[Deoee]

So what the hell were they testing?

 

[thyname]

Anybody has any experience in comparing Hifiman HE6 with HD800?

I have a Mjolnir 2, and should be adequate to drive these.

Thoughts?

 

[kevnin]

Anybody has any experience in comparing Hifiman HE6 with HD800?

I have a Mjolnir 2, and should be adequate to drive these.

Thoughts?

 
I had the HD800 and HE6 driven by mjolnir2 at one point. The HE6 does beat the HD800 in bass extension, but other than that their bass performance was much more similar than I expected it to be. Impact/slam is about the same. And the HE6 is just generally a little worse otherwise - not as refined in the mids and treble, soundstage not as good, etc. 
 
Honestly for what you are looking for I would just EQ up the bass on the HD800. I mean what is the concern with EQ - that it might degrade sound quality a little in some other way? If you switch to another headphone in the same price range it's going to degrade a lot more.

 

[ubs28]

Focal Utopia. Better detail and clarity than the HD 800. Soundstage is a little bit smaller, but more realistic on jazz music for example. 
 
However, how much bass do you want? If you want subwoofer bass, then you need something else.

 

[thyname]

Thanks for the posts & replies.

I was in a local meet up yesterday (DC area). Had a chance to try several headphones.

Utopia is definitely a great headphone. It pretty much beats HD800 in every aspect except perhaps soundstage.

I liked the HE-6 too. But I felt MJ2 was inadequate. Sounded better on a more powerful SS amp that the owner of the HE-6 had.

I also tried Elear. Let's just say that HD800 is better, and I would not exchange it for the Elear.

So, given the above, and the fact that the Utopia is above my price range, I may have to stick to HD800 for now. HE-6s are hard to come by anyway.

 

[thyname]

I had the HD800 and HE6 driven by mjolnir2 at one point. The HE6 does beat the HD800 in bass extension, but other than that their bass performance was much more similar than I expected it to be. Impact/slam is about the same. And the HE6 is just generally a little worse otherwise - not as refined in the mids and treble, soundstage not as good, etc. 

Honestly for what you are looking for I would just EQ up the bass on the HD800. I mean what is the concern with EQ - that it might degrade sound quality a little in some other way? If you switch to another headphone in the same price range it's going to degrade a lot more.

See my previous post on HE-6.

Maybe the EQ is the way to go. The problems are:

1 - I always thought it would be best to use the signal / feed unchanged / native, as the songwriter/ producer intended

2 - I use Roon, and they don't allow third party EQ plugins. They have their own DSP engine, of which I am not fond of when I played with

 

[dexster]

i am enjoying my lcd-2 more than my hd800;
maybe its just the new headphone honeymoon period but if nothing else they complement one another well

 

[thyname]

i am enjoying my lcd-2 more than my hd800;
maybe its just the new headphone honeymoon period but if nothing else they complement one another well

I played the LCD-2 during the meet up to. Much better than the EL-8 I used to have, but still, I felt that it still had that Audeze "veil" or distinct dark sound that I don't like. I felt the HD800 is better (for me).

Thanks for chiming in.

 

[dexster]

totally agree if you don't like 'dark' then maybe the lcd-2 is not the choice...
but if you like that open, wide sound stage sound , not too sure it gets much better than the hd800 
 
(i am certain it does but then there is the law of diminishing returns etc)