[DarKu]

IMO useless poll.
Have both, HD800 is better in every aspect except slowness, HD650 slowness cannot be beaten

 

[brasewel]

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IMO useless poll.
Have both, HD800 is better in every aspect except slowness, HD650 slowness cannot be beaten

Slowness? Never heard that term being used to describe sound before 

 

 

[hentai]

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Well that is the wildcard - the people who said they liked the HD800 heard it out of a big muscle tube amp. I heard the HD800 on a few amps which could drive the demanding Hifiman orthos just fine, so provision of power was not an issue, which leads me to believe that the tube amp in question did not put out a flat response.
 
So when people say that x headphones are great, but only with the "right" dac and amp, and that means a source that rolls off the treble and an amp that adds lower mids warmth when the headphones naturally sound sibilant and hollow then its not great headphones, its not a great dac and its not a great amp. It's three faulted products whose defects coincidentally cancelled each other out.
 
For me what a headphone is is what it will sound like on a neutral amp, given that amp has the capability to drive them, and in that case the HD800 is sibilant, does have hollowed out tinny mids and does not stand up to comparison to any other flagship. That's what the number of people who hated it at the UK meet showed, while there was no lack of praise for the LCD-2, T1, SR-007 and so on.

 
Yes, that's what quite a no. of experienced  audiophiles believe as well. I'd prefer Sennheiser to bulid on hd600 for development of its flagship to produce something like hd800. I am beginning to believe many audio makers realise that a boost of the mid highs will give a strong sense of clarity to many people but hi end audio is not just about that perceived 'clarity'
 
 

 

[pp312]

 
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Yes, that's what quite a no. of experienced  audiophiles believe as well. I'd prefer Sennheiser to bulid on hd600 for development of its flagship to produce something like hd800. I am beginning to believe many audio makers realise that a boost of the mid highs will give a strong sense of clarity to many people but hi end audio is not just about that perceived 'clarity'
 
 

Agreed. You just don't hear high levels of detail and "clarity" in real life. Listen to any brass band, say, from a reasonable distance; it's not bright and it's not detailed in the way I've heard so many phones sound (haven't heard the 800). People may prefer that sound, but it's not realistic and it's not--literally--hi-fi. You could boost the extreme treble of a so-called slow and undetailed phone like the 650 and it would immediately sound faster and more detailed, but it wouldn't be as balanced and realistic.
 
However, I'm fast coming to the conclusion that people don't care about that; they just want to hear as many details as possible with as much holographic clarity as possible. I presume this has to do with the type of music being listened to.   
 

 

[brasewel]

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Agreed. You just don't hear high levels of detail and "clarity" in real life. Listen to any brass band, say, from a reasonable distance; it's not bright and it's not detailed in the way I've heard so many phones sound (haven't heard the 800). People may prefer that sound, but it's not realistic and it's not--literally--hi-fi. You could boost the extreme treble of a so-called slow and undetailed phone like the 650 and it would immediately sound faster and more detailed, but it wouldn't be as balanced and realistic.
 
However, I'm fast coming to the conclusion that people don't care about that; they just want to hear as many details as possible with as much holographic clarity as possible. I presume this has to do with the type of music being listened to.   
 

Which is why I preferred the LCD-2 to the HD800 when properly amped. The LCD-2 sounded closer to "real" music while the HD800 sounded like a really good headphone.
 

 

[immtbiker]

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No one finds it 'odd' that after some 60 plus years in business both Sennheiser and Beyerdynamic release expensive flagship headphones that are seemingly much better than their reference series at the same time? After 60 years both these companies just-so-happen to finally figure out how to make better sounding headphones?
 
Better or not I call marketing BS!

You can add Grado's PS1000 to that statement. Sennheiser announces the HD800 at CES, and bam....all of a sudden, Grado makes an announcement. With respect to Beyer, they were announced a whole year later at CES, and was available exactly one year later. But in all fairness, as was stated before, The T-1 was a pretty new design compared to what was out there.
 
However, this is done all over the marketing arena. Isn't it a coincidence that ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC all have the same stories on the 6 and 11 o'clock news, and when one has a commercial, you flick the channel, and all of the other news stations have a commercial at the same time. You can't tell me that they're not in co-hoots to keep you to stay put.
 
Also, I think that all headphones should be blown out of the water, because besides some that I've seen that are advertised in Sky Mall, very few headphones float. 

 
I also agree that the HD6XX's sound significantly better balanced.
 
 

 

[Graphicism]

Quote:

You can add Grado's PS1000 to that statement. Sennheiser announces the HD800 at CES, and bam....all of a sudden, Grado makes an announcement. With respect to Beyer, they were announced a whole year later at CES, and was available exactly one year later. But in all fairness, as was stated before, The T-1 was a pretty new design compared to what was out there.
 
However, this is done all over the marketing arena. Isn't it a coincidence that ABC, Fox, CBS, and NBC all have the same stories on the 6 and 11 o'clock news, and when one has a commercial, you flick the channel, and all of the other news stations have a commercial at the same time. You can't tell me that they're not in co-hoots to keep you to stay put.

 
Comparing News stations has nothing to do with headphone manufacturers, it's like comparing humans to insects because we're both animals... I'm asking why after so many years was a new resolution in sound and price reached by both companies? With the release of these new, expensive headphones, a higher sound resolution has been reached as reported by their owners... where was it before? Why didn't it exist?

