Thanks Skylab for another great review. Your articulation is, to say the least, among the best in the field.
I have tried the Sennheiser HD800 yesterday (finally).
The CDP is some french made high end player that I don't recall the name... But the player is absolutely an excellent one, enough to feed the cans. Amp is Musical Fidelity V8. I did the comparison with my HD650.
The first CD I tried is Beethoven Symphony No. 5 orchestrated by Carlos Kleiber with Vienna philharmonic orchestra. That is a legendary performance and recording for me. And each time I want to test something, I shall begin with it. I've tried the first session "Allegro con brio", HD800 played it right. I should say that's an presentation I've never heard of from a headphone. It did even better on the last session "Allegro Presto". And when I put on my HD650 for "Allegro Presto", which gave me my first blow-off on my audio journey, I nearly vomited. The treble just blew off in comparison to HD800. The punch is ok, but laid back.
However, I tested them against Mstislav Rostropovitch for cello, Glenn Gould for piano and Nathan Milstein for violin. HD800 triumphed in all types of instruments, but this time much less. Its overall transparency is better than HD650, but apart from that, the difference, I mean from my later test excluding Beethoven Symphony No. 5, did not justify the nearly 4 times price of HD650. It's 1.x times better for me.
So I just left it and I'm eyeing on a pair of T1 now... I'm sure if HD800 is 600 euros or so, I'll take it with no thought.
Btw, looking forward to the next flagship product from AKG.