Sennheiser HD 700 Impressions Thread
Dec 31, 2013 at 3:11 PM Post #946 of 9,291
wow nice equipment and so many cds... I have a long way to go 
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 Hope the HD700 is a good start 
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Dec 31, 2013 at 3:17 PM Post #947 of 9,291
 
After a bit of delay/mixup with the post mine finally showed up at the door.
Won’t be able to give a proper a review, but a cursory listen confirmed my expectations like many have reported that they do indeed sit somewhere between the HD600 and HD800s.
But my primary goal was to have a phone that combines the attributes of the Senn HD600 and AKG K701’s, believe I may have found my solution!

First of all, congratulations.  Secondly, what attributes did the K701 have that the Hd600's didn't.  Thirdly, I've always been curious about the Bryston.  What's it like and have you compared it to a Burson Soloist?  I'm imagining that the Bryston is super fast and neutral sounding.  Also, based on your picture, looks like you're a Classical music lover?  
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 3:20 PM Post #948 of 9,291
 
After a bit of delay/mixup with the post mine finally showed up at the door.
Won’t be able to give a proper a review, but a cursory listen confirmed my expectations like many have reported that they do indeed sit somewhere between the HD600 and HD800s.
But my primary goal was to have a phone that combines the attributes of the Senn HD600 and AKG K701’s, believe I may have found my solution!

 
Dec 31, 2013 at 8:09 PM Post #949 of 9,291
  First of all, congratulations.  Secondly, what attributes did the K701 have that the Hd600's didn't.  Thirdly, I've always been curious about the Bryston.  What's it like and have you compared it to a Burson Soloist?  I'm imagining that the Bryston is super fast and neutral sounding.  Also, based on your picture, looks like you're a Classical music lover?  

Hi Guys
 
I’ll give a more detailed review later on, but so far the initial impressions are very promising.
In terms of perspective with regards to the HD600s and K701's it's as I noted in another post:
  Hi Kas1
 
I’ve had AKG for years now, K701s, K501s and 24DFs, I would say their presentation while clear is much more concave, central imaging is placed farther back in the soundstage and less intimate, I also noticed this with the K550s that I’ve listened to. Compared to my Sennheiser HD580/600s which are much more convex, producing a larger, more forward central imaging but at the same time portraying good width and excellent depth of the sound stage, my Grado SR325i’s offer a similar presentation but without the sophistication of staging cues.
And while the Senn sound may sound, “muffled” as you say in direct comparison, their detail retrieval is IMHO superior.
I like all my phones but the Sennheisers I found do scale higher as better equipment is added to reach their full potential, the AKGs especially the K700 series benefit from more wattage to get their drivers cooking with regards to bass but otherwise their overall sound signature does not change that much.
As the listening nature of headphones is quite different to that of speakers I find that keeping a few different models at hand allows me to get the best out of different recordings and music genres.

I listen to everything, currently burning the 700's in with Underworld's "Dark and Long" and Kraftwerk's  Live "Minimum-Maximum" but chilled out after a busy day with Brian Eno's "Another Day on Earth" and then George Crumb "An Idyl for the Misbegotten" so a wide variety of different genres...and...Leslie Fiest's "The Reminder".
Staging width and perspective… Sennheiser , nailed it with an excellent spread in comparison to the HD600 and K701’s, it’s like listening to my Dynaudio Specials 25s but with…. headphones.
With a Bryston BCD-1 as the source and the Bryston BHA-1 as the amp I’m about as neutral sounding as I can currently get, so great evaluation tools and the HD700 do sound IMHO very neutral, no artificial flavorings and bass sounds the way it should, deep and tight and not over blown, the HD600 are very good but come across dark and the K701 almost artificial in brightness with shallow depth in comparison to the HD700s. But most importantly each disc has it’s own unique sound while listening with the HD700s, with my other Senns and AKGs I’m always aware of their particular sound signature regardless of the recording.
And I have to say that I’m really liking them over the HD800s that I’ve listened to a few times… so money well spent.
That’s all I can offer for this year, so “Happy New Year” to everyone and I’ll keep you posted.
 
Jan 1, 2014 at 10:13 AM Post #951 of 9,291
Anyone tried the HD700 straight out of the AK100Mk2?
Hoping it'll be able to drive it fully without the use of an amp..
 
Jan 2, 2014 at 4:51 PM Post #952 of 9,291
Well my initial impressions and after a few days still stand and they have actually appeared to  improve on my original observations.
Listening to Kathleen Battle’s “Grace” album was a treat and just to quote the opening liner notes ” Kathleen Battle’s voice is like a diamond—pure, clear, radiant, and beautiful….” What more can I say.
Switching back to my HD580/600s confirmed my observations with regards to staging, with the 700s Kathleen Battle was centered with excellent depth and space around the accompanying instrumentation so that I perceived more of a 3 dimensional person, where as with the 580/600s it felt like the microphone was maybe 3 feet in front of her and the orchestra pushed back, which I know is not the case; again the HD700s giving me more of that speaker presentation for which I was looking for and less of what I’m accustomed to with headphones.
Next I concentrated on bass and percussion music as I listened through Bill Laswell’s “Hear no Evil”, “Percussion Music”(“Ionisation” (Edgar Varese) and “Fantasy Variations” (Michael Colgrass) conducted by Charles Wuorinen and then Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine”. From tympani to kettle drums to synthesized bass the HD700s out performed all my other phones producing the desired pressure and extension and with direct comparison to my Dynaudio Special 25s augmented with a Velodyne SPL1500R sub/SMS-1 there was IMHO little wanting.
For those wanting more bass, all I can say is that you’ve stopped listening to the music and are looking for something else but not the truth and a real re-production (at least as far as this hobby goes) of the performance.
Should also mention that Bill Laswell’s recording “Hear no Evil” had smoothness and liquid presentation with excellent layering.
Finishing off with the Borodin String Quartet playing “Debussy-String Quartet in G Minor & Ravel-String Quartet in F Major on EMI, one’s treated with a sense of depth and uniformity with superb interplay between the musicians.
Overall I was again impressed with the congruity of tone from top to bottom and once more the speaker-like presentation, well done.
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Jan 3, 2014 at 4:23 PM Post #953 of 9,291
Because the output is much lower when running an unbalanced cable from my from my AVP for movies and my pre-amp for vinyl to my Bryston BHA-1 I need to get or make up a balanced cable to take advantage of the higher 6dBs of gain with the balanced headphone connection. As it stands now I’m basically maxed with those sources, CD play back is fine as I’m running fully balanced from my Bryston BCD-1 the BHA-1 and on average I’m at 9:00 on the dial.
Before operating on my OEM 700 cable I was thinking of just picking up a HD212 cable for $22 and put a 4 Pin XLR on the end

