Hiya , first let me qualify myself ..I'm no stranger to headphones or high end systems and don't have a hearing problem barring some loss above 15khz.
Prior to getting my 800's I have used the H600's and the HD650s running thru a variety of headphone amps , X-cansV2, V3 , Graham slee solo , Custom SET amp , and a custom class A discrete component solid state amp and have enjoyed sound from all of them with some good sources , Jolida CDP , Theta transport and DAC etc and lately my Slim devices Transporter.
At any rate , I got Woo WA2 and was enjoying it and soon after decided to get the Hd800's...I had heard them extremely briefly (5 mins)with a Wa2 and was blown away by their imaging and openess of the sound
I had read comments and reviews on em ...and took note of the proviso that they were slightly bass shy ....hmm!
I ran the phones in for at least 100 hours and settled back for some serious listening....only to find that , to put it bluntly , these phones sound really treble hot and have no real drive , yes there is low bass but its limited , lower midbass seems extremely lacking.
To cut a long story short , after swapping amps , sources , cables , valves , dacs and so forth I determined my Class A SS state drove em with the best bass and the cleanest output ...I realise these phones measure flat - but they really started sounding fatuiging long term , giving me no real pleasure compared to my 600/650's which sounded grainy and veiled by comparison to the 800's in all other respects apart from bass.
Flat in any systems sounds like doo doo mostly - I have a TACT time and freq room correction system I have used in my main rig and doing time and freq EQ without overlaying a preference curve results in clean but horrible sound , TACT themselves provide preference curves to ameliorate the sound of perfectly flat.
I decided to insert my Z-sys RDP-1 digital parametric between my transporters digital output and it's DAC (I reviewed the unit here Z-Systems RDP-1 - Digital preamp ) and added some judicial eq in the Vlf and low bass and the Hd800's "woke up" and started sounding wonderful .. at any rate , I now use the 800's with a Behringer DEQ2496 using its PEQ function rather than the Z-sys which I use in one of my main systems...It's a $350 unit and sounds almost as good as the Z-sys. (google it)
I have a pal that also has the 800's and he too has been going mad trying to get these phones sounding good , he was blown away by the change the Parametric EQ makes - takes these phones into a different class.
I now have deep and tight and quite visceral bass and my music sounds like it should. No cable , dac , or amp change can possible do what these units can ...
Im wondering if the fact that these phones are so open (physically) and the drivers are not close to the ear and tilted away makes them lose some of the pressure wave the bass should provide and this is why they sound so bass shy?
Prior to getting my 800's I have used the H600's and the HD650s running thru a variety of headphone amps , X-cansV2, V3 , Graham slee solo , Custom SET amp , and a custom class A discrete component solid state amp and have enjoyed sound from all of them with some good sources , Jolida CDP , Theta transport and DAC etc and lately my Slim devices Transporter.
At any rate , I got Woo WA2 and was enjoying it and soon after decided to get the Hd800's...I had heard them extremely briefly (5 mins)with a Wa2 and was blown away by their imaging and openess of the sound
I had read comments and reviews on em ...and took note of the proviso that they were slightly bass shy ....hmm!
I ran the phones in for at least 100 hours and settled back for some serious listening....only to find that , to put it bluntly , these phones sound really treble hot and have no real drive , yes there is low bass but its limited , lower midbass seems extremely lacking.
To cut a long story short , after swapping amps , sources , cables , valves , dacs and so forth I determined my Class A SS state drove em with the best bass and the cleanest output ...I realise these phones measure flat - but they really started sounding fatuiging long term , giving me no real pleasure compared to my 600/650's which sounded grainy and veiled by comparison to the 800's in all other respects apart from bass.
Flat in any systems sounds like doo doo mostly - I have a TACT time and freq room correction system I have used in my main rig and doing time and freq EQ without overlaying a preference curve results in clean but horrible sound , TACT themselves provide preference curves to ameliorate the sound of perfectly flat.
I decided to insert my Z-sys RDP-1 digital parametric between my transporters digital output and it's DAC (I reviewed the unit here Z-Systems RDP-1 - Digital preamp ) and added some judicial eq in the Vlf and low bass and the Hd800's "woke up" and started sounding wonderful .. at any rate , I now use the 800's with a Behringer DEQ2496 using its PEQ function rather than the Z-sys which I use in one of my main systems...It's a $350 unit and sounds almost as good as the Z-sys. (google it)
I have a pal that also has the 800's and he too has been going mad trying to get these phones sounding good , he was blown away by the change the Parametric EQ makes - takes these phones into a different class.
I now have deep and tight and quite visceral bass and my music sounds like it should. No cable , dac , or amp change can possible do what these units can ...
Im wondering if the fact that these phones are so open (physically) and the drivers are not close to the ear and tilted away makes them lose some of the pressure wave the bass should provide and this is why they sound so bass shy?
