ETHER 2

You are right.
But as you can understand i replied with (a bad) joke because otherwise if taken seriously I find your statement about my hearing and ears rude and offensive.
I can assure you that I am 45y and I have perfect hearing.
I have intermediate diploma at clarinet , I have attended hundreds of concerts so I have an idea how the real thing sounds so for my perception the HD800s tuning is more or less correct.
Still I can respect your opinion and of course there is no point of trying to persuade you or someone else for the opposite.
As you can read I am very polite person and I don't want to argue or offend you.
Please excuse me for polluting the Ether 2 thread.

 

I feel it is totally fine to enjoy the HD800(s) for classical music. (Ten)thousands of people do all around the world. It has a few qualities which go well with classical. FR is not the most neutral and timbre not a highlight but who´s there on the other side with neutral calibrated ears and brain?

I remember a hifi meet and at one point we were auditioning an awfully bright setup (something with Piega speakers). We were all cringing but one elderly man got a huge smile on his face... this was how he remembered music should sound. And we don´t have to be 70 to have dips in the FR in our hearing. (It was touching how openly IF Tyll was sharing how his hearing had gotten worse over the years).

Also we often underestimate the filtering and DSP capabilities of our brain.
An analogy (which made me acutely aware of this phenomenon): I am regularly going in darkness retreat for my meditation practice. When I come out for the first one or two days I see every kind of light much more objective (like a photocamera before setting the white balance would). Old fashioned light bulbs will spread an extremely warm yellowish light, midday daylight is cool, evening light gets a warmish tone again, fluorescent and LED light might have all kinds of weird hues. It affects all the objects which I look at. After two days my brain has equalized all these different lights to a high degree. They all become much closer to a "neutral" white and the illuminated objects look much more the same independent of the different Kelvin light temperatures (my brain has been kind of making white balance presets which are automatically activated).

What I am saying is that most probably we all create (a) brain preset(s) for our favourite headphone(s) and to some degree adjust its (their) characteristics to reality.

 

@Hands , could you (or other admins) please move these semi-troll (or full-troll depending on definitions/scopes) things to another appropriate place like "how to win friends"?

@Sonorus , I think you are now generating noise. If you want to defend yourself against katt, jexby or hands, please pm them. I don't think what you posted this and last page are "signal" by any means.
(Also DO NOT post anything to apologize -- not to mention joke -- unless it's signal relevant to this thread)

 

Hi Guys,

I have a new Ether 2 demo unit in the house, just wanted to upload my rough first draft of impressions after 90 mins of back and forth with the HD800S.

Chain:

Laptop with Deezer Premium> RME ADI2 DAC>Massdrop THX 789> Headphones

Disclaimer:

• I'm far from an expert, also HD800S was driven from the balanced output, Ether 2 from the SE output due to the cables I had available. Volume was matched by ear.
• HD800S Eqed to Oratory1990's settings to match the 2018 Harman Target using Equalizer APO and PEACE GUI

Random thoughts on a few songs:

1.Giorgio by Moroder - Daft Punk

HD800S sounds more ''3D''. It dissects the track better letting me see into the layers of sound and follow individual elements if I choose to (one of my favorite qualities of this headphone). Overall more fun. Ether 2 is no slouch, a slightly warmer flavour.

Unlike the Aeon Closed the Ether 2 does not sound over damped or boring/dead. Well done Dan!

2. Mr. Jones - Counting Crows

I seem to be able to detect a slight roughness (what Hands would call ''hash'') to the treble on the Ether 2. This is not a deal breaker. HD800S sounds a bit clearer/less veiled.

3. Sultans of Swing - Dire Straits

Ether 2 - A touch warmer and darker than even the EQed HD800S.
HD800S has the better/more 3D soundstage, Ether 2 is more closed in by comparison. The music seems to be a bit too close to my ears. This is a slight effect so far, not a deal breaker.

Overall the Ether 2 sounds well balanced with deep bass. If there is a weakness I'd say it is a slight lack of clarity in the treble.


Further thoughts:

I'm impressed by what Dan has achieved with these. The industrial design is cool, the headband sliders are a bit annoying. The HD800S is more comfortable. The Ether 2 has a bit of clamp, but it is my first day of use.

The UK pricing of 1900 GBP is disappointing. US pricing of $2000 is a bit of a cash grab due to what Audeze, Hifiman and Focal have done to TOTL prices. I don't blame Dan, I blame Headfi and shill culture.

For around $1000 these are a good value I'd say. Pretty much what I paid for my used HD800S.

Audeze and Hifiman watch out. I'd rather have these on my head than any of Audeze's $4000 bricks.

