[Evshrug]

The other “baby Orpheus.” This is one I’ve never heard… how is it?

 

[radambe]

Give us an HD900 to go along with the IE900! Something like an HD800S, but with bass.

 

[Evshrug]

Give us an HD900 to go along with the IE900! Something like an HD800S, but with bass.

I feel like the HD 8XX accomplishes that. Check out my preview:

(I’m still crafting my write-up, how to communicate my thoughts in the clearest, most well-structured way)

 

[Whitigir]

I feel like the HD 8XX accomplishes that. Check out my preview:

(I’m still crafting my write-up, how to communicate my thoughts in the clearest, most well-structured way)

No way, I don’t believe any story such as “mass drop can tune better than Sennheiser”!!!
No Sir!

The anniversary has more bass and dynamic, meaty body, but the trade off is a little less soundstage. I would say that it covers what he asked

 

[Evshrug]

No way, I don’t believe any story such as “mass drop can tune better than Sennheiser”!!!
No Sir!

The anniversary has more bass and dynamic, meaty body, but the trade off is a little less soundstage. I would say that it covers what he asked

Well, it wasn’t Drop that tuned it… the preproduction models went out to reviewers first for previewing (including me), but they got a decent amount of feedback saying it was too similar to the HD 800S, and that they wanted more bass and a warmer body. The tuning was done by Jermo Koehnke and the Sennheiser engineers. Jermo was also the product manager for the HD 560S, IE 300, and IE 900, all of which have had their bass and sub bass carefully considered, and have been big commercial successes that are difficult to keep in stock

 

[SoundDouble]

I have a feeling the 800s might be my holy grail for sound but in combination with my vintage technics sa-200. Next time I'm in new york I have to stop by audio46 and try a pair. For now dt1990/technics combo is amazing.

Give me a DC audio click fold or vmoda click, dc audio cable connectors or dual 3.5mm with 2 cables. 1 short w/ 3.5mm and one long w/ balanced xlr. Include adapters for 1/4" and 4.4mm. I actually like the head band with strap like sundara. Open back

 

[Raketen]

slightly flatter FR over-ear HD25 with adjustable (or just less) clamp (not 630vb)
large driver HD600 with ruler flat & tight bass response to 20hz and a touch of soundstage (not 660s) - also plz share this bass with hd800

sustainable and/or recycled materials, zero emissions, all that jazz would be

 

[catscratch]

My holy grail would be an electrostatic HD650, or a re-issue HE60 but a bit warmer and better built, with Stax bias and a Stax plug. Make it cost under $3k and I'm in. But it would have to have the HD650 tuning, though maybe with more linear bass.

Oh wait, holy grail headphones that exist... well... hm... none, at least that I can think of. But I'm quite happy with the HD650 and a modded/EQd Stax L700, with a SR-007 thrown in there occasionally.

Audeze CRBN is on the list of things to watch though, since that measures quite closely to what I'd want, though of course measurements aren't everything.

 

[Evshrug]

Oh wait, holy grail headphones that exist...

You can talk about headphones that don’t exist… we’re here to have fun!

 

[Ronion]

Feels close to this…


Maybe not quite HD 800 resolution, but the angled drivers give it very good imaging and soundstage, of course the clamping force matches the HD 598 (Headband is from the same tooling), it was tuned with a similar midrange as the HD 600/650 (though the highs are closer to HD 600, which assists the angled drivers in providing good imaging), and then the bass is pretty normal for open headphones EXCEPT it’s got a little something extra in how linear the sub bass extension rolls (aka not much roll off compared to the HD 650).

And I almost bought it…. I had to hold back. Given the fact that I own the others and I intend to remain married, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. If it had the resolution of the 800 or its variations (don’t want to say variants for obvious reasons but I guess I did anyway), well, I’d probably have drawn up the divorce papers.

 

[capetownwatches]

A picture is worth a thousand words...

 

[catscratch]

You can talk about headphones that don’t exist… we’re here to have fun!

What about headphones that could potentially exist? wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean know what I mean...

Honestly my holy grail would be the HE90/HEV90 but I would be too terrified to use it. I doubt that any spare parts or possibility for service and repair exists? Failing that, I kinda am happy with what I already have and don't really lust after anything. Which, seemingly, is a rare position to be in.

But if we're talking about what we'd want to see in the future, well, for me it's pretty simple.

1) an update of the HD600/650 that addresses some of its flaws. You don't need to re-invent the wheel here. They're already nearly perfect. But better bass extension and maybe a slightly larger stage, while keeping the same tuning and tone/tembre in the mids and highs are mainly what I'd look for. Honestly I find most headphones unnatural and fatiguing and these are among the very few that aren't.

