Jawed
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 7, 2014
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Yesterday I visited HiFi Headphones at their office in Lancing on the south coast near Brighton, for a very useful demo. They were all very friendly and I had the full use of the dem room for around 6 hours, which was very generous.
I took along my Sennheiser HD650s both to keep me amused on the train and for "reference". I use EQ on my HD650s off my PC, de-thickening the bass and lower-midrange and tilting the treble upwards fairly strongly. The PC's character is quite rolled off, which explains the ski-jump EQ. The result with the HD650s at home is pretty lively, very open but it never bites my head off with rasping treble. The Lumia 520 I'm using for music on the move doesn't have much grunt but it sounds brighter than the PC without EQ.
The 650s running from the phone have the veiled, laid back, dark-ish quality that's normally ascribed to 650s, so the 650s running from the phone are mostly a reference for musicality and openness.
I was able to listen to the following (prices are approximate):
Dita Audio The Answer Truth - £600
EarSonics S-EM6 - £650
Final Audio Design Heaven VII - £440
Final Audio Design Heaven VIII - £490
Sennheiser IE800 - £600
Shure SE846 - £870
I started with IE800, principally because it looked easy to get going with, having simple small earpieces and a small choice of tips, there being only four (although two pairs of them looked so similar to me that I thought it was only a choice of three).
I had to use music to work out which was left and right, since I couldn't find the markings on them.
I'm going to combine all my thoughts on IE800 here, despite the fact that I listened to it a few times later in the day.
The earpieces are gratifyingly small and light. I found a fit with these that was very close to "I can't tell I'm wearing them". That was a big bonus.
Cable microphony is pretty horrific. With the initial fit, where I pushed them in for a maximum seal and "depth" the cable noise was a very low very loud bass boom. As I adjusted the fit during the day, this boom was tempered and became more of banging/tapping sound. It was always pretty obnoxious.
My first impression, playing some music, was "that sounds like music! Yay, I can forget the horrors of Grado iGi."
The IE800 sound is dominated by powerful bass. It's tuneful and there seems to be a decent variation in texture. But there's an underlying "boom" which seems to spread across all the bass into the lower midrange. e.g. I found it hard to hear the snare drumming on Mogwai's "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong",
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqh1S87pwlQ[/VIDEO]
as it was obscured by kick drum and bass line.
I liked the way IE800 played cymbals and acoustic guitar with metal strings. The shimmer on cymbals was easy to hear, with nice decay. Variations in strength and placement of hits were clear. The chiming quality of metal strings and their long resonances came through.
Pleasingly the IE800 treble is similar to the EQ'd 650 balance I have at home. A smidgen darker and not as open sounding: presence was definitely lacking but there was a good portion of what I'm used to. I think I was hearing the limits of my Lumia 520's sound: tending to be wispy, splashy or a bit ragged.
I was a bit surprised that vocals sound reasonable with the IE800 since the midrange seems to be recessed. None of the singers I listened to had suffered a comedy helium remix, which was pleasing.
Overall with IE800 I'd say it has my favourite treble character out of everything I listened to today.
Next I listened to Dita The Answer Truth Edition. I really struggled with the fit of this. It seems my ear canals start out really wide and they're quite deep before the first turn, which is pretty sharp. The spout on the Dita is very short and the angle of the body is tight. So I never got a decent seal. The treble sounded promising.
I removed it from all further listening at this point. I now realise, with what I learnt later, that there's a chance I could make it work with a large foam tip.
Next was the Shure SE846, fitted with the white filters. The body shape looked like it would be a repeat of the fit problems I had with the Dita. Instead, I was able to get a good fit with a large variety of the tips that come with it.
My first impression with the SE846 was of a lot of detail across all the instruments. These aren't headphones that provide the impression of detail merely by having a loud treble. Instead pretty much everything sounds detailed.
I probably spent the most time listening to the 846. With the large variety of tips available for me to try, I climbed quite a good chunk of the tip learning curve. Steve also showed me how to use the foam tips properly and also how to fit the pesky blighters onto the earpieces.
