[Currawong]

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I'm wondering why we haven't heard any more from Jude. it's been a week and a half since his last post,seems like he would have more to say by now.

The guy redefines "busy" by an unbelievable margin.
 
 
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I know that one company's conspiracy in anothers' strategy, but I can't shake the feeling that this headphone is nothing more than a cynical money grab from Sennheiser with the principle aim of filling a competitive high-end price point while maintaing or even increasing their profit margin. Hopefully I am wrong about this but it's kinship with the HD800 seems to be entirely superficial, as we don't seem to be talking about a mini version of the HD800's ring radiator driver but something more akin to the dated HD650 drivers' design in an HD800 style housing.

 
That's how businesses work, without the cynical money grab bit though. They make stuff people would want. People buy it. They make money. 

 

[ac500]

> The guy redefines "busy" by an unbelievable margin.
 
I'm not sure what's going on either. When he posted the SRH1840 thread he said he will post more soon. Months later he said he'll post more before he leaves for CES. Still no info.

 

[grokit]

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That's how businesses work, without the cynical money grab bit though. They make stuff people would want. People buy it. They make money. 

Supply and demand, wouldn't have it any other way. Hopefully all the HD700 purchasers will be ecstatically satisfied and Sennheiser will make tons of cash.

 

[EddieE]

To be fair, the ring radiator driver is likely to be much more expensive to produce than a standard driver, and to be doubly fair, this is not a completely standard driver either.
 
It might have a standard diaphragm but from the looks of that youtube video circulating they’ve taken a page out of beyerdyamic’s playbook with a ring magnet and a hole directly behind the centre of the diaphragm, letting the backwave from the centre of the diaphragm straight out unlike every other dynamic headphone with a normal diaphragm on the market where the backwave from the centre rebounds straight into the magnet behind it.
 
A lot of people seemed to completely miss the point of the Tesla driver, talking about its “powerful magnets” – the main innovation there is actually that hole (along with the less resonant metal frame) and I expect to see most of the dynamic manufacturers quietly copying it from now on with their higher end headphones.

 

[Maxvla]

I, for one, hope nobody copies it, or if they do, it ends up sounding better. The Tesla line to me sounds like a mess, trying to be great at many things and ending up average everywhere. The T1 in particular sounds like it's confused as to it's identity.

 

[EddieE]

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I, for one, hope nobody copies it, or if they do, it ends up sounding better. The Tesla line to me sounds like a mess, trying to be great at many things and ending up average everywhere. The T1 in particular sounds like it's confused as to it's identity.
 

[size=medium]Whether or not you like the frequency response of the Tesla headphones you’ve heard can’t be a judgement on whether the innovation itself is a good one.[/size]
 
[size=medium]I didn’t personally like the HD800 frequency response, but I don’t write off the radiator ring innovation – in fact it just makes me want them to make a headphone that uses it with the frequency response I prefer![/size]
 
[size=medium]The Tesla driver made a very obvious innovation of the sort that I can see becoming standard – every single dynamic driver has vent holes around the outer ring of the diaphragm because it is understood air flow is a good idea. The Tesla innovation is an obvious and simple one -  a ring magnet allows you to put a hole at the most vital point – directly behind the dome.[/size]
 

 
 

 

[jchandler3]

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oh man i just got the 650's and now i find this. oh well maby in a few years  

Don't be disappointed! They are some incredible headphones. Very scalable performance.
 

 

[jchandler3]

Forgive me if this is even slightly off topic, but since it was brought up—
 
For the few that have heard the HD700, how does it compare to the T1? I've had my eyes on those for quite some time and it looks like they'll be roughly the same street price.

 

[MayaTlab]

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To be fair, the ring radiator driver is likely to be much more expensive to produce than a standard driver, and to be doubly fair, this is not a completely standard driver either.
 
It might have a standard diaphragm but from the looks of that youtube video circulating they’ve taken a page out of beyerdyamic’s playbook with a ring magnet and a hole directly behind the centre of the diaphragm, letting the backwave from the centre of the diaphragm straight out unlike every other dynamic headphone with a normal diaphragm on the market where the backwave from the centre rebounds straight into the magnet behind it.
 
A lot of people seemed to completely miss the point of the Tesla driver, talking about its “powerful magnets” – the main innovation there is actually that hole (along with the less resonant metal frame) and I expect to see most of the dynamic manufacturers quietly copying it from now on with their higher end headphones.