Comparing headphones is bloody difficult even though I'm doing it in my totally silent flat!

My ears feel a bit fatigued now so I hope to add more info over the next week.

P.S

Any UK Friends feel free to visit this weekend to compare the two. I wanted to get the Empyrean in at the same time but did not want to lay down the money all at once..... If you have one please bring it along

 

Congrat @Rthomas !

Here are some easy tips to enjoy improved (or at least different) sound.

• Try sharp or sd sharp filter on your rme dac. I tend to use sd slow for hd800 but E2 favors stiffer filters.
• Find the optimal wearing angle and seal. Different angle and seal largely affect not only bass but also lower treble. To me there was a little learning curve.
• 24-50 hours of burn-in seems to work. Likely placebo though.

Looking at your preference toward oratory eq, your and my tastes may quite differ. So, these may not work but who knows.

PS. I don't think connecting both headphones to the amp is a good idea. Particularly for this case -- E2 has very low impedance (prol 16 ohm or so).

 

19/01/19 - Day 2 - HD800S (Oratory EQ) vs Ether 2

1. Everyday is exactly the same - Nine Inch Nails

HD800S is starting to pull away from the Ether 2 here. There are more layers to the music, soundstage is clearly superior, treble region is clearer and sounds less muddled. Dynamics are a bit better.

2. Mozart:Clarinet Concerto in A Major - Allegro (Sabine Meyer)

HD800S has cleaner treble.

3. Take these chains from my heart - Madeleine Peyroux

Both headphones sound incredible. I guess this stuff is impeccably mastered?

Ether 2 is a warmer more intimate experience, this is a matter of taste.

Final Conclusions:

I paid 41% of the Ether 2's price for my used HD800S. I know one headphone is EQued and the other is not but I don't think it changes their fundamental strengths and weaknesses. Ether does not need any more bass. I guess the treble could be evened out with EQ but I'm just going to guess that the HD800S would still beat it in this area.

Ether 2 would be a better choice if you need a more forgiving headphone but for me the overall winner is the HD800S.

Congrats to Dan for bringing a light, superbly built, great sounding planar to the market. Guys don't give Audeze and Hifiman your money without trying these.

 

Between your post and some impressions I’ve read of Liquid Platinum driving HD-800, I’m feeling the urge to get a pair. In the US I probably couldn’t find one for 41% ($810) $950 - $1050 seems to be the market right now.

I’m curious about a couple things:

- My main take-away is that you hear better treble from 800, with better stage. You don’t mention a bass comparison, which critics of the 800 focus on. Do you believe that (with the Oratory eq) the 800 bass is on a par with, or better than, E2? If so, are there any comparisons you can make?

- (I looked back through your posting history) I see you owned and sold Utopia — your biggest issue with Utopia seemed to be it’s small stage, and you used ‘intimate’ in your description of E2. Do you hear the E2 stage as equally small?

Personally, I find the E2 stage to be on a par with my Auteur & HEKv2, and significantly bigger than Utopia’s stage. To me E2 is narrower but deeper than HEK stage — HEK stage might be more even? Uniform?

No doubt that E2 treble is less energetic than Utopia or Auteur. I’m not sure I hear ‘muddy’ — like I said, makes me want to try 800s.

Thanks for your well-written impressions. They gave me a good sense of how you hear these cans.

 

Keep in mind that 800 and 800S have very different bass quality (likely due to intentionally increased 2nd harmonics with 800S) -- where 800S are mostly criticized by 800-heads. Also oratory - aka "harmanized" - 800/800S is double-edged sword imo. Personally oratory 800's bass, midrange, timbre, coherence, and (lost due to eq) transparency were all deal breakers for me. See the below (oratory 800 and oratory 800S have nearly the same frs based on his data) for your reference.



To confirm, I am listening to my 800 with oratory eqs.. no, Harman/Olive target is not my cup of tea.

PS. Oratory worked on other eq settings for headphones other than 800/800S, too: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/9o2f5n/psa_oratory1990s_list_of_eq_presets/
If you like Dr Olive's targets, maybe worth trying them.

 

Muddy is probably the wrong word but I'm limited by my lack of expertise. I can't say 3db down at 3.5K like Bob Katz

From memory Ether 2 soundstage is better than the Utopia. Utopia was also too lean in the lower end. Without EQ I'd certainly take Ether 2 over the Utopia. Another factor is that wearing the Utopia felt like a chore. I feel the same way about bulky headphones like the ZMF Eikon and Blackwood. Their size and weight took away from my musical enjoyment. I guess I have a weak neck

Hope this helps!