So I experimented with tips to find what seemed to be the general character of the SE846. One tip that sounded good is the 3-part white tip. Unfortunately it has to go uncomfortably deep for a good seal.
Primarily, I found the sound quality of SE846 to be hard and relatively cold sound (though I wouldn't say analytical, which is a sound quality for me that has no emotion at all). I didn't find any lyricism in the music I played, though drum kit crack and slam and pacey up-tempo arrangements were all played insightfully with a decent amount of fun factor and good energy. The Mogwai drum kit made sense and another track which I chose for its tendency towards "wall of sound" confusion was also resolved really well, when used with the large foam tip (better than the 650s on the phone, about the same as or slightly better than the 650s at home).
They have an agility that gives the impression that they're good for pace rhythm and timing, but to me they're one-dimensional in this regard. They can do high energy, driving stuff really well - everything's accessible in the mix, so it's possible to understand the patterns separately and they gel reasonably well into something that's enjoyably involving. I didn't get the sense that they could kick back or that they would portray the ebb and flow where music demanded it.
I found vocals peculiarly shrill, sort of disembodied. There was some warmth and character to voices, just not enough. They also hit my limit on sibilance (though didn't go over it). The recessed mids of the IE800 should have made vocals sound even worse, yet don't. I think SE846 loses overall on vocals because of the sibilance region emphasis.
Seemingly due to the sibilance region I found that the treble has a disappointing lack of extension, sounding rolled off, drier and shut in compared with the IE800. The big problem here was that cymbal shimmer and the fast transients on cymbals and guitar strings were missing. There was too much cymbal crash and a lack of liveliness and airiness.
I can't be sure whether the phone was running out of power - I got the sense of a harsher sound coming on very strongly at about 80% (23/24 on a scale of 30). Regardless, even at lower volume levels, I still got the feeling the SE846 has a forward and stolid sound.
I also wonder if the treble character is down to my ear shape as it seems that perceived peaks in the 5-8KHz region vary a lot amongst listeners, especially on headphones. Regardless, IE800 treble was far better for me.
The Shure's cable is very good. Perhaps a bit long (whereas the Sennheiser seems short) but practically no microphonics, which is fantastic.
The EarSonics S-EM6 was next. But there's only one tip, which is too small and the seal was useless. Steve tells me that it has even more bass than IE800, which is a definite no.
Next I tried the Final Audio Design Heaven VII. HiFi Headphones has the matt black model that the FADnatics are lusting for, not the shiny silver one. I'm unclear on whether there's a limited number of either finish. I'm not a fan of this finish, as it underplays the decoration and, well, it just looks like plastic.
H7 didn't fit into my ears as easily as I was expecting, given the simple shape. IE800 is still my favourite.
Then there's the shock of the cold metal. Actually, it's not really a shock, more of a mild surprise. Of course they warm up very quickly over about a minute. After a few times the coldness upon insertion is kind of refreshing.
The weight makes them harder to forget than IE800s. The cable length seemed right to me. There was more cable noise than I would have liked, but it wasn't obnoxious.
So onto the music: Hang on! I can hear the hiss from my phone when it's not playing any music. This is a good sign.
Mmm, I like that vocal sound.
Ugh, where's the bass? Damn, that's disappointing. e.g. the bassline in Madder Rose's "The Love You Save" was merely vaguely discernible:
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FMOaGWmwKc[/VIDEO]
I had preceded H7 with a long "refresher" listen to IE800. My intention was to get more of a feel for its whole character motivated by a disbelief that something with such a recessed midrange is worth listening to.
Anyway, that IE800 bass doomed the H7. I tried playing with the tips and got nowhere. I decided that if the Heaven VIII is meant to have a weightier sound, I should just move on to that.
I like the way Heaven VIII looks. I might be the first person on the forum to say that...
