from gearslutz:
I just received a pair of Sennheiser HD 800's and have been listening through the Hilo for the last week or so. In stock form, the HD 800's sound very good through the Hilo but their well documented sibilance was quite noticable and a fair bit on the grating side at loudish volumes. The soundstage was fairly well defined but not what I had hoped for from such expensive headphones. I took note of all of this as I was always planning on doing the Anaxilus mod which is well proven to make a big improvement to the HD 800's.
Those interested can go here:
DIY Modification for the Sennheiser HD 800: "The Anaxilus Mod" | InnerFidelity
After I added the mod, the improvement was instantly noticeable. The soundstage was much more defined and the space of the recording was much more apparent. The reduction in sibilance was fantastic as it is now very rare to feel any discomfort even at high volumes. In fact, I am now slightly paranoid about sending myself deaf as listening at louder than safe volumes causes no discomfort whatsoever, a testament to a very low distortion headphone paired with a very low distortion amp.
I recently listened to this binaural recording that I remembered from a few years ago:
QSound Labs: Virtual Barber Shop (Long) -- Binaural Audio Demo
It was late at night when everyone was asleep and as it began, I instantly panicked thinking that I had left my speakers on as the sound of the original space was so clear and realistic. It was as if the headphones were not on my head and I was hearing the sound as it was in the room. This is a cool little binaural demo which sounds pretty cool on any decent headphones but the way it makes the HD 800's disappear through the Hilo is most impressive.
A fairly agreed upon consensus (apart from cable atheists) is that the stock cable on the HD 800 is not up to par with the headphones themselves so I have ordered an upgrade cable. I'll reserve my full impressions of the Hilo/HD 800 pairing until after I have tried it as I can still hear room for improvement. Having said that, however, music is sounding very impressive and beautiful at the moment and I could easily spend hours listening through entire albums (if I had the time!). At present, I would say that vocal accuracy does not quite have the realism that I would like but hopefully that will improve with the new cable.
I'll report back in a few weeks when my Hilo headphone system is almost at it's peak.