2) a higher-end headphone that takes the HD600/650 sound and pushes the technical performance further - in things like staging and resolution - while keeping the tone and tembre intact. Focal so far have been the closest to this sort of thing, but they're still not quite there since they use metal drivers, and have issues with tembre and fatiguing highs.

3) a more down-to-earth electrostatic headphone (<$3-4k) that works within the existing ecosystem and, you guessed it, has the balanced tuning I'm looking for.

Also, let me just say that it's great that you're talking to the community, and I very much enjoy reading stories about the development of the headphones I've used and loved for... god... almost 20 years now?

 

[voja]

@Sennheiser
@ericpalonen

The ultimate headphone is a modular one. I asked @RAAL to create multiple drivers for their headset. But it seemed too demanding for them. A missed opportunity. Foolish in not understanding what I asked of them.

What if a headphone is similar to a DSLR Camera? A based model. Lets take the HD800. A based HD800 shell. That you can swap drivers in and out easily. Different signatures. From bright to Warm.

Lets simplify it.

1. A based HD800 shell or any headphone you like.
2. A access slot or section with clicks or twist or pull, that the driver is easily replaced and swap out with a different tuning one.
3. A selection of dozens of sound signatures to choose from. From reference to V shape.
4. Swap out drivers, earpads, and cables to your likening by the customer in seconds.
5. Headphones must be lightweight. Less than 500g

This is not only revolutionary, but future proof. Every year you, @Sennhesier can release a new improve driver. A Summit-fi driver that can easily be installed in the based shell. Instead of re-creating a brand new headphone with base and driver and earpads.

You can just create drivers. From $1000 to $3000 to $5000 drivers. Just like camera lens.

Modular headphones is what I consider the ultimate futuristic headphone. Whoever dose this wins the battle.

All credit goes to protoss

Great idea! Actually, LTS Headphones (previously LTA Headphones) did it "long" time ago. It's run by a collage student from Croatia, Tomislav. Here's a link to his website: ltsheadphones.weebly.com/

Of course, we (consumers) always demand certain things for a certain price. What majority of consumers forget is that each one of these demands often requires a full running business. What I'm saying is that it is widely overlooked what it takes to run a successful business.

In theory, a modular headphone is amazing. To truly put it on the market and make it profitable, it would take more than just a few pretty $. Yes, sure, you can have a passionate individual doing something like that (like LTS Headphones) for a certain amount of time, but it is only a matter of time until running that business independently burns you out. Also, an independent (one man) business has very limited orders — there's only so much one person can do.

Modular headphones are time consuming to make. This is probably why manufacturers stick to mass production. It's easier, less time consuming, more efficient, and cheaper. Also, the demand for something like that is quite low, hence why we probably won't see it on a commercial level any time soon.

Can you imagine putting heavy hours and $ into making only one driver work for a specific "base model" and only getting a few sales. Sure, one thing to fix that is to make the price for a driver sky-high. But then, how many sales would the manufacturer be getting? That's the balance that's hard to be maintained. You have to significantly raise the cost of the product in order to make up for the time, money, and labor hours invested into making it, but at what point is the price too high for the small target audience that specifically demands your product?

I'm sure we all were day dreaming at some point and asked ourselves why "that" doesn't exist yet. Well, the answer is usually similar to what I wrote above. A modular laptop/smartphone would also be "perfect" (for the consumer), but it's not really as profitable to the manufacturer as manufacturing a single model.

 

[Evshrug]

And I almost bought it…. I had to hold back. Given the fact that I own the others and I intend to remain married, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. If it had the resolution of the 800 or its variations (don’t want to say variants for obvious reasons but I guess I did anyway), well, I’d probably have drawn up the divorce papers.

My wife said I would have to sell a headphone before I could buy another. You could say I got around that by getting loaners from Sennheiser and Dekoni, haha... but some things I want to keep, have as MINE, you know? I probably shouldn't talk about how many of the headphones here are actually mine and not loaners though

Ok, I might as well fess up, the HD 800 was my Holy Grail headphone.

Of COURSE I started lurking Head-Fi right around the time it was originally announced... I believe back then it was the default profile picture on Head-Fi, unless you changed it (I'm trying to bring that idea back, because I thought it was fun: I've been asking Sennheiser to make Avatar-Perfect square images of headphones so people can use them if they want, so far we have HD 560S, IE 300, and IE 900). But I had just bought a pair of PX-100 (based on MacWorld Magazine's recommendation), and I was looking for something in the $100 ish range that was as speaker-like and weightless as possible, so that I could play videogames in my dorm without interrupting my neighbors (and their... 'capades). I played a lot of RPG games back then, and I quickly identified that I wanted an immersive experience where I could believe I was "IN" the game world, and that good detail and midrange timbre was important for that, and low distortion in the highs (and I thought... large drivers?) would help with imaging and soundstage depth. Well, my first full-sized headphone was pretty good for gaming (and especially good for competitive FPS gameplay), but the "Pillow/Cloud" feeling didn't last and eventually felt itchy, and the bass was lacking so much that even though I could hear most of the bass, I didn't really emotionally attach to music and it was more fun to listen on cheaper headphones (the PX 100, though I grew tired of on-ear headphones).