So first I played Ben Christophers's "My Beautiful Demon":
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-_Ebssv0is[/VIDEO]
which goes straight into Ani DiFranco's "So What":
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8f3eju_pwQ[/VIDEO]
which left me sat there simply stunned. I had to stop the music at that point because I was so moved, with more than a tear in my eyes. Whoa, how did that happen?
I'd listened to those tracks, amongst others, quite a few times already during the dem. I was supposed to be numbed to them by their repetition, by thinking about the sounds, comparing them with my memories of the other models I'd listened to. Generally speaking, distracted by sound and not really paying attention to the music.
Instead, bam! I was just sucked in. Suddenly there was only the time of the songs, real time had disappeared. None of that experience was about hearing new details or having new feelings. Instead it was like connecting with a long lost friend, going back in time to a better era, a time of familiar enjoyment, intoxication and wealth of experience. Then, realising a deep truth about those times and discovering how big the hole had grown due to absence all these years.
That's a moment to cherish.
With more listening I find H8 plays bass with the kind of depth, weight and texture I could live with. A smidgen lighter than I was hoping for, but the music's there, which is what I really want.
I find the treble rolled off though, without the crisp extension I enjoy from the IE800. Sibilance is fine and the cymbal crash emphasis I found with SE846 is missing, which was a relief.
I find there's a bit of a "honky" quality to upper midrange, e.g. vocals can have a shouty quality (imagine distorted, too-loud vowels) or piano sounds a bit too clangy.
Also, I think H8 doesn't have the resolving power to cut through densely mixed music, but I didn't explore that very well.
As I explored the sound of the H8 I tried all the tips again (I'd tried them all with H7 but mostly to explore fit rather than sound). With the next-to-smallest tips I can get a good seal and the earpiece goes in very deep, so that the back of the earpiece is inside the tragus. That's really the only time the earpieces feel absolutely secure, but it's just too much pressure for comfort over a couple of hours.
Larger tips mean the earpieces hang a long way out of the ear canal and wiggle around. Though they never fell out or even seemed to loosen in my headbanging tests.
A large foam tip gives a powerfully honky sound, so I stopped using that pretty quickly.
In the end I can make H8 sound darker with a bad fit but I can't get as much treble extension and openness as I would like.
By this time I also noticed that there's very little isolation. It seems no matter what I did with the seal and tip size there's not much isolation. I could easily hear the sound of my finger tips as I ran my thumb tip over them, with my hand about 30cm from my ear. Or the rustle of the little plastic bag that held the tips, even though the bag was on the table in front of me, a long way from my ears.
I'm wondering if the hole in the body where the cable exits the Heavens is where the sound leaks into the ear.
I played around with the IE800 fit a bit more at this point, too, and found that similarly lacking in isolation when I tamed the bass by loosening the fit.
I'm disconcerted by the lack of isolation. I'm buying something for commuting, not listening at home.
Steve and I have a chat about what I've found out. I express a preference for the H8. He alludes to the colouration of H8, effectively encouraging me to listen to H7 again. Now that I'm better at getting a good fit with the Heavens, the H7 bass makes more sense. Except I've now run out of time.
Ouch. What to do?
I'm wary that neither H7 nor H8 will completely work for me. Both don't have the sparkle, life and openness in the treble that I like, meaning both of them are editing out some of the music. H8 had something magical going on that didn't seem to happen with H7. I am not convinced that H7's "brighter sound" is because it has more extension or openness in the treble, merely that it has less weight. On the other hand, I'm worried about the honkiness I heard in the H8 midrange. It seemed too easy to hear and I suspect hard to ignore over time.
To be fair, with the phone driving my 650s, there's a character that I don't like so much, some of which is the muffled laid back sound that's intrinsic to 650s. But while I'm travelling, I soon forget that. I'm helped by the fact that the open sound of the 650s still lets me hear all the mix, not just the midrange, even if it reveals that the phone isn't upto the job.
I contemplated buying both H7 and H8 and then returning one of them, within HiFi Headphones purchaser's trial period (distance selling regulations generously extended). Steve was quite happy with that idea.
In the end, though, I'd rather visit for another dem.
