Advice on Sennheiser HD800s - Page 2

The HD800 with the proper source and amp is not jaw-dropping, You will

not climb the drapes and swing from the chandelier from sheer gear

excitement. These wonderful cans will not create drama in your life.

I have been using them for almost two years with an Off-Ramp 5, a Berkeley

Alpha, and first a Zana Deux and  now a Leben CS-300. They are not super

hi-fi. They do not exaggerate or call attention to themselves. They give you

music so it sounds like music. If there is drama it is the drama of the music.

My system is put together to do that, and the Leben is better than the 

ZD in this regard. 

The Leben also drives a pair of Rosinante Signatures--wonderful, little

known speakers--that I preferred to Devore 9s, hearing them side by side.

the HD800 is some more neutral than Rosinantes.

I hope you like the Senns.  They are not for everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abstraction 

The HD800 with the proper source and amp is not jaw-dropping, You will

not climb the drapes and swing from the chandelier from sheer gear

excitement. These wonderful cans will not create drama in your life.

I have been using them for almost two years with an Off-Ramp 5, a Berkeley

Alpha, and first a Zana Deux and  now a Leben CS-300. They are not super

hi-fi. They do not exaggerate or call attention to themselves. They give you

music so it sounds like music. If there is drama it is the drama of the music.

 

My system is put together to do that, and the Leben is better than the 

ZD in this regard. 

 

The Leben also drives a pair of Rosinante Signatures--wonderful, little

known speakers--that I preferred to Devore 9s, hearing them side by side.

the HD800 is some more neutral than Rosinantes.

 

I hope you like the Senns.  They are not for everyone.

Your post is very confusing to me, are you recommending the HD 800 or not? And I'm not sure if you are saying the HD 800 are not Hi-Fi headphones or not?

Haha, I enjoyed your post though

Fear not, he's recommending the HD800 in the highest terms, at least for anybody who cares about hi-fi in the real sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andrew_WOT 

Do you own Colorware of OEM painted HD800?

Is Colorware paint in your experience more durable than OEM?

Ah no, just that I've been lurking around on a lot of the threads saying that the hd800's had a bad paint job. Colorware's paint job is more for the price (just from observations though).

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarthMarth 

I'm going all-out. Currently in the planning stage of a 6-board Beta22. (Want to be able to run balanced and unbalanced headphones) That should happen by this summer, so I guess how the HD800s sound with the Crack isn't too important.

 

What do you mean about cables? I didn't mention cables. (Though I will obviously need some balanced ones for my HD800s at some point)

I meant aftermarket cables like double helix. Better money spent on the amp/dac. Though it's a very debatable subject...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maxvla 

Would recommend against the B22 unless you will be driving many different kinds of headphones and can only afford or justify having one amp. A 6 board B22 is quite expensive since you will be required to build a separate PSU enclosure. You can find several better amps for that kind of money now. Even if you are building it yourself to save labor costs, the parts for that many boards and enclosures is not cheap.

The first amp I ever heard the HD800 on was a 4 board B22 and I was put off by the headphones. They lacked sparkle, slam, dynamics. This was just a month or so after they came out. I thought my HD600 sounded as good. Now that I've heard the HD800 on better amps (for HD800) I think they might be my last headphone. I am not alone in my thoughts of the B22 HD800 pairing. Something like a Mjolnir, BHA-1, Super 7, Zana Duex, or Peak among others will do a better job in the same price range. I had a WA6 with the 800s til my BHA-1 came and thought it was mediocre at best. Perhaps the WA6SE is better but then you are into a different price bracket where other, better amps will best it.

^

Never mind.

Hey, Greed.  Sorry I was confusing. I have been doing the highest-end audio I could afford for a longtime.  I build a hi-fi amp with a pair of 6L6s at the last moment of single-channel high-fi, when I was in high school.  And gradually I have learned that the gear in itself is usually a pain in the rear.   A perfectly good tube will suddenly start making noise or something. But the gear is just a tool. It is only about the music. The gear only gives you access to the music.

I listen to many kinds of music.  Last night a friend was over, and we were very excited about listening to a double bass

player named Renaud Garcia-Fons. I don't know much about him, but he makes amazing music.

The music I am involved with day by day is (it doesn't really have a good name) downtown New York jazz--Charles Gayle, William Parker, Matthew Shipp, and many others, and some younger people, including some wonderful women players, Mary Halvorson, Ingrid Laubrock, Shayna Dulberger (and this is new in jazz).  It is a big and rich scene, much of it now moved from downtown to Brooklyn. There is a rarely a night that it is not possible to hear some of these artists in New York. I hear many of them live with some regularity. Live music is not a good test for audio.  The two experiences are totally different and can't be compared.  In one (limited) way you hear more of the music even on crappy audio systems than you do live, but there is nothing like having the living breathing players there with an audience.

Gradually I have learned to separate the music from both the audio gear and the jazz club.  There are bad venues for live music just as there are bad audio system.  It is the music that counts.The biggest variable in recorded music is the quality of the recording.But, in a live venue, you might find that the acoustics are so lousy that you can hardly hear the music at all. 

I listened to my current system for several months, before I fully understood that it was producing some of the best recorded music I'd ever heard. This gear does not hype things, does not create excitement that is not created by the music, and so forth. I have not heard all of the top of the line phones, but it is hard for me to thing any of them could sound much better than HD800. Gear should give you the music, and HD800 does that.  What more might come forth?  A lot of audiophile stuff tries to give you more than the music.

 Maxla.  Was the music you were listening to sparkly, slammy, dynamic?

Much music is not.

I suppose that if sparkle, slam, and dynamism is all you want out of music, there 

would be no reason not to exaggerate it as much as you can.

But if you listen to music that has some other intention, it seems it might be 

unfair to the artists.

With the right gear (transparent/smooth/detailed), HD 800 and entire chain will disappear.. there are only you and the "Music"