[castleofargh]

With HD800 neutrality, recent research by Harman to establish a new benchmark for "neutral" came up with a frequency response very similar to the HD800.  This frequency response curve was based on the response of flat measuring speakers in a treated listening room.

 
would you please provide a hd800 measurement that fits harman curve? because looking at innerfidelity's graph or headphone.com I clearly disagree with that statement. from harman graph the FR should reach its top somewhere between 3 and 4khz and then go down from there. the hd800 doesn't go down until...

 

[BirdManOfCT]

  umm idk man if u just eq down the treble on the hd800 it sounds pretty damn accurate. Its the only headphones that can fool me... like when they knock the door in songs, hd800 is the only one that will make me turn around and look....

Which song/recording is that for doors? Or, are you talking generally?

 

[BirdManOfCT]

  HD800 isn't accurate, you can tell just by looking at the FR graphs. The 'revealing' aspect is just extra treble.

What do you think is better?
 
Also, keep in mind that the environment makes a difference. Less so with headphones than speakers, but I've heard some "flat" speakers that sounded awful in real-world environments. If my listening room were a chamber maybe it'd be okay, but....

 

[Head Injury]

 
What do you think is better?

As far as accuracy to different compensation curves?
 
The NAD VISO HP50 is much closer to the Harman curve drez is talking about. Still not quite there, too many bumps, but the general shape is close because it was designed to be.
 
As for more expensive "flagships" the Fostex TH-900 does pretty well, except for that notch around 600 Hz.
 
The HD800 is much closer to the diffuse field compensation curve, which is less bassy and more midrangey than the Harman curve. Etymotic in-ears are AFAIK still the golden standard for that curve, though. The HD800 basically shifts the midrange hump up half an octave so it extends further into the lower treble.
 
I won't pretend to know which is truly the most neutral. I'm just very doubtful the HD800 is it. If it was, Sennheiser wouldn't have made the HD650 sound like it does. It's not like they couldn't make it "neutral", they've got a pretty impressive team of engineers.

 

[drez]

   
would you please provide a hd800 measurement that fits harman curve? because looking at innerfidelity's graph or headphone.com I clearly disagree with that statement. from harman graph the FR should reach its top somewhere between 3 and 4khz and then go down from there. the hd800 doesn't go down until...

I never said HD800's "fit the harman curve," I believe what I said was that HD800's were similar to the Harman curve.  Obviously it would be quite a coincidence if HD800's fir the Harman curve exactly as they were release before this research from Harman was published, unless Sennheiser happened to have exactly the same rooms and speakers used for the measurements.  Apart from the location of the peak in the mids, I would say the curves are relatively similar – not trying to downplay the importance of this aspect of the frequency response.
 
I believe Harmen themselves note in their presentation that HD800's are the closest (apart from their K812) headphone to their ideal frequency response?

 

[OkawaiiO]

 
Which song/recording is that for doors? Or, are you talking generally?

generally... To me hd800 is the most realistic sounding headphone i have used. I personally play the piano and honestly nothing can really reproduce the piano sound. But if there's one headphone that's close to what an actual piano sounds like its the hd800 even though there's no bass... mid and highs are pretty believable that once in awhile u might forget you are playing with headphones, where no other headphones i tried does this. (im using a yamaha U3 piano as a reference. i know every piano sounds different...)

 

[Head Injury]

 
I never said HD800's "fit the harman curve," I believe what I said was that HD800's were similar to the Harman curve.  Obviously it would be quite a coincidence if HD800's fir the Harman curve exactly as they were release before this research from Harman was published, unless Sennheiser happened to have exactly the same rooms and speakers used for the measurements.  Apart from the location of the peak in the mids, I would say the curves are relatively similar – not trying to downplay the importance of this aspect of the frequency response.
 
I believe Harmen themselves note in their presentation that HD800's are the closest (apart from their K812) headphone to their ideal frequency response?

Can you provide a source on that last statement? When Tyll applied a slightly modified Harman curve to his measurements, the HD800 wasn't relatively similar at all. It was no closer than most of the other headphones measured, beaten by the HP50, K267, and Audezes, for example. Maybe the story in the upper midrange/lower treble would be different without the modification, but the bass hump is definitely off.
 
Actually, I think without the modification, the HD800 would look even brighter. If what Tyll means is he elevated the 5-20 kHz region on the compensation curve, his compensated graphs would show treble relatively lower than the official curve.

