The HD800 & HD800S thread

Definitely want to hear your subjective impressions.

 

Excited to see reviews on the HD800S.

I'm currently in the market for a pair of HD800, definitely not trying to take advantage of the S hitting the market...

 

My HD800S was just 'delivered' to a PO Box in Jamul, CA. I live in Saratoga Springs, UT. WTF.

edit: Jan continues his lightspeed, excellent customer service! He originally sent me the wrong tracking number as it turned out. Crisis averted. Still stuck in Customs though, bleh.

 

Customs huh?
Hope they won't hit you custom fees.
From my experience it could be up to 40% of the shipped price!

 

I've yet to pay fees from numerous orders from Jan. From Canada otoh...

 

So no drawbacks at all?
No reduction in soundstage, detail or resolution with the more tamed treble & midrange bump?

 

Mine just came in. I agree wholeheartedly, this is 95% of the previous HD800 sound- anyone who buys these expecting to go from hate to love on the HD800 is going to be sorely disappointed.

But if you liked the HD800 and just found it sibilant from time to time, then this might be just the ticket.

 

I've brought mine from Germany from my Christmas holidays and heard it briefly yesterday evening. I can only compare it to the LCD-3F, and I really need to say that the HD 800S is simply at least a level up. Clarity, precision and separation, transparency and soundstage are amazing, and it never was fatiguing or anything else like that. I increased the volume to really high levels, even with Xavier Naidoo (whoever familiar with you) or Metallica with tracks from S&M have been fatiguing. I don't miss any bass impact, even though the authority of the LCD is a bit bigger, but the HD 800S shows a overall better precision, definition and clarity without any frequency missing.

Please take it with a grain of salt as I've been quite tired yesterday after a long day in the airport/plane.

It's an amazing masterpiece and I'll provide some updates later (Unfortunately I cannot provide you with comparisons to the normal HD800).

Chain was NAS -> Auralic Aries -> Yggdrasil -> ECBA with PX-4 -> HD800S.

Cheers

Feuergeist

 

Is it possible for you to do a graph with both HD650 and HD800S? That would be awesome. What would you say to a HD650 user that considers the HD800S?

 

Allright, would be nice if you could make one when you get it back.

Good advice and I would do that. Problem is we don't have any retailers in my country where I can demo them. We have a small community here but if I hear anyone bought them I'll be the first one to sign up for a demo for sure. I could buy them from Jan at Meier Audio I guess but I'd hate to return them to him if I don't like them as I've already done that once before. Great guy and good service though. I already know the HD800 and have tried them several times. My biggest issue is the treble that I found to be too sibilant for me. Anax mod didn't help either and actually made the HD800 sound worse in my opinion. Also tried with tubes.

Yep, I know this very well. I guess I might have to wait for a HD850 if that ever happens...

 

So, the 800s finally arrived from Jan. Made excellent time.

Subjective impression after about 5 hours on a Gungnir Multibit + Valhalla 2 as compared to the HD800. Will try the Mjolnir 2 later tonight.

Sibilance has gone down by a small amount. Just enough to no longer have me reaching for my EQ
Highs sound slightly rolled off in general. Bass is a little more impactful but doesn't seem to have gained any strength. Mids seem unchanged.
The biggest change I notice is that the soundstage has increased and instrument placement seems more focused. I always got a sense of haziness with instrument placement on the HD800 and most of that has cleared up. Each instrument now has a distinct place in the soundstage. Tracks that make use of the stereo effect also seem to be a little more pronounced like LPD's "Hellsville".

I would wholeheartedly agree with the other opinions expressed thus far. These are most definitely still HD800's, just slightly more refined.

At least to my ear, YMMV, etc.

 

Just pm a Sennheiser engineer (not Axel)

Q: Hi man, do you like the HD800 modded?
A: Be honest, I prefer the stock ones w/o any mods.

 

Found people mentioning here dynamic EQs and dynamic settings in Ozone (multiband compression) while searching for EQ topics.

IMO, dynamic EQs/multiband comps are great but only for mixing/mastering purposes. For headphones/speakers you want static EQ. Why? Because you use dynamic EQ to reduce unwanted sounds (or enhance wanted, if you use expander) that ocure just periodically, to keep consistant sonic picture of the mix, like vocal deessing or reducing loud bass drum etc. DT990 for example will be always bright! There is no 3 second periods of brightness like in a song, that peak is always there. So you want something that reduces it all the time.

 

Consider it as live remastering then. Who's to say anything is wrong if it sounds good to them. There's too little DSP on these forums anyway.

 

Agree, that's what it is than. You might create a chain with both static and dynamic.

I feel EQs, especially good ones, like ProQ 2, are such an underaprecciated tool (I might be totally wrong tho). I turned some headphones into pure magic using them.