[complin]

Yeh straight from the book of marketing. or how to sell something without providing any facts.(foo)
We wont know if it lives up to the marketing hype until some gets the opportunity to hear what it can really do, and I guess it will be some time before mere mortals get a chance to do this 

Its going to have to bee pretty spectacular to eclipse the current crop of TOTL headphones and the original Orpheus. 
In the past manufacturers have mostly skimped on the amplification, Stax included, to keep retail prices and dealer margins within reasonable bounds.
 
Quote:

From the Sennheiser Reshaping Excellence site:

A sound force from a distant era is being reborn in this world ... its magnificence will eclipse all sound experiences ever known. It will be an edifice of glory and virtue, towering unchallenged over the soundscape and beyond.

Can't wait to see how my 96kbps mp3 of Raffi - The Wheels on the Bus will sound...

 

[headinclouds]

The sound quality of the Senny concert was very clear on my affordable Stax based system, and I look forward to a genuine improvement in audio technology being revealed.
 
Unfortunately the truly alarming levels of hyperbole demand a comment as I fear the reality will be a disappointment. 
 
Sennheiser have  earned much respect for their achievements in the dynamic headphone area. 
 
I would question their contribution to electrostatic headphones.  A large company with resources can allocate a team to create a vanity project of “spare no expense”  product.  They created the lovely Orpheus system as a limited edition at silly money.   This tells me that Sennheiser  think the best phones are ES but they don’t offer a product  for general consumption.
 
The justification for a flagship product is often that the technology will trickle down to the other products.  What from the Orpheus has appeared in or informed the development of their main business products? 
 
Incidentally have they said that the new headphone is an electrostatic? I know it looks to be and we are assuming it is.
 
Slightly more interesting is in post 360 where they say 
 
"Sennheiser’s 9.1 immersive audio expresses the company’s philosophy, ’the pursuit of perfect sound‘, to create a truly new experience for the listener,” said Gregor Zielinsky. “This technology has been developed for both recording and playback, both on hi-fi systems and as an algorithm for headphones. It is remarkable to experience, and at the same time also very simple to set up and record with compared to other systems."

 

[complin]

Agree with your sentiments and reservations entirely.
 
I first got into headphones in the mid 1960's my first set being the Stax SR3/SRD3. I have stuck with Stax and electrostats for my main listening ever since gradually upgrading as Stax have produced more capable models. I have dallied with dynamics, Heill AMT and planer magnetics along the way but I always gravitate back to electrostatics.
 
I cant seen many of us here being able to justify and willing to fork out the likely cost of this new Sennheiser, especially now there are so many good TOTL alternatives. I think we will be well into the area of diminishing returns.
Unlike Stax I just dont think Sennheiser see themselves as a large scale producer of electrostats. When they launched the original Orpheus and subsequently the HE60 they were either limited numbers or production runs. I believe Sennheiser are more into volume production of dynamics as Stax show electrostats are much more difficult to produce consistently and in largeish numbers. I would guess Sennheiser would argue there is a lot of hand crafting in the Sennheiser HD800 but there aren't the same "clean room/dust issues" required for producing electrostatic drivers.  I think the most we can hope for is a HE60 equivalent at some point in the future. 
 
Someone who is closer to this new product than I am, has posted at another place confirming that it is an electrostat. Apparently ..... "it has an 8 pin connector separate bias wires for each side, plus an antenna to detect arcing same as QUAD ESL63's. The amplifier has much more voltage swing than HEV90"
 
Here is some very brief information and images from a French audio magazine TopAudio who attended the event http://on-mag.fr/index.php/topaudio/actualites-news/13639-nouvelle-version-du-mythique-sennheiser-orpheus-la-marque-allemande-devoile-un-casque-electrostatique-et-un-ampli-ultra-haut-de-gamme
 
Shortly before we Sennheiser unveiled a preview of its future reference headphones and headphone amp. Two very high-end products furiously reminiscent of the mythical system Sennheiser Orpheus (in photo above), whose first published in 1991. To preserve the suspense and the buzz, Sennheiser has given very little information about the new system and has only allowed us to admire it, to go around for several long minutes. We have no release date or price, but speculates that this system will be positioned Orpheus in 2015 to over € 10,000 and we were promised that it would be sold in less than one year ( perhaps for the Munich High End 2016?).
The set consists of a helmet, presumably electrostatic, which closely resembles the 90 Model HE 1991 the Orpheus just know that the membranes of the headphone transducer, made ​​conductive by platinum vaporization, are very fine and light, with only 2.4 micrometers thick. 
The amp for its part has a floor of six tubes outputs as well as digital inputs (optical, coaxial, USB) compatible with Hi-Res audio stream. The system claimed extra large frequency response of 8 Hz to 100 kHz. The base of the amplifier is built in Carrara marble. It accommodates a storage compartment for the helmet which the hood, in the same way that the housing tubes opens smoothly to the ignition.



 
 
Quote:

   

 

[OddE]

people in china generally have a low opinion of chinese brands.

-True. Å couple of years ago, the company I work for had a high-profile delivery to a Chinese customer.

When we invited them over to attend the workshop tests, the attendant Chinese were interested in one thing, and one thing only - verifying that not a single motor, pump, gearbox, frequency converter drive or whatnot were made in China.

And this was a government customer. We had a good chuckle.