 
 or may even on one of these from ebay for $45 (2m)

 
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/NEW-Replacement-Audio-upgrade-Cable-For-Sennheiser-HD700-HD-700-Headphone-/261317123574?pt=US_MP3_Player_Cables_Adapters&var=&hash=item3cd7b6ddf6
 
With nicer connectors
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or start from scratch and pick up a pair of these

 
I'll hold off on Senn's own $319.95  balanced cable for now.
 
Or throw my Bryston 2BLP/.4 back into the mix.

 
Jan 3, 2014 at 5:47 PM Post #954 of 9,291
amazon has these for 650$, which seems to be quite a large discount. im not a huge audiophile, but i do care about my audio and not wanting crap. i recently bought the dt 990 premium 250ohms and would like to know if i should pick up the hd700s if its at this price of 650$.
 
Jan 3, 2014 at 6:15 PM Post #955 of 9,291
  amazon has these for 650$, which seems to be quite a large discount. im not a huge audiophile, but i do care about my audio and not wanting crap. i recently bought the dt 990 premium 250ohms and would like to know if i should pick up the hd700s if its at this price of 650$.


Normally it's best to always to audition if you can, I had to take a leap of faith and take what I could from the reviews but through an educated guess the HD700 filled exactly what I was looking for.  If you're more of an audiophile and wish to stay close to the truth of the recording the HD700s IMHO are an excellent phone.
 
Jan 3, 2014 at 7:00 PM Post #956 of 9,291
 
Normally it's best to always to audition if you can, I had to take a leap of faith and take what I could from the reviews but through an educated guess the HD700 filled exactly what I was looking for.  If you're more of an audiophile and wish to stay close to the truth of the recording the HD700s IMHO are an excellent phone.

 
Agree 100%
 
Jan 4, 2014 at 12:34 PM Post #957 of 9,291
With Sennheiser set to show at CES next week, I wonder if the price reduction on the HD700 will last too much longer.  In other words, did S reduce HD700 production, lowering the MSRP to 'clear out' all remaining supply?  Any idea on Sennheiser's current production level for the HD700?  Or, more importantly, any idea on how long the price reduction will last?  To date, I'm a big fan of the HD700, although my experience is far, far less than many forum participants on head-fi.org.
 
Jan 4, 2014 at 1:25 PM Post #958 of 9,291
    To date, I'm a big fan of the HD700, although my experience is far, far less than many forum participants on head-fi.org.

Well your off to a good start jcoltrane, I've been using phones since my first pair of Koss ProAAs back in the early seventies and the HD700 are IMHO excellent.
Not too sure where all the negative impressions come from, maybe it's their source, amplification or even choice of music. But I've thrown almost every type of genre I can think of at them and they come through with flying colors, at least from an audiophile point of view.
Or maybe phones are supposed to reproduce something else that I'm not aware of besides being as close, neutral and truthful as possible to a re-production of the original recording, anyway I'm left a bit perplexed by the head-fi community.
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Jan 4, 2014 at 1:27 PM Post #959 of 9,291
  Before operating on my OEM 700 cable I was thinking of just picking up a HD212 cable for $22 and put a 4 Pin XLR on the end

 
That's what I did.  ~$27 with a Neutrik.  It's a bit thin but I haven't had any problems with it yet.
 
Put a sheath over it and it'd be like a mini HD 700 cable.
 
Jan 4, 2014 at 1:35 PM Post #960 of 9,291
I asked a Sennheiser sales/marketing rep about the HD-700 about 6 weeks ago and she said that there would be a price drop for the Holidays (and $650 had just popped up at a few retailers at that point) and then a price adjustment going forward.  She did not specify the future MSRP, but I am guessing 799-849 ball park. I had asked because I had been drooling over the HD-700 (I actually prefer both the fit and the sound over that of the HD-800 or HD-650) and was a bit paranoid that they might be planning on dropping it and introducing an HD-750.  I think a 750 and 850 are inevitable, I just didn't want to hear/see anything about them within a year of spending my hard earned money on the HD-700.
 
 I bought one for myself about 4 weeks ago and have been using it with Dragonfly 1.2 and could not be happier.  At some point I will look for a slightly warmer and more powerful amp and more resolving DAC, but if that day never comes I will still be extremely happy.  The most comfortable headphones I have ever had on my head for a few minutes or for a few hours.  Though I have only spent serious time with about a dozen low/mid to high/mid headphones, I also think the HD-700 is the most versatile headphone I have ever heard, from different genres and musical styles, to spoken voice to movies to whatever... I can't imagine how anything else would do a better job of serving so many potential masters from a good source.
 

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