 

[drez]

 
Can you provide a source on that last statement? When Tyll applied a slightly modified Harman curve to his measurements, the HD800 wasn't relatively similar at all. It was no closer than most of the other headphones measured, beaten by the HP50, K267, and Audezes, for example. Maybe the story in the upper midrange/lower treble would be different without the modification, but the bass hump is definitely off.
 
Actually, I think without the modification, the HD800 would look even brighter. If what Tyll means is he elevated the 5-20 kHz region on the compensation curve, his compensated graphs would show treble relatively lower than the official curve.

Seems my memory was playing tricks on me there - Harman don't show the response curve in their AES presentation.
 
Nad Visio HD50 do appear closer to the Harman curve, Audez'e arguably also.  HD800's appear to be different in having the 6k peak which is absent from Harman curve, and in the bass hump (should be flatter or more sub-bass).
 
Both of these variances from the Harman curve in the voicing of the HD800 seem to be noticeable in my own listening - 6k peak stands out the most, lack of sub-bass and occasionally the lower midrange warmth.  Dampening mods can address the 6k peak, challenge seems to be to avoid boosting the lower midrange and midbass, some of which might be unavoidable product of reducing the treble. 
 
Regarding the location of the 2k peak - I'm not sure this would be desirable - IIRC boost here could be described as "honky"?

 

[Maxx134]

 a cable would need to be close to 10ohm to make about 0.1db variation in the signature of a hd800. crosstalk would need to be massive to change the headstage, so it's a little scary to imagine how messed up those cables must be(on purpose) to sound different from one another.
with a TOTL headphone and apparently a real nice amp below 1ohm, I wouldn't start using weird cables that do everything worst than a monoprice. but that's me.

also I dig your signature, the "hydrogen atom" part probably shows best how expert the guy who said that could have been.

If I mis translated my statements in my signature, it doesn't disprove the fact of it being taught in college textbooks,

And to spout off some techical specs is very naive when so much more is at play.

Soundstage can be increased noticeably on balanced setups with most headphones,
and quotes on resistance does not cover impedance and non linear response to frequency of any dynamic driver, and how that change in load affects the particular demand on an amp which may be either current (SS) or voltage driven (tubes).
So alot more than what meets the eye in the real world.

LOL.

and expensive DACs are  like...Stonehenge. 

I don't like uber expensive dacs myself but when you have good gear you can certainly tell a difference in all of them which has more to do with the whole implementation rather than the theory of it.
And reality bites when it comes to jitter and noise in real world usage.

But the bigger picture is
Both of you are missing a very important point,
And that is the "REAL WORLD" listening..
compared to engineering data..
They are not at odds, just not complete..

You can spout off your technical prowess but it means little in the end result,
when it boils down to actual listening with your number one tool,
your EARS which encompasses more than what current measuring data covers.
As an example, on soundstage alone, I can quote,
"the auditory system uses several cues for sound source localization, including time- and level-differences between both ears, spectral information, timing analysis, correlation analysis, and pattern matching",
all processed in the brain...
This is to point out that there is so much more going on here, than "frequency response"...

Unless you have been there and owned and herd with your own ears you can NEVER be able to disprove or rationanize away as "subjective" what others ACTUALLY HEAR..

Yet consider yourself lucky to have not yet become acute to these issues . ..

I have also started off with the similar typical engineering belief system untill I herd these effects for myself..

We will see how long those of you can keep up this narrow ideology, once going up the ladder of equipment...

Bottom line from EXPERIENCE, which superceeds any speculation,
is that the hd800 scale higher with more power on tap,
and yes they are the most picky headphones to date that I ever owned,

 

[Head Injury]

Quote:

Soundstage can be increased noticeably on balanced setups with most headphones,
...
I don't like uber expensive dacs myself but when you have good gear you can certainly tell a difference in all of them which has more to do with the whole implementation rather than the theory of it.
And reality bites when it comes to jitter and noise in real world usage.

These have been verified with blind, unbiased tests, right? Could you provide some methodology and results?
 

Unless you have been there and owned and herd with your own ears you can NEVER be able to disprove or rationanize away as "subjective" what others ACTUALLY HEAR..

Yet consider yourself lucky to have not yet become acute to these issues . ..

I have also started off with the similar typical engineering belief system untill I herd these effects for myself..

We will see how long those of you can keep up this narrow ideology, once going up the ladder of equipment...

No one's doubting you're hearing these things. We're just doubting that it's the result of any real effect on the sound produced by the gear, rather that it's result of biases on the receiving end.
 
