anorphirith
Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2012
- Posts
- 96
- Likes
- 74
So I got my hands on an HD820, I've listened to them using a HDV820 amp and an iBasso DX90
Test isn't totally scientific since I didn't have a way to perfectly match the output volume. The XC's are 20ish ohms vs the 300 ohms of the HD820, I tried to match the volume as I doing side to side comparison. They sounded very close to each (loudness) other once I adjusted the volume...
First impression:
-The headphones feels very cheap, plastic all over the place, the soft striated silver parts of the HD800S are now cheap plastic, the entire headphone looks very plasticky and has an unsatisfactory flexibility to it.
The gorilla glass is very prone to fingerprints and just look like a plastic cover. Not at all what I expected for the price point. or what I'm use to from the competitor's offerings.
-The sound isolation is much less effective than the XC's. I can guess the pad thickness, materials and the way headphones seal on your face has do to with it.
-Like most other headphones the HD820's are significantly lighter than the LCD-XC's
Listening impressions:
Some of these impressions are inherent to the driver type (dynamic vs planar magnetic)
I listened to Maria Mena (pop, great for sampling headphone ranges),
The Weeknd (mostly to compare lower frequencies ),
Alicia petitbon (opera for vocals)
Bjork (good for sampling as well)
and a bunch more random pieces.
Pros of the HD820 vs the LCD-XC's:
-Darker sounding (pros for some people?)
-Immense soundstage by order of magnitude, it's dramatic,
-Voices sound more natural, and are more present,
-They sounded great on opera where voices are prominent
-More laid back, relaxed listening experience in general
-Because of the great soundstage it sounds somewhat analytical
Pros of the LCD-XC's vs HD820:
-More texture and definition
-Better balanced, The HD820 brings the vocals forward behind the instruments
-Punchier more textured bass
-Much faster (this is hard to describe but it's the best adjective I could find, I can hear more notes / detail within the same amount of time).
-Way more details throughout all ranges
Conclusion:
-It was extremely disappointing, during the comparison every time I put the HD820's back on it was as if a lot of details disappeared, and someone turned on reverb, everything had a resonance to it. They were also much less musical and I was bored after a few minutes listening to them, not nearly as engaging as the Audeze's. If that means something I would definitely prefer the HD820's if I didn't really wanted to listen to music but wanted a distraction in my ears. The vocals did sound better than the LCD-XC's the voices were smoothened out and the performers sounded more present.
The XC's were crystal clear compared, they sounded less muffled, everything sounded clearer and faster
Short comparison to the HD800S:
I hadn't listen to the HD800 for about 5 years but I remember having a great experience with them. After 90minutes of comparing the XC's and the HD820's side to side and being frustrated and confused by the poor performance of the HD820 I decided to finish up with the HD800S.
Suddenly everything made sense. the detail was back, the texture was back, the voices were back were they were supposed to be, everything sounded balanced. sibilance was gone, coherent and transparent. It was beautiful. They also were more comfortable?!
I understood what Sennheiser wanted to do, take an amazing sounding headphone and offer a close back version... in my opinion it's a tremendous failure.
Test isn't totally scientific since I didn't have a way to perfectly match the output volume. The XC's are 20ish ohms vs the 300 ohms of the HD820, I tried to match the volume as I doing side to side comparison. They sounded very close to each (loudness) other once I adjusted the volume...
First impression:
-The headphones feels very cheap, plastic all over the place, the soft striated silver parts of the HD800S are now cheap plastic, the entire headphone looks very plasticky and has an unsatisfactory flexibility to it.
The gorilla glass is very prone to fingerprints and just look like a plastic cover. Not at all what I expected for the price point. or what I'm use to from the competitor's offerings.
-The sound isolation is much less effective than the XC's. I can guess the pad thickness, materials and the way headphones seal on your face has do to with it.
-Like most other headphones the HD820's are significantly lighter than the LCD-XC's
Listening impressions:
Some of these impressions are inherent to the driver type (dynamic vs planar magnetic)
I listened to Maria Mena (pop, great for sampling headphone ranges),
The Weeknd (mostly to compare lower frequencies ),
Alicia petitbon (opera for vocals)
Bjork (good for sampling as well)
and a bunch more random pieces.
Pros of the HD820 vs the LCD-XC's:
-Darker sounding (pros for some people?)
-Immense soundstage by order of magnitude, it's dramatic,
-Voices sound more natural, and are more present,
-They sounded great on opera where voices are prominent
-More laid back, relaxed listening experience in general
-Because of the great soundstage it sounds somewhat analytical
Pros of the LCD-XC's vs HD820:
-More texture and definition
-Better balanced, The HD820 brings the vocals forward behind the instruments
-Punchier more textured bass
-Much faster (this is hard to describe but it's the best adjective I could find, I can hear more notes / detail within the same amount of time).
-Way more details throughout all ranges
Conclusion:
-It was extremely disappointing, during the comparison every time I put the HD820's back on it was as if a lot of details disappeared, and someone turned on reverb, everything had a resonance to it. They were also much less musical and I was bored after a few minutes listening to them, not nearly as engaging as the Audeze's. If that means something I would definitely prefer the HD820's if I didn't really wanted to listen to music but wanted a distraction in my ears. The vocals did sound better than the LCD-XC's the voices were smoothened out and the performers sounded more present.
The XC's were crystal clear compared, they sounded less muffled, everything sounded clearer and faster
Short comparison to the HD800S:
I hadn't listen to the HD800 for about 5 years but I remember having a great experience with them. After 90minutes of comparing the XC's and the HD820's side to side and being frustrated and confused by the poor performance of the HD820 I decided to finish up with the HD800S.
Suddenly everything made sense. the detail was back, the texture was back, the voices were back were they were supposed to be, everything sounded balanced. sibilance was gone, coherent and transparent. It was beautiful. They also were more comfortable?!
I understood what Sennheiser wanted to do, take an amazing sounding headphone and offer a close back version... in my opinion it's a tremendous failure.
