Sennheiser HD 700 Appreciation Thread - Page 3

 

Just to make myself clear, i was talking about the 'Official Unveil thread at CES', not the other Appreciation thread which i just noticed.

LOL - geez guys, relax.  I don't mean to be hating on the HD700.  I'm just an avid Sennheiser lover - rather unashamedly biased in fact....so I was caught very off guard when mine showed up and let me down.  But obviously, these are just problems to MY ears.  I'm sure they'll serve many quite well....and there's no debating they should run better out of a lot less demanding gear.

 

Counterfeits?  Well, anything is possible, but I kind of doubt it.  Mine were obtained from HeadRoom, and I've always had great luck with them.  I was well down the pre-order list, so I seriously doubt I received a pair that had been overused or abused as demo models. 

 

I remain quite happy with the bookends of audio bliss I currently possess in the HD800 and HD650.

 

LOL, I was kidding when I said you may have received a counterfeit. One other person mentioned issues with the pivots. The HD700 do indeed sound and measure off compared to the other Sennheisers. You were not the only Sennheiser appreciator caught off guard. Indeed, the HD650 and HD800 are awesome.

May a join the CLUB :D man i had a hard time deciding wether to get these or the HD800.... I just love the 800s for their smooth sound and spacious sound, but to my ears they got beaten by the 700 in a major area. When listening to orchestra or mostly any music the 700s has this attack, like a violin just made my hair rise the 800 just didnt do that. Both are nice headphones and i think they cover different areas. For me if they melded 800 with some of the 700s abilites u would indeed not need to search for any other headphones in my opinion. Now i need to burn them in

and match them with a nice amp/dac or something like that :P

Posted a review of the 700s today. I call them a viable alternative to the 800s. Without an amp the 700s sound slightly weak and generic so amping seems to be necessary. I ran them through a Grace m903 and an E9. Some of the negative comments may be attributable to this issue. The comments about how sibilant these are seem puzzling since I didn't notice any obvious sibilance using my amps. The 700s are really geared for Classical, Jazz and certain kinds of Rock. I don't think these are Metal headphones. They strike me as substantially wider, deeper and more acoustically present than the 600s and 650s. I love my 600s, am ambivalent about my 650s but the 700s are probably objectively "better" headphones than either. $500 better? That depends on how much you like the Sennheiser sound. $500 buys you HD 650s so the answer is probably no. Are the 800s $500 better than the 700s? Again, probably not unless you really love them. I am impressed by the 700s but I've only had them a month or so. We need time to bond. Are the 700s "bad" headphones, as I've read in a few comments here? Definitely not, unless you really hate the Sennheiser sound. Or are really attached to your 650s/800s. Two issues I noticed: playing older mono recordings seemed to produce some treble distortion. Not always, but a few recordings were slightly painful to listen to (Dennis Brain playing the Mozart Horn Concertos, for example). And the 700s get loud very fast. Watch the volume, keep it lower.

Edited by mikebirm49 - 6/20/12 at 1:30pm

Mike, where did you post your review?  I'd like to read through it...

 

You can find it from his profile :-

http://www.head-fi.org/products/sennheiser-hd-700-headphone/reviews/6962

Thought I'd add a few thoughts now that I've had mine for a while...

I've been listening to them while traveling with either my iPhone 4S and the equalizer app with an eq of +4db at 60Hz or iPad 3 with the camera connection kit and iBasso D4 amp. I have been extremely happy with the sound of these cans. Attacks are clean, bass is punchy (and can be driven well with a little eq), highs are crystal clear. In a few recordings with overly pushed high ends, I can add -4db at 10KHz and the problem is solved.

For the most part, I'm listening to jazz, folk, light rock. And, I generally listen to them fairly quietly (I think this is important as they seem to get more "sibilant" as volume increases past a medium/medium-high level.

I've had about 2 weeks of constant listening (most every night for a couple of hours) and just love them.

Tonight, I finally had a chance to listen to them through my home system. It's very basic with my apple tv 2 (1080p version) feeding a Fiio D3 with apple lossless files to a Little Dot mk III with Mullard 8161 tubes. I started with some Chanticleer (12 part professional men's choir)...

Freakin' amazing! Incredible clarity and blend at the same time. I can hear nuances that I've never heard in any other headphone (my HD650 included). I had an interesting choice- I could pick out a single singer or step back to hear the blend. They are amazingly revealing yet not overly-analytical. They just get out of the way so that I can enjoy what I'm hearing.

As I write these last few lines, I am listening to Pat Metheny's Secret Story. One of my favorite albums and one I've listened to weekly since the early 1990s. Needless to say, I KNOW this album (this is the remastered version).