I believe that's already the case on the HD650 / HD600 / HD5..... line-up, and most Beyers even before the Tesla line appeared, and in fact possibly many more headphones.
You can find an example for a Sennheiser here :
http://apuresound.com/hdsennmod.html
BTW, you can also see that the "vented" driver of the HD700 isn't that innovative, the HD650's one is vented, just to a lesser degree. They've just improved the venting by a substantial degree.
 
I believe the Tesla "innovation" displaces the magnet to the sides to make the hole potentially bigger, so that's more a question of size of the hole than existence of the hole.
But then, it also seems to be quite a marketing gimmick, at least partially, as the DT1350 almost completely blocks the back hole of the driver with a plastic filler that only leaves a 1mm hole, as if Beyer tuned by ear the driver after conceiving its magnet. One may wonder if it wouldn't have been much better to correctly design the magnet in the first place. As an example, the Philips Fidelio L1 also has a small hole at the back of its driver, but I suspect given what we've seen so far of its internals it doesn't use a plastic "tuner" at the back. Maybe, and that's just speculation, Philips's higher development resources allowed them to spend money on getting the driver right in the first place (maybe design by computer ?).
BTW, I find it misguiding that the DT1350's box presents a picture of its driver without the plastic filler and markets it with a larger vent than usual - which clearly isn't the case in reality.
One could retort though, that I'm talking here about a closed pair of headphones, which is a different environment. And it's true that the T1 doesn't have anything at the back.
 
All in all I wouldn't put Sennheiser's R&D and Beyer's R&D at the same level right now, it seems to me Sennheiser may be at least a little more proficient overall at this moment. They've succeeded in doing quite a lot of world's "firsts" lately (RS220, HD800's soundstage, etc.).
Not to denigrate Beyer's line-up though, I do enjoy some of them and I find the "plastic-tuned" DT 1350 to be one of the most remarkable portable headphones I've tried.
It also seems that most Tesla headphone seem very easy to drive as measured by Tyll on Innerfidelity - so it's likely part of the marketing around the Tesla technology is founded.

 

[EddieE]

^ Thanks for the correction, I really hadn't realised that.

 

[Beagle]

And the remaining hole is totally blocked by the felt damping material which the back of the driver is pressed up against. Remove the damping material and you have a bass heavy/no treble mess. I think they had to tweak the driver for the tiny housing it sits in. I've since modded my DT1350 and "accidently" made it sound way better than it was originally. The pinched character is now gone.
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Originally Posted by MayaTlab /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I believe the Tesla "innovation" displaces the magnet to the sides to make the hole potentially bigger, so that's more a question of size of the hole than existence of the hole.
But then, it also seems to be quite a marketing gimmick, at least partially, as the DT1350 almost completely blocks the back hole of the driver with a plastic filler that only leaves a 1mm hole, as if Beyer tuned by ear the driver after conceiving its magnet. 

 

 

[EddieE]

All ears mate, what was the mod?
 
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And the remaining hole is totally blocked by the felt damping material which the back of the driver is pressed up against. Remove the damping material and you have a bass heavy/no treble mess. I think they had to tweak the driver for the tiny housing it sits in. I've since modded my DT1350 and "accidently" made it sound way better than it was originally. The pinched character is now gone.
 

 

 

[project86]

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Forgive me if this is even slightly off topic, but since it was brought up—
 
For the few that have heard the HD700, how does it compare to the T1? I've had my eyes on those for quite some time and it looks like they'll be roughly the same street price.

Sorry, the T1 is one of the few headphones that I haven't tried yet. I've meant to, but just never had the chance.

 

[purrin]

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[size=medium]The Tesla driver made a very obvious innovation of the sort that I can see becoming standard – every single dynamic driver has vent holes around the outer ring of the diaphragm because it is understood air flow is a good idea. The Tesla innovation is an obvious and simple one -  a ring magnet allows you to put a hole at the most vital point – directly behind the dome.[/size]

 
Didn't the DT770/880/990 drivers already have this hole directly behind the dome? 

 

[MayaTlab]

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Didn't the DT770/880/990 drivers already have this hole directly behind the dome? 

That's what I thought, but apparently no (my mistake) :
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/40/238826.jpg/
That's a DT880.
 
On the other hand it's hardly an innovation as the Sennheiser HD5XX, HD600 and HD650 had it for ages. And I believe it won't be hard to find other candidates.