"Very good, mister Odd - no China crap, all good!"

 

[WindowsX]

With built-in USB DAC? That's blasphemy against the legendary Orpheus. Adding DAC will significantly degrade amplifier's performance with more noise from DAC's circuit.

 

[Anavel0]

  With built-in USB DAC? That's blasphemy against the legendary Orpheus. Adding DAC will significantly degrade amplifier's performance with more noise from DAC's circuit.

You do know that the HEV90 had a built in DAC, right?

 

[milosz]

original price of he90/hev90 was $14k in usa date: 1991
so $40k not really that out of line due to inflation.

$14k in 1991 = $24,000 to $26,000  in 2015 depending on how you calculate inflation
 
 $40k is quite a bit more than the Orpheus.
 
============================================================================
 
There are people who don't get enough to eat in the US. Anyone who spends $40k on a pair of headphones needs to do some soul-searching.

 

[OddE]

Adding DAC will significantly degrade amplifier's performance with more noise from DAC's circuit.

-Assuming that Sennheiser's engineers know what they are doing, this is a non-issue.

It is not trivial, but by no means the realm of magic to provide >120dB isolation over a wide frequency range between different circuits housed in the same chassis.

I believe Sennheiser's engineers know what they are doing.

 

[astrostar59]

I don't buy into this. To be leading edge high end, there is NO WAY Sennheiser will manage to build a DAC to do it justice in that tiny space.
Cramped compromised power supply, heat from the circuits all affect that.
 
Those 'moving' tubes must be on a cradle, more things to go wrong, wires to snap off. Are those tubes in Push-Pull configuration, why 6 tubes of the same type?
 
The case for the phones doesn't look deep enough for the width of the frame and driver housing, so more space used for that inside the amp.
 
The design of the USB input is absolutely  crucial to the level of sound quality. Unless they buy that in from MSB or similar it will be not be right IMO.
 
This is hi-fi jewellery to me. I hope I am wrong. The original Orpheus gained legendary status, but the world has moved on. Many who heard the Orpheus say it is not accurate.
 
What I would prefer would be a top stat headphone to compete with the 009. I have no interest in an Amp + DAC & Phone combo - too many compromises.
 
Lets wait till someone we trust has heard it.....

 

[Bones13]

The Orpheus amp is so gorgeous. I am afraid I don't appreciate the marble one. When the Orpheus successor did not appear at the 20 year mark, I gave up waiting and signed up for the BHSE/009. This is a fantastic combo, and will be hard to beat.

Hedging my bets though, I got both Stax and Senn plugs in hopes of either finding HE60-90 of whatever new Senn Stat comes along.

Glad to see (have not heard) of a new statement piece by Sennheiser. Most exciting!

Thanks for the preview.

 

[WindowsX]

  You do know that the HEV90 had a built in DAC, right?

 
I do know and I did mention about being a USB DAC. Adding DAC alone is bad enough and putting USB in there made it worse. Even most highend DACs from Esoteric and the likes will completely shut off USB connection if not used. Some went as far as refuse to include USB input saying it'll degrade overall performance. I used to audition integrated amplifier with and without DAC module and adding DAC module degrade sonic performance significantly. You can believe that those engineers can do it without trouble but I don't.
 

-Assuming that Sennheiser's engineers know what they are doing, this is a non-issue.

It is not trivial, but by no means the realm of magic to provide >120dB isolation over a wide frequency range between different circuits housed in the same chassis.

I believe Sennheiser's engineers know what they are doing.

 
Yeah. Go on and buy it as fellow believer. I was a fan of Viola Labs and and I stopped following Viola products after Crescendo models. Well, that's my opinion and my own choice of products to buy. You have yours.

 

[astrostar59]

Hmm, I am thinking they are doing a classic one box fits all solution here. The problem is at this level that will not work.
 
Either they make a top headphone and separate (albeit matching) amp and forget the DAC, or they stay mid range and lower the price.
 
To me it can't be both high end 009 & BHSE beater and a one box DAC combo in a tiny space. This is looking more like a rich mans collector piece than top of the tree headphone audio.
 
One good thing might come of this mind, Stax might bring out a top line amp (at last).

 

[AppleheadMay]

To me this whole idea sounds worse than a gold apple watch. At least that watch does all the same as the cheaper ones. 

 

[fiascogarcia]

I love these unauditioned, new product release threads! 

 

[OddE]

Yeah. Go on and buy it as fellow believer. I was a fan of Viola Labs and and I stopped following Viola products after Crescendo models. Well, that's my opinion and my own choice of products to buy. You have yours.

-As long as you qualify it as an opinion, I am happy. I read your initial post more like a statement of fact, which was what I took objection to - there are plenty of examples out there that counter your assessment of integrated dac/amps.

For instance, in the Benchmark DAC2 manual THD+N is quoted at -106dB when fully driven - and while it doesn't have to do nearly as much voltage amplification as the new Sennheiser amp must do, it is also built into a significantly smaller chassis with less room for EMC shielding. .

(-106dB, by the way, is at least two orders of magnitude below audibility - the Sennheiser amp could do a lot worse than that and still sound perfect.)

That being said, if I designed such a statement product, I would leave a DAC out of it - for the exact reason you bring forward; the perception (sometimes correct) that separate components are superior would probably miff some customers. Much better to design a headphone system and let the customer supply his own DAC.