Well, I thought I knew it. As it turns out, I didn't. I'm hearing sounds, textures, layers and percussion that I never knew were there. Seriously, it's just amazing. I've listened to this with my HD650 10+ times in the last few months and I'm shocked at how much there was still to uncover. I can see that I'll need to listen to this album a bunch more to catch these new additions. Just the bass textures alone are mesmerizing. Instruments that used to be little more than attacks now have tone and body. Layers are present in places where I only heard one instrument previously.

I wouldn't recommend these headphones for everyone, especially for the very high price, but I have to say, they're worth every penny for me. It's taken me some time to come to that conclusion- they were a bit of a hard sell at first, but they've really grown on me. For jazz, light rock, classical, and folk, they're just wonderful. Oh, and did I mention the soundtrack to Snow White and the Huntsman? Wow!!!
Edited by smcginni - 6/21/12 at 11:28pm

I'm strongly considering getting these cans. I think it would make a great compliment to my Denon AH-D7000's. Based on what I see it might be the only other can I need other than the d7000's. Keep the insights coming please to help me make a decision. If its bassy enough for electronic that would just be I icing on the cake
Edited by goropeza - 6/22/12 at 5:22am

I listen to electronic music too. I'm also interested to here what you Guys' thoughts are on this?

Without help, they don't push enough bass to satisfy electronic IMHO. The quality is great and very responsive, but I don't think you'd have enough quantity. I have the daft punk Tron soundtrack, for example, and it sounds GREAT but I'd like more from the low end.

If you're inclined to eq, then the good news is that they'll take what you give them. Just for fun, I've over-eq'd them and they can certainly take it. So, if your system allows you to adjust the sound to your liking and you're not a "no eq" purist, they will give you incredible detail and precision and I really think that you could drive them hard.

I've been thinking that a DAC/amp like the Practical Devices XM6 would be a perfect match. +6db bass boost, cross feed (the soundstage is very wide sometimes, so that would be a nice control to have), wolfson DAC. I'd love to hear someone's thoughts who can listen to that combo. That could be a very good all-around solution for more bass-heavy genres and weighs in with cans and amp for the price of an HD800.

They have much better clarity across the spectrum than m HD650 if that helps at all. Your mileage may vary :-)
Edited by smcginni - 6/22/12 at 9:49pm

Yeah it does thanks. I was going to keep my Denon AHD 7000s for electronic (they are SUPERB for that) and use the HD700 for my more acoustic music plus vocals (which is kinda how I use my HD 598's). But like I said, if they can go electronic that would just be icing on the cake and it might make them my number 1 can. I may have to give these a shot and see for myself if they are worth keeping over the HD598's, which are an exceptional value. I really want that epic sound stage!

Just chiming in on the Electronic topic. I prefer most forms of Electronic music from my HD800 over my previous LCD 2.2. 

 

Of course they're different than the HD700, but if the HD700 toss more bass into the mix I can't imagine they'd be worse. The only thing I could see them not handling too well is mid-bass centric Dubstep (which is the only thing the HD800 doesn't do as well as the rest).

I haven't been able to hear the 598 nor the D7000, so I'm sorry that I can't help you more there. What I'm finding out is that the HD700 have the ability to reproduce whatever you throw at them. So, again, if you can eq and change the sound a little, you'll get what you want out of them. I've been listening the the Snow White (SWATH) soundtrack again tonight and I'm getting really nice extension and bass out of my iPad and D4. I have an eq curve boosting 20-100Hz by about 3db and the low end is just thunderous at times. Not in a bad way. I can really hear the depth of the bass drum.

Never listened to Dubstep, so not much to say there. I'm a classical/acoustic kind of guy.

The soundstage is great. Certainly not as wide as the 800 (my listening was brief), but heads and shoulders above my 650. Just really expansive.

I got a little wild last night and replaced the pads. I've noticed a crackling sound from time to time. It looks like there is a plastic ring inside that serves as a brace and attaches the pads to the outer shell. When the plastic flexes (when my head moves a lot). There is a plastic on plastic click. It's not really an issue when I'm listening or still, but if I move around a lot, it's annoying.

I called Senn and am sending the pads back to see ifi can get a better pair. In the meantime, I used some double sided tape to stick on some Shure 840 pads i had. They're really comfy and fit great. They're a little warmer, but since they're "pleather," they don't slide on my head. I cut out the center foams, so they don't sound much different, but I do "sense" more bass or a slightly darker tone. That could just be my imagination, too, so take it with a grain of salt. I'll wear them this way until the replacements come and, if I still get the plastic noise, just leave them on.

If anyone wants to give me some song titles and artist names to audition, I can certainly listen a little in iTunes and give you a rough impression of how the 700 perform...