 

Personally I feel that the audiophile community has overblown the whole HD800S bass distortion thing.....

I believe that at safe/normal listening levels the increased bass distortion is inaudible.

Please see Oratory's comparison below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/8kfitx/difference_between_hd800_and_hd800s_with/


I will need to look into if the EQ has affected the technical ability of the headphone another time. So far I'm not unhappy with what I'm hearing.

 

I agree with pretty much all your points.

1. The purpose of my comparison was not a fair fight. I did it for purely selfish reasons. It was to answer the following question in my mind:

Ether 2 is a super light planar that is receiving a lot of hype, is there any reason I need to spend a lot more money and upgrade from my EQed HD800S? Am I missing anything?

I think these are the types of questions that run through most people's minds when the latest new shiny comes out

Many people in our community have upgraditis and I'm just trying to cure mine by having a solid reference that I need to see beaten before I will spend more money. If this helps others be more cautious as well I think that's a good side effect.


2. I don't believe (I could be wrong) that any amp can change the fundamental nature of the HD800S. No amp I've heard it from made me like it but EQ made a massive difference.

Is the EQ having a detrimental effect on my chain? Possibly but I'm satisfied for now

3. Purely based on the psychology of myself and fellow audiophiles I doubt that anybody playing at the $2000+ level of headphones will stay at the $100 level of amps and dacs. There's just the itch to get better engineered equipment with less compromises even if the improvements are minute.

 

@Hands puts the comparison in good perspective. It comes down to just a few things.

*Cost. hd800 cost half of an e2. But you'll spend all of your savings and more on upstream gear on the hd800 trying to get to a happy place where the hd800 is less sterile and more musical.

*e2 performs very well on lesser amps. IMO source will play a bigger role with e2 than amp. I could easily be happy with a Jot v2 or a lyr3 with the e2. Of course neither of those amps would be ideal for the hd800.

*EQ makes a substantial difference with the hd800. A stock hd800 with no mods and no EQ just does work for me, at all. But an EQ'ed hd800 on a good tube amp is one of my all time favorites. Sonarworks EQ plugin gets me very close to where I need to be with frequency response on the hd800. It actually has a little too much sub bass, and I usually back it down about -3 db from the stock plugin curve.

*Warmth done right is where the e2's hallmark resides. Bass is tactile and punchy as hell. Mids are liquid and comparable to what you'd hear going to a local jazz club with live music. This headphone will never have the treble extension of the hd800 or the sound staging. There will always be compromises and preferences. It's just part of the hobby. An EQ profile from Sonarworks for the e2 could be interesting though, very. Dan has used tuning pads before to help "warm up" previous ETHERs. But that wouldn't work for e2. But just maybe, he might conjure a solution that bends the frequency response a little for those looking for a bit more treble extension.

 

Yes, HD800 and HD800S are unlistenable to me without EQ but I'd say that EQ+HD800S with high value $500 dac/amp is very competitive with Ether 2 + similar chain.

My main point is that every new high cost headphone does not equal a performance leap over everything else that exists. That's the narrative Headfi strongly promotes to enrich themselves. I'm just pushing back against that a bit with my comparison.

At the end of the day both are excellent transducers, it's a matter of taste.

 

His argument is more in line with what Jude said. And that's different from what many sbaf people are thinking about:

https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?members/david-de-lucena.3423/#profile-post-15281
https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/hd800-and-hd800s-distortion-analysis.5670/

Fine. We may all hear and define differently. Nothing strange.

I owned/sold 800S and own 800, and my subjective finding is closer to sbaf consensus (not exactly the same though).

Largely agree with ice-man and hands regarding amp-pickiness. But want to emphasize the importance of pricier amps, if head stage and imaging matter. Comparing lyr 3 and bw2 with E2, the biggest difference was meaningfully deeper, wider, and more open stages. This is one strength of bw2 (or generally speaking what EC amps do well). E2 is very good at revealing it. More so than hd800 to me. Interestingly hd800 with both amps are quite acceptable to me, too.. haha.

Indeed this statement is not fair: "used price of mass-produced ones" vs "new price of small-productions"...

In US, new HD800S is sold for $1600-1700 without tax. So the prices of (new) 800S and E2 may not be that different. For used ones, there are many factors. Hard to generalize. Of course I agree all sennheiser headphones have higher chance to get any kind of discount. Maybe things are different in UK. Dunno.

Looking at the prices of other contenders from smaller manufacturers such as zmf, I am starting to think E2 is worth it. Excluding eq/mods, I can't think of any cheaper alternatives below 1k for this level of performance. Most solid performers I can happily live with are at least equivalently expensive. Auteur is sold at similar price. Susvara is 3x expensive. So I can't complain much about the price. As a consumer I always want lower prices though.

