Drop x Sennheiser HD8XX (final tuning)

That's where most in the industry are more comfortable I think, the world where the "authorities" (men with real knowledge, experience, and goldenears) at Stereophile and TAS tell you about all the best gears, that just happen (it's just a coincidence!) to be the same as that which are advertised in the zines (print or web), and alleged audio savants such as Bob Stuart get to bring you "new worlds" in proprietary software wrappers.

Personally I would rather live in this new fangled Internet World, where yes guys like DMS get to spout off nonsense, but at the speed of internet time are roasted for it without the interference of authoritative goldenears who fancy themselves gatekeepers of the audio way...

 

If these released measurements aren't horribly done, the final tuning looks really wonky, to say the least. A big concern for this dude who would love to see an FR-wise corrected HD800 out there.

DMS made a big mistake for sure, but I'm hoping people aren't shooting the messengers too quickly.

 

Virgins......

Who the hell is DMS? I never heard of this person until today. I thought we were talking about Router/IP address thingy......I kid you not.

My only input in this thread is try to hear it yourself. I don't always agree with @shotgunshane or @Crinacle on what they like IEM wise. Good part of the time our likes do match up, and other times it doesn't. There were times that I heard something that I was going to hate, but it later turned out that I like it. This is why I try to do loaners because I love at times being wrong about things.

And this is also why I am out of the loop of things, since I don't read review sites or listen to stuff on Youtube with great detail.

 

1st point is true, but then I don't read stereophile and the like either as most publications are to some degree or another paid ads. That and we never really know "how expert" they actually are at any given point in time as experts can make mistakes too, lose their edge, etc. That and there's the whole personal preferences issue to stack on top of all of this.

You're also right that things get filtered out w/ mass of info via internet, but then I have to waste some amount of time filtering things out first.


Anyways, back to the HP - and apologies if this is a well covered mod from some period in time - but are there existing / well known mods out there that do anything very similar to what the HD8xx v2 is supposed to be doing?

 

There is no authoritative head-fi reviewer/expert stand up to challenge, and declare DMS and Crinacle's review and YT are completely joke! Sennheiser keep quiet, Drop keep quiet as well.

 

@tubefans cause no one really cares. Who gives a f**k what others think. IF you make decisions in life based on other people's opinions, you're in for a sad end. Use all said opinions at your own discretion and either man up and try it or just stfu and move on. I don't know why people are so into stirring the pot just to shit on people to feel better.

 

I like that all the things inherently good about the HD800 are glossed over. Like the HD800 had good tuning to begin with.. LOL

Audio "reviewers" are a joke.

 

I was actually pleasantly surprised and pleased with the original HD800's tonal balance for the most part. Bass extended lower than people gave it credit for. Overall tone from bass to midrange was warm sounding. Treble was well controlled and balanced for the most part EXCEPT for the huge spotlit peak at 6khz. I was actually almost equally as annoyed by the HD650's peaky 5khz in the same manner. I was puzzled as to why people gave the HD800 so much shit for sounding bright and thin, when it had a smooth, warm tilt from 100hz down to 4khz. A huge chunk of my opinions on the sound of the HD800 and HD650 came from complete and utter shock that they didn't sound anything like what I had read them to be described online (HD800 bright, cold, thin, and HD650 dark and not neutral at all). I was actually really sad to sell off my HD800. It was the only headphone I actually sold off due to financial reasons, and not because I didn't like it and found something better. No other headphones seem to come close to having as fun and addicting of a soundstage.

I don't like passing judgement on something I haven't heard, but I could see a lot of people not liking the more drastic 10db depression in the upper mids of the massdrop version. I gave the LCD-X quite a lot of shit for having a similar tuning. At the same time though, it is cool that now people have more options to choose for how they want their HD800 to sound like. Some people might not like huge scoops in the upper mids, others might love it. The version of me that loved and adored the original HE-400 for 2-3 years would have absolutely loved the HD8xx.

 

No snark: perhaps the most succinct and wholly accurate headphone description I've ever read.

 

What were people doing before headphones graphs? Funny that the HD800 and LCD2 were pioneers in including a frequency response graph that was serialized with the included drivers.

Surprise that didn't last long.

 

I can agree and I noticed that it took really long time for me and probably a lot of other people here as well to admit this.

 

Buyers continue to cancel the pre-orders for 8XX, in the past few days, nearly 80 orders has been cancelled and this will seriously hurt the reputation and resale value of 8XX. Up to now, Sennheiser keep silent, Drop keep silent.

 

With internet drama it seems there is no answer that will help. The Airist DAC was a good demonstration of this phenomenon. I can understand the risk of a blind buy but that's always been a thing with (Mass)Drop. I won't judge until I've heard them, perhaps loaners once they are out will help drown out the noise.

 

Didn't someone do this exact same thing for the ZDT Jr or another (Mass)Drop product? No f'ing clue why people need to keep tabs on cancellations.

 

I gotta imagine there are a ton of flighty folks that pre order off hype and excitement, and cancel just as fast when someone has a strong and often controversial opinion.

How many people out there are like me and have been paying attention to it since this spring? Biding our time and gathering information before making a decision.

Id bet there are a number of us.

 

I've actually tested this out a bit. Besides all the ones outside of the ear, I have two piercings inside my ear, a rook and a conch.

For the rook one I only have thin hoops so there wasn't much I could test. I do have a large-ish piece of jewelry that I often wear on the conch piercing though so last year I did try testing whether they made a significant difference to the sound. I was somewhat surprised to find that I couldn't hear a difference at all. Maybe it was because it's more towards the outer edge of the conch than the interior and it follows the line of the outer ear, or because I only have it on one ear, I don't know but I certainly didn't expect that result. Now I suspect that for differences to be audible you need some very significant jewelry.

 

Seriously, with more and more people canceling order, how Sennheiser and Drop work together to restore people's confidence in their flagship product? Dead silence?