However, with the PX 100 and the later headphones along my journey, I actually rediscovered a joy for music that I had forgotten I'd let lapse. With TV speakers and laptop speakers, music had become this background thing, not enough in itself to to hold my attention and be my entertainment, but just a supplement to add energy to a movie or make work just a little bit more bearable. There was a moment, where a band I had liked years ago in High School had just released a new album (Arcade Fire – The Suburbs), and I decided to try buying it and loading it up onto my iPod while I worked a summer job. It was my first album in years, but as I was washing dishes in the back of house at a restaurant/café, I was really grooving along. Would you believe, it was with a pair of $25 Sennheiser HD 202 mk II that the café had for watching training videos? I was having so much fun listening that I let the album play on repeat! When I got home, I wanted to listen on my "best" $100 headphones and see how much more I was missing... the detail was there, but the emotion was not, and I just didn't connect with the music as well. So, now remembering that I LIKED music, my upgraditis was now triggered I'll not mention other brands along my journey (though all my posts are still here on Head-Fi), but in the back of my head, I always wondered: would the HD 800 be... perfect?

Nah, nah, it might not be, and anyway I didn't think I could ever spend more than $100 on a headphone... $200 on a headphone... $300 on a headphone... You guys know how it goes. The reviews around the time of the HD 800 launch were very favorable, but as other headphones arose to compete at a similar price point (and above), people were giving the impression that the HD 800 was really bass light. To the point where I was imagining it might be a repeat of my first $100 Head-Fi headphone, and might cause me to lose interest in music and audio again. EEeuh. I also had a few friends make fun of the HD 650, saying it was super dark and added a coloration to every song, which didn't fit my "immersive" parameters for great timbre and imaging (Note: I didn't try this headphone myself, and I trusted other's opinions enough that I didn't try this one for myself or any other Sennheiser headphones until much, much later), so I actually didn't buy any Sennheiser headphones along the way. Fast forward to 2015, and audio enthusiast friends encouraged me to go to CanJam RMAF (RIP). By this time, I had heard quite a few headphones and had a few reviews under my belt (some making Head-Fi front page, woo!), and I wanted to be more serious about reviewing gear. Before the show, I met up with a friend who was "warming up" some gear in his hotel room the night before the show, and one of the pieces of gear he had was an HD 800. I listened to the HD 800. The clouds parted, a nice chill ran up and down my spine, and the headphone sounded nothing like I had allowed myself to be led to believe.

"Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" was the track, by Paul Simon, the first time I'd heard that song. I LOVED the room full of baritone male vocals at the beginning, the attack of the drums, and dance of the electric guitar. All kinds of word salad to say: I didn't feel like the music lacked bass or body, and the impact and decay were the best I had ever heard. I could literally feel the hairs on my ears being moved by the sound pressure, and I immediately loved it. There were many other headphones that competed well and sounded extremely good in the days to follow at that show, but only three setups affected me subconsiously and gave me those ASMR feelings, and the HD 800 was the most comfortable, affordable, and fitting my surround-junkie tastes (we call it spatial audio, these days). I was only making ~$32k pre-tax in those days, so such an expensive luxury was going to be a huge stretch, but I saved up for a full year. Hard work makes the reward all the sweeter, eh?

Now that I've had my HD 800 for 5 years, I still love it. Going back to old favorite songs, it was like I could experience them again for the first time. Once I had reached my Grail headphone, my one best-fit headphone policy began to mushroom out as I explored other signatures (the HD 650 was another headphone that didn't match my preconceptions at all and was better than I expected). I still enjoyed the way semi lo-fi gear presents music (I started consulting for Sennheiser after they read my PC37X review in 2017), and some music it's nice to have some fuzzy rumble to convey the threat or to wash over you like a wave, but the HD 800 has remained a fixture in my collection, as my "best" headphone. I got to try out a ton of headphones because of Dekoni, and there have been other competitors, but the HD 800 continues to surprise and delight me every time I come back to it. Of course, I'm open to new experiences... I don't really want the journey to end, do you?

 

[Evshrug]

Also, let me just say that it's great that you're talking to the community, and I very much enjoy reading stories about the development of the headphones I've used and loved for... god... almost 20 years now?

Oh yes, I love hearing and sharing them too! I learned so much talking to Axel Grell, and now Jerome Koehnke and I regularly have chats. I'll try to bring up cool stuff and insider info whenever it seems like there's a good space and a good story

Cheers!