Define this first
"A lot of us are simply those who've been promised that new iterations on older designs are "improvements," yet are disappointed time and time again when they actually aren't."
I can't speak to the entire consumer spread as a monolith, and I don't want to. But
my experience in the community (in places Sennheiser has no eyes, which could be a failing on both of our parts; willing to work with you to remedy this if you are interested) has been that many *many* people feel this way about the products I mentioned earlier (660S, 660S2, HD820, HD8XX).
In my experience, audiophiles absolutely
do not want more bass extension, soundstage, etc. out of an HD6 or HD8 series
if it has to sacrifice what makes those headphones special (or downright legendary) in the first place to get there.
For HD660S and S2, Sennheiser sacrificed the midrange and treble of arguably the most legendary midrange and treble headphone of all time (HD650).
In my and others' opinions, there is *nothing* you could've gotten in return that would've made that tradeoff remotely worth it.
With HD820 and 8XX, you added pressure chamber and acoustic impedance problems to a design whose claim to fame was having an incredibly low acoustic impedance while still being based on a dynamic driver principle. This fact about HD 800(S) is hugely responsible for the almost
unilateral praise it receives for it's "soundstage" (surprising for any headphone, given headphones are fundamentally devices of in-head localization.)
I was recently asked what my "Mount Rushmore of headphones" would be, if I had to pick four.
I cannot overstate how unique and special it is that after hearing (basically) everything out there, Sennheiser has
two of the four entries
locked.
Out of all of the headphones out there for all time, HD600 (sharing a spot with HD650) and HD800 get
two out of the four spots.
Sennheiser has captured lightning in a bottle, not once, not twice, but
three times! Most brands don't even do it once, and if they do, it's either an accident/something that they cannot replicate, or something they eventually get tired of and "improve upon." (The other two are HE6 and Focal Utopia OG, in case you're wondering.)
That is why Sennheiser is my favorite brand...
...and it's why I can't help but be disappointed when things like HD8XX are even taken seriously, let alone touted as an improvement or "next step forward."
...or why I'm so disappointed by the fact that 660S2 (which no doubt fixed some problems of the original 660S) are seemingly available in stores nationwide for people to try, while the HD600 and 650 are seemingly impossible for consumers to find for demo in stores.
I don't mean to come off as aggressive, accusatory, or overly negative. This is Head-Fi, I am a passionate consumer of headphones who cares enough about these products to type lengthy posts that I know will likely fall on deaf ears and never get anywhere near the people who actually make decisions.
The embarrassment of earnestly yelling into a void is worth it if there's even .1% chance of stopping HD 800S from being succeeded by another misstep in a market filled with them.
Please reach out in DMs if you are actually interested in seeing these places and meeting the people who are unhappy with the modern direction that's led to HD 660S, HD 660S2, HD 820, and HD 8XX, because they generally don't come to Head-Fi. We are all massive (arguably the biggest) fans of Sennheiser and we'd love to actually have our voices heard by the brand we hold in such high regard. I'm happy to answer any additional questions if you have them as well.
, I just had been a visitor so far enjoying all your discussions. I have owned a HD 800S for around 4 years and have loved it and often said that it has been my best purchase ever (note when I bought it, it cost one quarter of the money I had). But here is what I wanted to say. Often in reviews the reviewers mention the HD800s has a wide soundstage but headphones like HE1000Se/Arya/Stax X9000 are attributed with a tall and deeper soundstage with instruments and objects having height and width, whereas with the HD800s it sometimes seems the sounds are coming from points. Now these are subjective terms but the reason I am mentioning this is because even before seeing the reviews I told myself that sometimes the sounds do seem to be coming from specific points in space and I did miss them having some form of body. So this idea just did not come to me after I watched the reviews.
The headphone world needs consistent and reliable standards through time such as HD800 series.
