Final Audio D8000 Planar Magnetic Headphone
Apr 17, 2018 at 4:52 PM Post #256 of 4,726
I heard the D8000 for the first time as a prototype at Axpona 2017 and it sounded promising. This year I had the chance to listen to the final product. Micheal from Final asked me to take a listen and give him my honest opinion and he said "specially in the bass area".
In the Final booth they were using a Cayin HA-1A Mk2. The midrange and high frequency sounded good but not as good as I was expecting but the bass was just plain awful (don't stop reading just yet.. wink wink). It was center in the upper range of the bass and when it tried to go lower it was just out of control. The amplifier has a know to adjust impedance so I played with it and got it to sound marginally better. As he asked I gave him my honest opinion but I also told him that I thought the amp was struggling to drive them correctly.

I asked him if he would be willing to take the D8000 across the isle to the Wells Audio booth to try them with a Milo Reference amp. We went there and asked Jeff Wells if we can give them a listen in his amp. As soon I put the D8000 in my head they just blew me away. They sounded totally different. Everything was there! The bass was deep, tight and controlled, the midrange was sweet and the highs were so crustal clear. I took them off and let Micheal take a listen and he was amazed of how good they sounded then the true test Jeff listened to them and his reaction was this telling Michael "Do you guys want to make a tread for an amp?".

I had mixed emotions about the D8000 reading some of the posts here but after listening to them with a nice amp behind them I can say that IMO they sound great, they are on the lighter side of Planar headphones and they are comfortable. Are they cheap? No, but they are at the level of comparable high end headphones.
 
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Apr 17, 2018 at 5:10 PM Post #258 of 4,726
Is a shame how quite this thread is so thanks for the impressions :beerchug:
 
Apr 17, 2018 at 5:11 PM Post #259 of 4,726
It sure is. I heard the H8000's twice at CanJam--first with a DAP at the Final booth (the amp didn't arrive in time...imagine making do with a DAP). It sounded awfully good to me on that DAP.

Heard it again in another place, a room--perhaps Cayin? I remember it was on a fairly big & powerful amp (can't recall whether SS or tube), and in this quieter place, again it sounded very good.

Show conditions make it hard to generalize. Before the post above by @musicman59, it never occurred to me that this HP might scale up as described. That's a very interesting point.
 
Apr 17, 2018 at 5:27 PM Post #260 of 4,726
Sorry for being the grammar police, but @Pharmaboy, it's D8000, no "H8000" or "HD8000", you always write the name of the headphone wrong.
Again, sorry, but would be very difficult to search info of the headphone if more people spells the model name wrong.
 
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Apr 22, 2018 at 7:40 PM Post #262 of 4,726
Popping back in for an observation. I am driving these with a Sony TA ZH1ES.
The d8000 comes with two cables, a 3m 1/4 inch, and a 1.5m 3.5mm. I'm picking up a big difference between these two cables.
When listening with the 3.5mm, there is treble emphasis. The 1/4 inch sounds relatively rolled off, with a degraded sense of imaging and spatial information.
I do not have controls to assure that this is not due to different outputs on the amp, but I am guessing this is a difference in the cables or a length effect.
Srajaen Eben noted some treble peakiness with the cables (I assume this in the 1.5m) and he used an ALO Ref 16 instead with good reported results.
Final has introduced two new cables. I've emailed the NA rep to learn more about these, and potentially audition.
My sense is there is some upside to replacing the stock cables. Although, after the cost of admission of the d8000, I'm not feeling particularly flush at the moment.
 
Jun 5, 2018 at 4:37 PM Post #263 of 4,726
I have heard the D8000 three times, well I am not sure if the first one counts because it was in prototype phase during Axpona 2017.
During this year's Axpona Michael from Final Audio called me into their booth and asked me to take a listen to the D8000 production version to give him my opinion and specially he asked about the bass. I do not remember the source but the amplifier they were using was the Cayin HA-1A mk2. The midrange and high frequencies were borderline ok but the bass was terrible to my surprise so I had to tel the bad news to Michael but in my mind the issue was not the headphones but the amplifier. It seemed to me did not have the guts to drive them correctly.