I've been up the ladder of equipment, unless you think my headphones still aren't up to snuff. Then I'd have to question all those claims about the K701 being picky, or the HD650. And funny thing, I actually started off where you are now, until I didn't hear all these effects. Maybe my ears just aren't golden, that tends to be the excuse.
 

Bottom line from EXPERIENCE, which superceeds any speculation,
is that the hd800 scale higher with more power on tap,
and yes they are the most picky headphones to date that I ever owned,

Power is definitely not the issue. Power is only volume. It's pretty easy to get the HD800 loud enough, and without audible distortion.

 

[ThePrince425]

Sorry to deviate, but just a personal opinion. I strongly believe that a huge part of enjoying music and the gear is perception. Perception, like any opinion, would be inherently biased AND subjected to an accumulation of not only facts, but personal experience, upbringing, mood, etc. Why I'm saying this is because blind tests, FR and any quantifiable measurements can only detail so much. Switching between interconnects, orthos vs dynamics and any other tweaking of gear would inevitable establish a change in expectation AND perception. Part of the love of being an audiophile is that very frustration in chasing an ideal sound. BUT it becomes idiotic when some start to impose on others their perceptions and opinions. 
 
Don't get me wrong by assuming I'm disregarding the science of sound. It is something really interesting that I've begun trying to understand and learn for now. Stemmed from my wife asking 'why' I thought a particular sound seemed good when describing my excuse having bought so much gear haha

 

[Maxx134]

Ok well I am only talking about the hd800. .

Unfortunately when it comes to power,
the hd800 will need the power to scale up.
Not to get louder, but better..
Especially for bass authirity and impact..
this is another reason to go balanced.

Loudness of volume has nothing to do with it.
But power on tap makes a diffefence.

These peculiarities of the hd800 are already known in the hd800 thread.

This thread is unnecessary really, unless you want to rationalize a reason other than what is traditionally known by now of this headphone.

 

[drez]

IMO what is desirable in terms of "power" is to increase the contrast in dynamics so that very soft passages are well contrasted against very loud passages.  Presumably volume matched comparisons would be what you would want to figure this one out - but all my comparisons were done without volume matching, along with measurements to make sure that the dynamic peaks are actually being reached.  I would expect you need at minimum enough power to achieve the dynamic peaks, and a power supply which can avoid voltage sagging when sustained power is needed.  Presumably a low noise floor would also help.  Also recordings which actually have enough dynamic range and capture these delicate piano as well as loud forte passages well.
 
Personally though I am not a person who collects enough gear to be able to do side by side companions to have some idea on a larger scale about which equipment is or is not capable in these areas.  Most of the development of my system has been via tweaks cables etc. and on the computer side, and my own targets and targeted preoccupations seem to shift over time - in my mind with the development of my system.  12 months ago it was all about detail, after that, timing, dynamic contrast nuance (inner detail) and more recently "presence" which appears a particularly nebulous term, and definitely not something I focussed on previously.  I like to think at lest some of the change in focus has been emergent from changes in sound quality rather than projections of my own though processes.  Almost all of this has been way outside the bounds of certainty and controlled listening, specs or predictions from prior knowledge and could definitely be seen more as an obsession than as a hobby, and has definitely become way too expensive.  
 
So if someone could do me a favour and prove to me with a blind test that my setup cannot be distinguished from a more sensible rig, then this would be most welcome!

 

[Maxx134]

These have been verified with blind, unbiased tests, right? Could you provide some methodology and results?

No one's doubting you're hearing these things. We're just doubting that it's the result of any real effect on the sound produced by the gear, rather that it's result of biases on the receiving end.

..

thats tantamount to the child pointing out "the emperor has no clothes"
By denying what you hear.

Yes it is known that placibo can play a part., but Placibo only goes so far and is not consistent.

To deny ones own ears is like denying ones own eyes or ones own nose.
You have your senses why would you deny or single out only your ears as faulty?
Mastering perceptions and placibo happens to everyone as they get burnt with spending money on gear not suited to their liking and moving on from mistakes is obviously what everyone does so its not like everyone so easily fooled with hearing.

 

[Head Injury]

Going to keep this brief because it's bed time:
 
More power doesn't increase dynamic range unless you don't have enough power and you're clipping peaks. The dynamic range is already baked into the recording. It's pretty easy to get enough volume out of the HD800, it's an easier load than the K701 for example. Power is not an issue. And no, more power than needed doesn't make the sound better.
 

 To deny ones own ears is like denying ones own eyes

If you've ever seen a half-decent magician at work, you'd realize how silly it is to assume any of our senses are infallible.
 
Or, do you actually believe in magic?