 

[EddieE]

The price thing, in my opinion, is to do with the way WE think. We as a market they sell to.
 
Look at how this community now brushes off headphones in the range of £200-£500 as "mid priced, mid-fi", whereas before the £1000 arrived they were considered top range and expensive. If you were a manufacturer and you could go online and see that your market now considered £1k to be the "right" price for high end head phones - what would you do?
 
There is a thread somewhere that says AKG need to bring out a flagship as, with their top headphone still in the £150-£250 price range, they don't have one. Did anyone say AKG didn't have a flag ship before the new phones came out? What they were essentially saying was "Why aren't AKG charging us £1000 for a dynamic headphone. I won't take them seriously until they do". What would you do? Expect AKG to have released a £1k within a year of now, and understand why.
 
beyerdynamic will always be working on things in R&D, I seriously doubt the whole invention of the tesla driver (which unlike the HD800 are pretty much unanimously agreed to be a huge improvement over the DT880/990) came in the year after the HD800 was announced. But its possible they have things they are working on which are realistic to roll out now and experimental stuff that would be too expensive at this point to put out but they're working on it in theory. So when Sennheiser put out a 1k phone and the market does not react like its a big deal maybe they think "f it - let's put out the big guns then". The release of the Tesla phones will have been a reaction to the HD800, but the actual improvement is too significant and real to expect the technology itself was.
 
As for Grado and Ultrasone - I think they are just being cheeky. There is no significant difference at all in the drivers of their 1k phones and cheaper ones. Probably exactly the same. They just see that is the new perceived "flagship" price and put out a phone at that cost.

 

[Blasto_Brandino]

CD's are usually engineered a little bright, that and Vinyl can go down lower and up higher in the frequency response (depends on your cartridge, phonostage, etc.) I have also found Vinyl to be smoother and more dynamic. Keep in mind I listen to only classical and SOME L I G H T electronic music, but mostly classical. And classical music isn't really known for being engineered brightly or loudly, probably because the target of such music is older men and not kids listening through an Ipod with stock buds (you have to admit...) You have to be honest, rock, hip hop, R&B, rap, these (and others not listed) genres are not exactly known for the stellar engineering of their CD's.
IN MY EXPERIENCE (as always YMMV) Classical music has been the better engineered of the bunch.
 
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I dont understand how a high resolution format could possibly fix a problem with a headphone's treble. Its not like normal CDs have a different frequency response.

 

 

[sphinxvc]

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Well that is the wildcard - the people who said they liked the HD800 heard it out of a big muscle tube amp. I heard the HD800 on a few amps which could drive the demanding Hifiman orthos just fine, so provision of power was not an issue, which leads me to believe that the tube amp in question did not put out a flat response.
 
So when people say that x headphones are great, but only with the "right" dac and amp, and that means a source that rolls off the treble and an amp that adds lower mids warmth when the headphones naturally sound sibilant and hollow then its not great headphones, its not a great dac and its not a great amp. It's three faulted products whose defects coincidentally cancelled each other out.
 
For me what a headphone is is what it will sound like on a neutral amp, given that amp has the capability to drive them, and in that case the HD800 is sibilant, does have hollowed out tinny mids and does not stand up to comparison to any other flagship. That's what the number of people who hated it at the UK meet showed, while there was no lack of praise for the LCD-2, T1, SR-007 and so on.

 
So what you're basically saying is that a flawed source + flawed amp + flawed headphone are working together well enough to put out something good?  That each one shores up on the other's weaknesses till the end product is more or less the same as what you get with the ideal source + ideal amp + ideal headphone?  
 
Edit: and what's wrong with that?  Doesn't the end justify the means in headphonia?
 
Quote:

 
Comparing News stations has nothing to do with headphone manufacturers, it's like comparing humans to insects because we're both animals... I'm asking why after so many years was a new resolution in sound and price reached by both companies? With the release of these new, expensive headphones, a higher sound resolution has been reached as reported by their owners... where was it before? Why didn't it exist?

Would you please answer this loaded question?
 

 

[immtbiker]

 
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Comparing News stations has nothing to do with headphone manufacturers, it's like comparing humans to insects because we're both animals... 

Yes it does. My point being about major corporations appealing to particular demographics. Whether it be an electronics company, or news conglomerates, they all need to copy each other to stay competitive and keep up with the Joneses.

 

[pp312]

 
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So what you're basically saying is that a flawed source + flawed amp + flawed headphone are working together well enough to put out something good?  That each one shores up on the other's weaknesses till the end product is more or less the same as what you get with the ideal source + ideal amp + ideal headphone?  
 

Isn't that called synergy? 

 
 

 

[brasewel]

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Isn't that called synergy? 

 
 

 
Play on semantics 

 
 

 

[maverickronin]

Its really all about the sort of sound you prefer. The HD800 is technically better than the HD650 in most areas, but I still prefer the HD650. The HD650 is one of a select group of dynamics with a very smooth sound and little in the way of sibilance while the HD800 fails hard in this area. Since I value those things over detail and soundstage I prefer the HD650s.

In relation to other flagships I've heard, I'd rate them in about this order If I'm remembering correctly, since I haven't been fortunate to own any of these.

LCD-2 > HE-6 >> HD800 > T1

 

[sphinxvc]

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Isn't that called synergy? 

 

=]
 
No, apparently it's called "three faulted products whose defects coincidentally cancel each other out."