Just received my HD800 :) Anybody else using the HD800 with a Lavry DA10 / DA11?

Have been listening to it now for about 2 hours (so it's not burned in)

My chain is Laptop (running on battery) -> Foobar -> M2Tech HiFace -> Lavry DA10 -> HD800

The very first thing I thought when I put the HD800 on my head was: These things have BASS!! :)

I was expecting a bass light treble hot headphone, but there's pleenty of bass for me, and the treble is not at all too hot.

Infact the HD800 sounds a bit warm to me, and not at all analytical sounding.

I wonder if this is because of the DA10 headphone amp.

Anybody else using the HD800 with the Lavry DA10 or DA11?

If so, how do you compare the built in headphone amp with your dedicated heaphone amp (if you have one)

I'm wondering how big of an improvement there's still to be had.

-Marcel

Nooo... these are going to go back to the store.

I'm very very dissapointed.

My little $50 or less second hand 1993 Appledesign powered speakers (m6082) beat the HD800 BIGtime in certain ways!!!!!!

The HD800 sound like home hifi speakers, and are not neutral at all to me.

They make all the music sound the same, although in a very pleasant full range way.

But there's no real "presence".

They have something of a smile curve to me, with some seriously lacking upper mids or something.

I mean my little appledesign speakers are by far not allround speakers, completely lacking bass for instance, but they get the upper mids very right and I hear more on them than on the HD800. Different music really sounds different, you can hear badly mixed music, old music etc in such a clear and distinct way, sounds are clearly defined in a way.

The HD800 have a terrible definition in a way, I still hear the awfull sennheiser "veil". The veil is not the trebble, but it's a lack of "focus / defenition".

When for instance listening to piano the HD800 gives a beautifull sound, but something is very much missing.

If this is where headphones are at I'm seriously dissapointed :(

I've so far heard only the HD600, HD650, AKG701 (sounding very terrible but in a very different way than the HD800) and another AKG whose model name I forgot, but they all had serious faults and couldn't reach good speaker levels at all to me.

I've also very briefly heard the AKG K1000, but very poorly amped, but they did leave an impression on me though, perhaps I should listen to these again but in a proper way this time before I give up on headphones.

-Marcel

Just looking again at the graph on the headroom site:

And it does represent pretty well how I'm hearing the frequencies on the HD800.

But I mean common, there a huge area that's on average about 6db softer in the upper mids. 6db is huge!

Take 100 to 300 hertz, it's at around +9db it then drops till -2db at around 2500 hertz (11db drop, that's 4 times as soft!) then it rises to +5db at 6khz and drops off again (yeah I'm hearing that highest spark / air a bit too).

Overall it's very soft in the upper mids, which is what I'm hearing. If it didn't have the peak at 6khz this would be a very veiled dark headphone, it's just the peak at 6khz that gives the impression of a full range sound. But it's not fooling me. This phone is far from flat :(

There are some other issues I think I'm having with the HD800 but I'm not sure how much of those are due to the frequency curve (and perhaps the DA10 headphone amp)

I never gave much trust to frequency graphs as I'm not an expert on headphones and the ear, but from now on I'll change that and start trusting these headroom graphs a lot more.

Strange thing is I can't understand nobody posted the issues I'm having with the HD800 before?

I mean the HD800 are very likeable, but neutral or audiphile heaven? Far far from that in my opinion.

-Marcel

"+5db at 6khz and drops off again (yeah I'm hearing that highest spark / air a bit too)."

Sorry that wasn't clearly written, I meant to say I'm missing a tiny bit of highest spark / air too.

Sorry for my bit strong negative review.

I do hear the HD800 as very nice in many ways. But not in the ways I was hoping for.

My mother visited me yesterday btw, and played some music for her on the HD800.

Checky 24bit 96khz things from hdtracks, and some other well recorded classical and jazz.

I didn't tell her anythig about my opinion of their sound before.

Her first response was "something is lacking", and after a while she even said it's a little bit like a cloth is over the music.

I've sent them back today, and just won a K1000 on ebay.

Hope I like the K1000 better.

I am still very curious what others think about the HD800 out of the Lavry.

Although I did find a review (to which I had replied to earlyer actually) that compared the DA10 headphone out to the SPL auditor.

And he found the difference very subtle, DA10 headphone out was slightly less detailed and slightly warmer to him.

I do think that the DA10 headphone out wasn't good for driving them loud, after 30-35 volume it sounded compressed (though that's too loud for me anyhow, I preferred less than 20)

I'll let know what I think of the K1000 when I get it.

Perhaps headphones aren't for me period, which'll put my disliking of the HD800 in a different perspective :)