Thanks very much to Steve for his attentive help all day. I definitely recommend a visit as time spent with various headphone models is a very useful learning experience.
I took along my Sennheiser HD650s both to keep me amused on the train and for "reference". I use EQ on my HD650s off my PC, de-thickening the bass and lower-midrange and tilting the treble upwards fairly strongly. The PC's character is quite rolled off, which explains the ski-jump EQ. The result with the HD650s at home is pretty lively, very open but it never bites my head off with rasping treble. The Lumia 520 I'm using for music on the move doesn't have much grunt but it sounds brighter than the PC without EQ.
The 650s running from the phone have the veiled, laid back, dark-ish quality that's normally ascribed to 650s, so the 650s running from the phone are mostly a reference for musicality and openness.
I was able to listen to the following (prices are approximate):
Dita Audio The Answer Truth - £600
EarSonics S-EM6 - £650
Final Audio Design Heaven VII - £440
Final Audio Design Heaven VIII - £490
Sennheiser IE800 - £600
Shure SE846 - £870
I started with IE800, principally because it looked easy to get going with, having simple small earpieces and a small choice of tips, there being only four (although two pairs of them looked so similar to me that I thought it was only a choice of three).
I had to use music to work out which was left and right, since I couldn't find the markings on them.
I'm going to combine all my thoughts on IE800 here, despite the fact that I listened to it a few times later in the day.
The earpieces are gratifyingly small and light. I found a fit with these that was very close to "I can't tell I'm wearing them". That was a big bonus.
Cable microphony is pretty horrific. With the initial fit, where I pushed them in for a maximum seal and "depth" the cable noise was a very low very loud bass boom. As I adjusted the fit during the day, this boom was tempered and became more of banging/tapping sound. It was always pretty obnoxious.
My first impression, playing some music, was "that sounds like music! Yay, I can forget the horrors of Grado iGi."
The IE800 sound is dominated by powerful bass. It's tuneful and there seems to be a decent variation in texture. But there's an underlying "boom" which seems to spread across all the bass into the lower midrange. e.g. I found it hard to hear the snare drumming on Mogwai's "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong",
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqh1S87pwlQ[/VIDEO]
as it was obscured by kick drum and bass line.
I liked the way IE800 played cymbals and acoustic guitar with metal strings. The shimmer on cymbals was easy to hear, with nice decay. Variations in strength and placement of hits were clear. The chiming quality of metal strings and their long resonances came through.
Pleasingly the IE800 treble is similar to the EQ'd 650 balance I have at home. A smidgen darker and not as open sounding: presence was definitely lacking but there was a good portion of what I'm used to. I think I was hearing the limits of my Lumia 520's sound: tending to be wispy, splashy or a bit ragged.
I was a bit surprised that vocals sound reasonable with the IE800 since the midrange seems to be recessed. None of the singers I listened to had suffered a comedy helium remix, which was pleasing.
Overall with IE800 I'd say it has my favourite treble character out of everything I listened to today.
Next I listened to Dita The Answer Truth Edition. I really struggled with the fit of this. It seems my ear canals start out really wide and they're quite deep before the first turn, which is pretty sharp. The spout on the Dita is very short and the angle of the body is tight. So I never got a decent seal. The treble sounded promising.
I removed it from all further listening at this point. I now realise, with what I learnt later, that there's a chance I could make it work with a large foam tip.
Next was the Shure SE846, fitted with the white filters. The body shape looked like it would be a repeat of the fit problems I had with the Dita. Instead, I was able to get a good fit with a large variety of the tips that come with it.
My first impression with the SE846 was of a lot of detail across all the instruments. These aren't headphones that provide the impression of detail merely by having a loud treble. Instead pretty much everything sounds detailed.
I probably spent the most time listening to the 846. With the large variety of tips available for me to try, I climbed quite a good chunk of the tip learning curve. Steve also showed me how to use the foam tips properly and also how to fit the pesky blighters onto the earpieces.
