Sennheiser HD700 - The Chameleon - what is going on with this headphone?

I've owned a Sennheiser HD700 since 2016 and found that the sound quality WILDLY varies based on amplifier, moreso than any other headphone I've owned.

Some examples I can give that i've tried:

* Parasound zDAC v.2, HPA&DAC - HD700 sounds excellent here, the best actually of any other combo I've tried. All around very nice. Bad match for HD800, not enough power.

* Oppo HA-1 - Treble is too sharp to the point of being painful. A terrible match. Also a bad match for HD800 and anything else I tried on it.

* LG V20 / V40 smartphone w/ ESS DAC & HPA - A very good match as well, nice soundstage with controlled treble and bass.

* Musical Fidelity MX-DAC + MX-HPA - Middle of the road. Sounds like nothing special. Not terrible, but not good either. I found this match also to be okay for HD800, but not spectacular.

* eVGA NU AUDIO HPA & DAC - Middle of the road. Sounds again like nothing special. Not terrible, but not good. This was a pretty good match for HD820, though a little too veiled/lack of detail.

* Musical Fidelity MX-DAC + Monolith Liquid Platinum - This is a bad combo for HD700, sounds boxy and weird. Ironically, this is the best combo I've ever heard for the HD820 and the Hemp sounds good with this combo as well. But HD700 objects for some reason.

So, any ideas why exactly the HD700 so wildly morphs from one amp to the next? I have never heard a headphone that so wildly differs based on amplification; not just like HD8xx either where you are talking small differences in treble/bass, the HD700 whole sound signature changes massively. This wide variability also likely explains at least part of its divisiveness because the wrong gear match sounds terrible. It can sound great with the right gear match, tho. I am curious what might be the explanation for this, perhaps my above gear attempts can help explain? The only thing that strikes me right away is it seems the more an amp is designed to handle less sensitive headphones that require a lot of power, the worse the HD700 sounds - and vice versa. At 150ohm though you wouldnt think HD700 would behave this way.

 

Are you sure you're talking about the HD700? Or is mistyping and wanted to write HD650/580/600/800 several times but all of them you fat fingered the keyboard?
That headphone is incredibly insipid and harsh sounding, I can't imagine anyone enjoying that turd, unless it had a massive silent revision recently and now is what Sennheiser promised at first.

 

I got it at the end of it's production run so I don't know if there were multiple revisions. But mine is less bright than both the hd800 and hd820 I owned. I like neutral-bright sound signatures with big soundstage so I wasnt a fan of hd600 which I also tried on most of the above amps.

I did find hd700 to be more amp selective to sound good than any other headphone i owned though (including hd600/hd800/hd820) and am wondering the technical reason behind this.

 

Some context on my perspective; I'm somewhat treble sensitive. The HD800 SDR and DT1990 both fatigued me pretty heavily after about 30-60 min. However, I really enjoy the HD800S and DT880.

HD700 bothered me so badly after trying it, not only did it physically pain me, it caused me to not be able to wear headphones for a week after trying it. screw that headphone. It is trash and is a joke that it was ever made it out of R&D and into the sales channel.

I have seen a streamer or two wear them. I don't know how it's possible. I have some theories;
1. They have wildly different physical ear structure.
2. They don't clean their ear canals with qtips*
3. They have hearing issues and have never been tested*

*obviously just joking in case anyone takes offense

 

Just to be clear, you're using the same music with all amps in play right?

I took part in a loaner for the HD700 when they were new to the market. I only had one amp which could power them(vintage reviever with higher OI.) My main impressions were that they varied significantly with source material; they could be extremely warm or Gradoesque bright but with a mids suckout. The only similarities I heard from song to song were a diffuse stage with softened transients/odd decay.

If I were to theorize it's an issue of their 'live' housing which vibrates along to the music. My guess is that it causes different resonances based on the content being played which amplifies the differences between tracks & gear. I know when I put my hands on the live bits on the housing to damp them it changed the sound significantly reducing the reverb/diffuse thing a bit, I can't remember what it did to the FR.