I noticed the amplifier had an impedance switch so I try to match the impedance better and there was a very little improvement. After that we took the headphones to the Wells Audio booth and connected them to the Milo amplifier... Voila! A dramatic change! The D8000 sounded beautiful! The bass was deep, controlled and with great texture, the midrange was very natural and musical and the highs were precised but without being too bright. Even Jeff Wells was impressed with the sound of the D8000 out of the Milo.

Last Sunday we had a SE Michigan meet and Jude brought a pair of D8000. We set up a small system using my iPhone streaming Tidal HiFi into Jude's Chord DAVE DAC and then my Milo amplifier. This time I was able to spend a lot more time with the D8000 and compare them to the LCD4z, Abyss Phi and Susvara. To me and many other members at the meet the D8000 was the winner. Personally I think the LCD4z were very close to the D8000 but IMO the bass in the D8000 was more controlled. The Phi sounded also great but i really don't like having a medieval torture looking machine on my head :astonished:. The Sundara, well at $6,000 to me is not even worth to talk about..... The other ones IMO sound better at a significant lower price....

After spending the time with the D8000 and having the amps to properly drive them I will have to raise the money to buy them. :beyersmile:
 
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Jun 6, 2018 at 6:12 AM Post #264 of 4,726
I have heard the D8000 three times, well I am not sure if the first one counts because it was in prototype phase during Axpona 2017.
During this year's Axpona Michael from Final Audio called me into their booth and asked me to take a listen to the D8000 production version to give him my opinion and specially he asked about the bass. I do not remember the source but the amplifier they were using was the Cayin HA-1A mk2. The midrange and high frequencies were borderline ok but the bass was terrible to my surprise so I had to tel the bad news to Michael but in my mind the issue was not the headphones but the amplifier. It seemed to me did not have the guts to drive them correctly.

I noticed the amplifier had an impedance switch so I try to match the impedance better and there was a very little improvement. After that we took the headphones to the Wells Audio booth and connected them to the Milo amplifier... Voila! A dramatic change! The D8000 sounded beautiful! The bass was deep, controlled and with great texture, the midrange was very natural and musical and the highs were precised but without being too bright. Even Jeff Wells was impressed with the sound of the D8000 out of the Milo.

Last Sunday we had a SE Michigan meet and Jude brought a pair of D8000. We set up a small system using my iPhone streaming Tidal HiFi into Jude's Chord DAVE DAC and then my Milo amplifier. This time I was able to spend a lot more time with the D8000 and compare them to the LCD4z, Abyss Phi and Susvara. To me and many other members at the meet the D8000 was the winner. Personally I think the LCD4z were very close to the D8000 but IMO the bass in the D8000 was more controlled. The Phi sounded also great but i really don't like having a medieval torture looking machine on my head :astonished:. The Sundara, well at $6,000 to me is not even worth to talk about..... The other ones IMO sound better at a significant lower price....

After spending the time with the D8000 and having the amps to properly drive them I will have to raise the money to buy them. :beyersmile:

Nice impressions :D this thread needs renaming to Final D8000 Planar Magnetic headphone thread to be found by more people though. I wonder if @AxelCloris would be able to do this as the thread starter is not responsive...
 
Jun 20, 2018 at 9:05 AM Post #266 of 4,726
I compared them directly to the LCD4z. Price is comparable and regarding weight I thought the D8000 were more comfortable. Are they heavier than the Utopia (also price comparable)? Yes but their weight did not bother me. I personally would pick the D8000 over any Audeze headphones.
 
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Jun 20, 2018 at 3:13 PM Post #267 of 4,726
I heard these at NYC CanJam, 4 months ago. I must be weight-agnostic, because I don't even recall perceiving the weight. What I did perceive was the terrific sound. These and another big-buck/TOTL planar (Meze Empyrean) were to co-stars of the show for me.

FYI, I have an early pair of LCD-2.1s, said to be heavy and uncomfortable (I barely notice). Also the rather heavy ZMF Ori--again, I barely notice (partly because the very comfy Pilot Pad eliminates any comfort issues w/stock Fostex headband).

But yes, price--they sound amazing, but they're out of my range.
 
Jun 20, 2018 at 9:49 PM Post #268 of 4,726
Jun 23, 2018 at 7:12 PM Post #270 of 4,726

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