that these are a match for almost anything under £1000.

They play in the same ballpark as my Focal Clear OG’s (and in some cases better them) as opposed to something like the Edition XS or Ananda. And I say that as a HUGE planar fan and fan of those two headphones as well.

If you can wait until the S2’s come down in price, all power to you. But will I ever regret selling my old HD660’s and a few other things so I could spend the money on these? No chance.

So far, I find them captivating in a way that has been very rare in my audiophile journey so far.

If I had to name one thing that leaves me feeling sore about the S2’s, it’s definitely the packaging. Come on, Sennheiser… These are headphones that merit so much more than a little pouch for transport.