 

Probably a defective unit, remember the awesome Focal Utopia that Tyll reviewed? It was defective (or that's what Focal said) and sounded better than a correctly, properly built Utopia (so much, it was the "world's best headphone" for a while). Is easy to imagine, with such a bad sounding headphone as the HD700, that several defects on the assembly or some hole in the driver would improve the sound.

 

Methinks thou changest thine amplifier when thou shoudst change thy headphone.

 

lol, very possible

Well I've tried quite a bit of both. Right now I have 6 pairs of headphones.

I generally prefer two have only one or two amps and run multiple headphones on them. But I've found the amp has a huge impact on the sound (DAC much less so) from the various amps I've tried.

The HD700 is the only one of my headphones that so massively varies from amp to amp, though.

 

I think this is spot on, the HD700 are 'lively' in a way that many would consider unhealthy. Even so, I find HD700 one of my favorite things, not all the time but often enough that I wouldn't think of ditching them.

They seem quite responsive to transients, and my best use case has been with Lyr3 and Brimar Oldway CV1988's, which slow things down I'd guess just enough, without crushing them completely.

Mine also use Dekoni Hybrids, which help bring up the bottom and temper the top, without completely ruining the headstage and imaging, which I like better than the overall more civilized but comparably quick HD660S.

 

I hope that u got a "defective" unit because that headphone is absolutely in many of our members, me included, prestigious "Wall of Shit".

Tbh the only people that I have seen defending was people that simply didn't try better or, an actually friend of mine that bought them because "they look very cool and are Sennheiser so it has to sound good". It sounds absolutely ear piercing.

I am still recovering from a SCUBA accident this year and It still feels better than when I listened to them.

 

Same music with all amps, yes. And all hooked up via their optimal connection, i.e. single ended vs balanced XLR whichever the amp performs better in is how the HD700 was hooked up.

They are on the bright side but I've heard them vary from way too bright, to oddly undetailed and bright in the wrong areas, to sounding just right depending on the amp. The difference is not small either, talking major swings in the overall signature of the HD700.

Well looking at the above list I posted, over the 4 years I've owned them on the 6 different amps I've tried them on, they sounded really good on 2, terrible on 2, and mediocre on 2. That's a pretty bad track record. But the question is, why does their overall sound wildly change so much from HPA to HPA, not subtle differences but major differences? On the HA-1 they sounded peaky and painful like an icepick; on the Parasound zdac2 & LG V20 they sounded full bodied and detailed without being peaky; on the Musical Fidelity combo they just sounded boring; on the Liquid Platinum they sound "boxy." Why does this headphone change so much on the amplification? It seems like the more powerful the amplifier the worse they sound.

If you just listened to one amp, I could see you getting that ear piercing result - especially on a very neutral solid state amp, I experienced the same thing. But their signature vastly differs on amp used, its definitely not ear-piercing on many other amps I tried.

 

Do you think it might have something to do with the output impedance of the HPA having a much larger difference than usual on the sound signature of the headphone?

I am curious to see the results of your findings.

 

Whatever happened to @takato14 and his HD700 mods?

 

Were those the ones with the sewn up ear pads? I always wanted to hear that.

 

can you confirm if the dt1990 4.5kHz cut is real? I want to believe its not. How about burn in? Some people say the treble peak goes away over time. i want to try them but the measurements tell me not to.

 

Perhaps then it is a matter of coloration compatibility.

Meaning, if the headphone is colored enough that it significantly changes character based on different types of music, then it makes sense that it would similarly change character with amps that have different colorations - some of which help the HD700 and some of which hurt it.

Thinking of selling my HD700 to fund an HD800S. The LP sounds so amazing with HD820 I want to hear HD800S on it. Surprisingly the HD700 seems to be selling more used now than what I bought it new for.