[DefQon]

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Not anymore....

Really? Who owns it now?

 

[Achmedisdead]

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Really? Who owns it now?

I don't know if there is one owner now or if it's a group of them......but I remember that when he went to InnerFidelity that an announcement was made that he was parting ways with HeadRoom.

 

[Tyll Hertsens]

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Really? Who owns it now?

It's owned by the same venture capitalist it always has been. Jamey Warren, who I hired as product manager about 8 years ago, is now the CEO.
 
He's a good guy. The company is finding a new way forward. 
 
I do do the measurements for them, but that's my only relationship other than dropping by to say howdy and scrounging for cans to measure.  I do the same with Todd the Vinyl Junkie re: borrowing cans to measure.
 
The headRoom measurements are a bit different though, and are acquired separately from InnerFidelity measurements. HR measurements are not averaged over five positions; square waves are 500Hz and 50Hz; they don't do impulse responses.

 

[dan.gheorghe]

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A real music example , or it doesn't happen. I'm curious of how sub bass could be painful with the hd800.
I  already know that the mid  bass can be pretty tight ,  but imho it's weaker with lower frequencies.

With the right gear HD800 are amazing. I have heard them at first with Burson HA-160DS. I wasn't impressed . They seem to dry and missing some low frequencies. When I bought the Burson Conductor things changed a lot. I couldn't believe the difference. Because of that I bought a pair as complement to lcd2. WIth conductor it has smooth sound, excellent prat & bass, details, soundstage etc
 
But wait...it gets better. After this I found a usb interface that changed the sound in a positive way and not by a small margin (the sound flows with even more smoothness & clarity, detail, prat, EXCELLENT bass, dynamics, etc) . I am talking about Audiobyte Hydra (i bought one after i heard it). I have a Chord Usb Silver plus plugged into Hydra and a W&M coax cable (very thick occ copper cable- excellent with bass, details, etc) into Conductor from hydra.
 
I never thought I would ever say this, but the HD800 are full bodied now. Their tonality has changed completely. I can even call them bass monsters ) . I can't get enough really.

 

[takato14]

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Originally Posted by takato14 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Most transparent? I'm sure a 009 or an SR-Omega would beat them in that regard
 
....and I have yet to find an open or even another sealed headphone that can out-slam my 4AAA.
 

1. I've owned the 800s and the original Omega's before selling both off. Have also heard the 009. The 800's I found to be more transparent then the 009 but neck to neck with my inadequate powered Omega's off the T1 amp at the time.
 
If you're talking about quantity as well as quality and depth:
2. That blue Stanton vintage headphone, FA-011's (trust me on this one had both on hand), back opened D5000 are a few to name.

1: Okay. 
2: Oh, the Stanton Dynaphase Sixty. I actually have that headphone, and yeah it's pretty damn good. Really nicely textured lows and this immense speaker-like sound that absolutely envelops you. It still can't quite match the 4AAA for raw slam though. It's also not really an open design, its vented with an unsealed baffle.
 
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The other part is edge.

Do you mean attack / aggression ?

Sort of, and no. Attack is the speed of the diaphragm, and aggression is THD in the upper mids/treble. Edge, to me, is when the initial attack of the impulse response ends in a very sharp, well-defined point. This gives the sensation that instruments (especially percussion) have a very sharp definition to them that you feel as much as you hear. You need good attack speed for this, yes, but a headphone can be fast without having edge. The HD800 is a prime example of this. If you look at the IR graph, there's a rounding affect when you go up to the initial point, and it doesn't go up very far. The HD600 has this to a greater degree. To have edge, the graph needs to jump up as high as possible and end in the finest point possible. 
 
At least, in my experience. 

 

[extrabigmehdi]

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I never thought I would ever say this, but the HD800 are full bodied now. Their tonality has changed completely. I can even call them bass monsters ) . I can't get enough really.

For me, the ultimate "techno bass test", is the track "Elefunts` Disco" by Kagami.
I'm happy that I've finally found a version uploaded online:
http://www.nicozon.net/watch/nm10901555
 
In a kind of sea of  "thumping bass" , you should hear some sub bass raising near 1:25.
The hd800 pass the test because I  can hear that sub bass vibrating ,
however it's a bit dry, and certainly the "overwhelming" experience I  can have from iems.
I  didn't hear yet a headphone able to provide the bass you can get from iems.
 
Now regarding infra-bass, I  barely have the "vertigo" feeling that some stuff induce with the srh940.
I  remind evolving above a pit in a platform game , and I  was completely disturbed with the srh940,  because of the  infra sounds.
 
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Sort of, and no. Attack is the speed of the diaphragm, and aggression is THD in the upper mids/treble. Edge, to me, is when the initial attack of the impulse response ends in a very sharp, well-defined point. This gives the sensation that instruments (especially percussion) have a very sharp definition to them that you feel as much as you hear. You need good attack speed for this, yes, but a headphone can be fast without having edge. The HD800 is a prime example of this. If you look at the IR graph, there's a rounding affect when you go up to the initial point, and it doesn't go up very far. The HD600 has this to a greater degree. To have edge, the graph needs to jump up as high as possible and end in the finest point possible.   

 
Interesting . My understanding is that speed is : attack + decay.
So when people are raving about the hd800 speed, they are actually talking of the decay.
I'm not sure if having a "sharp" edge on impulse response matters a lot, I thought it's a high one that matters first.
But yeah, the hd800 is lacking attack for me , "edge" perhaps too, I was not aware of this other subtlety.
This was actually my first disappointment, and it took me time to realize it : it's not necessarily something you notice during a demo. This affects the feeling of speed on some music , especially with very fast paced track. Although with moderately fast stuff, it's sounds ok.