So I experimented with tips to find what seemed to be the general character of the SE846. One tip that sounded good is the 3-part white tip. Unfortunately it has to go uncomfortably deep for a good seal.
Primarily, I found the sound quality of SE846 to be hard and relatively cold sound (though I wouldn't say analytical, which is a sound quality for me that has no emotion at all). I didn't find any lyricism in the music I played, though drum kit crack and slam and pacey up-tempo arrangements were all played insightfully with a decent amount of fun factor and good energy. The Mogwai drum kit made sense and another track which I chose for its tendency towards "wall of sound" confusion was also resolved really well, when used with the large foam tip (better than the 650s on the phone, about the same as or slightly better than the 650s at home).
They have an agility that gives the impression that they're good for pace rhythm and timing, but to me they're one-dimensional in this regard. They can do high energy, driving stuff really well - everything's accessible in the mix, so it's possible to understand the patterns separately and they gel reasonably well into something that's enjoyably involving. I didn't get the sense that they could kick back or that they would portray the ebb and flow where music demanded it.
I found vocals peculiarly shrill, sort of disembodied. There was some warmth and character to voices, just not enough. They also hit my limit on sibilance (though didn't go over it). The recessed mids of the IE800 should have made vocals sound even worse, yet don't. I think SE846 loses overall on vocals because of the sibilance region emphasis.
Seemingly due to the sibilance region I found that the treble has a disappointing lack of extension, sounding rolled off, drier and shut in compared with the IE800. The big problem here was that cymbal shimmer and the fast transients on cymbals and guitar strings were missing. There was too much cymbal crash and a lack of liveliness and airiness.
I can't be sure whether the phone was running out of power - I got the sense of a harsher sound coming on very strongly at about 80% (23/24 on a scale of 30). Regardless, even at lower volume levels, I still got the feeling the SE846 has a forward and stolid sound.
I also wonder if the treble character is down to my ear shape as it seems that perceived peaks in the 5-8KHz region vary a lot amongst listeners, especially on headphones. Regardless, IE800 treble was far better for me.
The Shure's cable is very good. Perhaps a bit long (whereas the Sennheiser seems short) but practically no microphonics, which is fantastic.
The EarSonics S-EM6 was next. But there's only one tip, which is too small and the seal was useless. Steve tells me that it has even more bass than IE800, which is a definite no.
Next I tried the Final Audio Design Heaven VII. HiFi Headphones has the matt black model that the FADnatics are lusting for, not the shiny silver one. I'm unclear on whether there's a limited number of either finish. I'm not a fan of this finish, as it underplays the decoration and, well, it just looks like plastic.
H7 didn't fit into my ears as easily as I was expecting, given the simple shape. IE800 is still my favourite.
Then there's the shock of the cold metal. Actually, it's not really a shock, more of a mild surprise. Of course they warm up very quickly over about a minute. After a few times the coldness upon insertion is kind of refreshing.
The weight makes them harder to forget than IE800s. The cable length seemed right to me. There was more cable noise than I would have liked, but it wasn't obnoxious.
So onto the music: Hang on! I can hear the hiss from my phone when it's not playing any music. This is a good sign.
Mmm, I like that vocal sound.
Ugh, where's the bass? Damn, that's disappointing. e.g. the bassline in Madder Rose's "The Love You Save" was merely vaguely discernible:
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FMOaGWmwKc[/VIDEO]
I had preceded H7 with a long "refresher" listen to IE800. My intention was to get more of a feel for its whole character motivated by a disbelief that something with such a recessed midrange is worth listening to.
Anyway, that IE800 bass doomed the H7. I tried playing with the tips and got nowhere. I decided that if the Heaven VIII is meant to have a weightier sound, I should just move on to that.
I like the way Heaven VIII looks. I might be the first person on the forum to say that...
So first I played Ben Christophers's "My Beautiful Demon":
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-_Ebssv0is[/VIDEO]
which goes straight into Ani DiFranco's "So What":
[VIDEO]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8f3eju_pwQ[/VIDEO]
which left me sat there simply stunned. I had to stop the music at that point because I was so moved, with more than a tear in my eyes. Whoa, how did that happen?