 

I don't know if I , as a rando, am allowed to join this very interesting conversation so please don't judge me too severely because, coming from the speaker world, I'm relatively new to headphones as a hobby, .

I've just done some comparisons between HD800SDR i've bought and my trusty HD580 Classical music is probably 95% of what I listen to these days.

IMHO it all comes down to what is the point of reference in sound reproduction. I go to concerts almost every week, sometimes several times a week ( The Queen of Spades this week and La Traviata with Placido Domingo in Royal Opera House and The Walkurie in Southbank next week), have a piano at home, my speakers are broadcast quality monitors, Harbeth M30, in near-field setting (0.9m listening distance), measured and EQued for neutral response.

All this should, in theory, give me at least some idea how a record should sound like. It doesn't. Too many variables.

First, I can not judge a record by live sound because every area of every concert hall has a different frequency response and none of them are similar to what I hear in the records made from the same venues. On records we listen to microphones and the whole production chain, not the instruments themselves. How we are supposed to judge what is wrong and what is right?

Second, the neutral response. I've had a number of expensive speakers over more than 30 years and always tried to make them as neutral as possible by any possible means. Still they all sounded very differently, because there is so much more to the sound than flat response or even distortion (driver materials, crossovers, directivity, cabinet construction, just to name a few).

The reason I decided to post is that I've just done this Bruckner test that I keep hearing about here. I have that CD so compared my headphones (the HD800 SDR, the HD580, OPPO PM-3) to my Harbeths which are , naturally, my point of reference.

In short, the only headphone that passed the Bruckner test was the HD800 SDR with the Sorodje EQ settings because it was the closest to what I hear from the Harbeths in terms of timbre, instrumental balance etc.
Judging by what I heard, the violins were SUPPOSED to be superceeded and drowned by the brass section at the end of the last movement, but still heard between the passages and in the background. Reasons? Poor placement of microphones, poor mastering, mixing etc. Or, may be, the conductor's interpretation or the brass section were in a very good mood that day. Who knows?

Only the HD800 SDR managed to preserve the proper balance, on the HD580 the violins stood out too much relative to the brass compared with the speakers' presentation. But, again, only relative to my particular speakers in my particular room.

Basically, the HD800 ,modded and EQed, is the only headphone that doesn't make me want to check if my ears clean enough which is the case with the HD580 (bought them 20 years ago and really like them) or to regret too much that i'm not listening to the speakers. Also the involvement and emotional impact are higher than with the HD580 or, God save us, OPPO PM-3. UnEQed HD800, IMO, unlistenable for any genre of music.


And, as if my post wasn't long enough, one more thing I'd like to share. I've noticed it with the speakers that good ones are very responsive to EQ . With the Harbeths, for example, 0.2 - 0.3 db difference audibly changes the sound . This has always been ,IMO, a sign of a good design. The HD800 is the first headphone I've come across that has it too. The HD580, couldn't EQ them properly. Not that they needed it much.

So, the HD800 SDRed and EQed ,IMHO, is a reference headphone for classical music. Very enoyable, musical, non-fatiguing. Or which one is? My ears were bleeding after a 5 min listen to the Utopia. YMMV.

 

Interesting. I agree on the deep bass, on the highs and air in real concert halls, not so much.
Davies Hall, San Francisco:



Orchestra Hall, Chicago:




So it's a rapid roll-off (8-10db) after 2Khz even at the best seats.
It's just that real music is so harmonically rich and satisfying that we never crave for any air or highs or lows for that matter, in a properly designed venue. We just dont't divide music into frequencies. I know a very good article on the subject but I don't know if I'm allowed to post any links or if anyone interested.

Off topic: When I had a chat with Dan Clark at the London CanJam last year and pointed out that Aeon Flow Open seemed to be quite far from neutral he said he tuned them to emulate the sound of a live concert. What?! No more questions, thank you very much. I did like the AFC though.

P.S. I've just realized looking at the graphs that down the drain go all our beloved strings we keep talking about. There is a big problem with the majority of classical recordings: most of them are closely miked and we hear all the high frequency dirt coming from the instruments.It's unpleasant and adds nothing to the experience. Chamber and vocal music are mostly recorded this way and probably all of the audiophile records. It's supposed to give the impression of being THERE, right at the singer's mouth.

Luckily we almost never hear it during real performances because we are too far and because of the hall's frequency response. It's a good thing IMO. Why would anyone like to be near the singers's mouth ?