 

[takato14]

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I never thought I would ever say this, but the HD800 are full bodied now. Their tonality has changed completely. I can even call them bass monsters ) . I can't get enough really.

For me, the ultimate "techno bass test", is the track "Elefunts` Disco" by Kagami.
I'm happy that I've finally found a version uploaded online:
http://www.nicozon.net/watch/nm10901555
 
In a kind of sea of  "thumping bass" , you should hear some sub bass raising near 1:25.
The hd800 pass the test because I  can hear that sub bass vibrating ,
however it's a bit dry, and certainly the "overwhelming" experience I  can have from iems.
I  didn't hear yet a headphone able to provide the bass you can get from iems.
 
Now regarding infra-bass, I  barely have the "vertigo" feeling that some stuff induce with the srh940.
I  remind evolving above a pit in a platform game , and I  was completely disturbed with the srh940,  because of the  infra sounds.
 
Quote:

Sort of, and no. Attack is the speed of the diaphragm, and aggression is THD in the upper mids/treble. Edge, to me, is when the initial attack of the impulse response ends in a very sharp, well-defined point. This gives the sensation that instruments (especially percussion) have a very sharp definition to them that you feel as much as you hear. You need good attack speed for this, yes, but a headphone can be fast without having edge. The HD800 is a prime example of this. If you look at the IR graph, there's a rounding affect when you go up to the initial point, and it doesn't go up very far. The HD600 has this to a greater degree. To have edge, the graph needs to jump up as high as possible and end in the finest point possible.   

 
Interesting . My understanding is that speed is : attack + decay.
So when people are raving about the hd800 speed, they are actually talking of the decay.
I'm not sure if having a "sharp" edge on impulse response matters a lot, I thought it's a high one that matters first.
But yeah, the hd800 is lacking attack for me , "edge" perhaps too, I was not aware of this other subtlety.
This was actually my first disappointment, and it took me time to realize it : it's not necessarily something you notice during a demo. This affects the feeling of speed on some music , especially with very fast paced track. Although with moderately fast stuff, it's sounds ok.

Sorry, I should've been more precise, attack is the amount of time it takes the diaphragm to reach its outmost position. Decay is the amount of time it takes to stop moving. 
 
My ultimate bass test is Double Monk by Igorrr. The intro section has an INCREDIBLE amount of oomph that extends far beyond the extremes of human hearing. It's the absolute best track for testing sub bass and impact that I've found so far.
 

 
...And for some reason head-fi isn't displaying the embedded YT player. Here's a link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsJ1-5xbkN4

 

[extrabigmehdi]

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Sorry, I should've been more precise, attack is the amount of time it takes the diaphragm to reach its outmost position. Decay is the amount of time it takes to stop moving. 

All right, so according to your description, they are not lacking "attack" but edge ?
They are lacking anyways something, that goes beyond the regular definition of "speed" .

 

[extrabigmehdi]

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My ultimate bass test is Double Monk by Igorrr. The intro section has an INCREDIBLE amount of oomph that extends far beyond the extremes of human hearing. It's the absolute best track for testing sub bass and impact that I've found so far.
 

 

Ha ha, this is a good test to completely dismiss the hd800.
We have a sub bass + speed combination. I must try with some eq, to see if it sucks less. (edit: still a mess with eq)
This track makes think a bit of Venetian Snares.

 

[dan.gheorghe]

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For me, the ultimate "techno bass test", is the track "Elefunts` Disco" by Kagami.
I'm happy that I've finally found a version uploaded online:
http://www.nicozon.net/watch/nm10901555
 
 

 
You should try the Ketri Ketri song in the Cabaret album from Gothart. I feel sometimes it is too much with hd800

 

[koiloco]

@takato14,
 
quick question for you, do you actually own a HD800 or have owned it before?  If yes, what was your combo running the HD800?

 

[takato14]

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@takato14,
 
quick question for you, do you actually own a HD800 or have owned it before?  If yes, what was your combo running the HD800?

Own? No. I had about 3-4 hours in a quiet controlled listening environment with the HD800. I was using a very good DAC (don't remember off the top of my head, it was a very good transportable) with an Audio-GD SA-31. I met the owner at a local coffee shop and we listened to each other's gear in a private room for a while. I got to listen to a major portion of my music collection, ranging from classical, psytrance, rock, metal, EBM, EDM, DnB, and some others. 

 

[Docks]

To the OP, yes. Grossly overpriced.

 

[koiloco]

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Own? No. I had about 3-4 hours in a quiet controlled listening environment with the HD800. I was using a very good DAC (don't remember off the top of my head, it was a very good transportable) with an Audio-GD SA-31. I met the owner at a local coffee shop and we listened to each other's gear in a private room for a while. I got to listen to a major portion of my music collection, ranging from classical, psytrance, rock, metal, EBM, EDM, DnB, and some others. 

Thx.  I am going to the meet in August in San Francisco.  Hopefully, I will have a chance to listen to the HD800 on some good setups to help me decide by year end.

 

[extrabigmehdi]

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Thx.  I am going to the meet in August in San Francisco.  Hopefully, I will have a chance to listen to the HD800 on some good setups to help me decide by year end.

Don't forget to listen to music genre you like that matters a lot. The hd800 shine for classical music, there won't be much surprise here.