I'd listened to those tracks, amongst others, quite a few times already during the dem. I was supposed to be numbed to them by their repetition, by thinking about the sounds, comparing them with my memories of the other models I'd listened to. Generally speaking, distracted by sound and not really paying attention to the music.
Instead, bam! I was just sucked in. Suddenly there was only the time of the songs, real time had disappeared. None of that experience was about hearing new details or having new feelings. Instead it was like connecting with a long lost friend, going back in time to a better era, a time of familiar enjoyment, intoxication and wealth of experience. Then, realising a deep truth about those times and discovering how big the hole had grown due to absence all these years.
That's a moment to cherish.
With more listening I find H8 plays bass with the kind of depth, weight and texture I could live with. A smidgen lighter than I was hoping for, but the music's there, which is what I really want.
I find the treble rolled off though, without the crisp extension I enjoy from the IE800. Sibilance is fine and the cymbal crash emphasis I found with SE846 is missing, which was a relief.
I find there's a bit of a "honky" quality to upper midrange, e.g. vocals can have a shouty quality (imagine distorted, too-loud vowels) or piano sounds a bit too clangy.
Also, I think H8 doesn't have the resolving power to cut through densely mixed music, but I didn't explore that very well.
As I explored the sound of the H8 I tried all the tips again (I'd tried them all with H7 but mostly to explore fit rather than sound). With the next-to-smallest tips I can get a good seal and the earpiece goes in very deep, so that the back of the earpiece is inside the tragus. That's really the only time the earpieces feel absolutely secure, but it's just too much pressure for comfort over a couple of hours.
Larger tips mean the earpieces hang a long way out of the ear canal and wiggle around. Though they never fell out or even seemed to loosen in my headbanging tests.
A large foam tip gives a powerfully honky sound, so I stopped using that pretty quickly.
In the end I can make H8 sound darker with a bad fit but I can't get as much treble extension and openness as I would like.
By this time I also noticed that there's very little isolation. It seems no matter what I did with the seal and tip size there's not much isolation. I could easily hear the sound of my finger tips as I ran my thumb tip over them, with my hand about 30cm from my ear. Or the rustle of the little plastic bag that held the tips, even though the bag was on the table in front of me, a long way from my ears.
I'm wondering if the hole in the body where the cable exits the Heavens is where the sound leaks into the ear.
I played around with the IE800 fit a bit more at this point, too, and found that similarly lacking in isolation when I tamed the bass by loosening the fit.
I'm disconcerted by the lack of isolation. I'm buying something for commuting, not listening at home.
Steve and I have a chat about what I've found out. I express a preference for the H8. He alludes to the colouration of H8, effectively encouraging me to listen to H7 again. Now that I'm better at getting a good fit with the Heavens, the H7 bass makes more sense. Except I've now run out of time.
Ouch. What to do?
I'm wary that neither H7 nor H8 will completely work for me. Both don't have the sparkle, life and openness in the treble that I like, meaning both of them are editing out some of the music. H8 had something magical going on that didn't seem to happen with H7. I am not convinced that H7's "brighter sound" is because it has more extension or openness in the treble, merely that it has less weight. On the other hand, I'm worried about the honkiness I heard in the H8 midrange. It seemed too easy to hear and I suspect hard to ignore over time.
To be fair, with the phone driving my 650s, there's a character that I don't like so much, some of which is the muffled laid back sound that's intrinsic to 650s. But while I'm travelling, I soon forget that. I'm helped by the fact that the open sound of the 650s still lets me hear all the mix, not just the midrange, even if it reveals that the phone isn't upto the job.
I contemplated buying both H7 and H8 and then returning one of them, within HiFi Headphones purchaser's trial period (distance selling regulations generously extended). Steve was quite happy with that idea.
In the end, though, I'd rather visit for another dem.
Thanks very much to Steve for his attentive help all day. I definitely recommend a visit as time spent with various headphone models is a very useful learning experience.
ear.
