[n3rdling]

 
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The tubes I'm referring to were measured from hybrid amps, not OTL or tubes alone.  HD800 sounds great from the BA and Super7 w/o need for being OTL.  Being clinical from a soundcard is the least of my concerns and largely irrelevant wrt to the HD800 as it's a non sequitur IMHO.  Thx for the link, read it a long time ago early in my journey.
 

Ok I thought we were talking about 'normal' tube amps, not hybrids which can often be more SS than tube in design.  
 
The HD800 recommendation was directed at ac500.  If he's really sensitive to that harshness up top the way I am then OTL is a good way to go.  The only time I listened to the HD800 with those two amps was with your mods which decrease the harshness.  I still found it a bit harsh for my liking but much better than normal; still I don't think I'd like a stock HD800 from those amps that much for my preferences, though there are certainly WAY worse pairings IMO.  I think a soundcard will give him a good idea of what the HD800 will sound like, tonally, from a SS amp without having to buy an extra amp to figure things out.

 

[MayaTlab]

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My impression of the Phonitor/Auditor as a headphone amp (not counting the cool stuff the Phonitor can do) is that it is clean and smooth, but ultimately boring and uninvolving. Heard it with my RE262 (which I own and like for the $) and Ultrasone Edition 9 (which I did not care for especially for the $). Neither combo was all that great. It was a source I wasn't familiar with, however so take my impressions with a grain of salt. Typically a source won't make things flat and dull, however, usually that's in the domain of the amp.

I disagree. That's a personnal intuition (and I don't have the technical background to understand why), but I really suspect that most DACs these days tend to suffer from digitis (which to me translates as "flat and dull", and many other depreciative terms), despite measuring better than ever. I've tried recently a Lavry Gold on a friend's setup (loudspeakers) and it was quite different than most other DACs I tried before - maybe as precise (I don't know I obviously couldn't measure it), but without any form of "digital processing" feeling. I also was able to try different USB to SPDIF converter and indeed they also produced different results - some of them I felt seemed to provide, and I'm sorry to use the term, for a more "analog" feel. I've also started to use Amarra since I compared it ti iTunes, as I think it provides a less brittle / cold / flat sound. I don't know why all these differences : I assume both a Benchmark DAC1 and a Lavry Gold should measure just as well, and yet, I felt they couldn't sound more different in my friend's system.
PS : I'm not suggesting that "exotic" DACs like the Zanden are interesting - that one measures so badly it seems like a massive rip-off.
 
So I'm not sure using a tube is the only solution to give life to headphones like the HD800. I have the intuition a Phonitor + HD800 sourced with a Lavry Gold + Amarra may be an equally good solution (if not better from a technical point of view - unless they're very expensive most tube amps tend not to measure as good as SS amps), although it's possible that I can be proved wrong.

 

[Beagle]

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You're free to enjoy the music all you want but try not to turn a blind eye on the sonic imperfections.  The coloration may be precisely to your liking but there's no denying that the LCD-2 is colored.
 
 
As for the "overpriced" comment, I'm pretty sure he was referring to the entire package, including the technical capabilities of the headphone.  The cost of a product goes way beyond the materials used. 
 
Speaking of materials, moulded plastic crap, crap cable, and crap connectors?  The "plastic crap" was used for a reason and in case you're unaware, certain polymers cost considerably more than wood or metal and have far superior sonic properties.  As for connectors and cable, I'm fairly certain that neither of those in the HD800 fall behind those of the Audeze headphones.
 
And speaking of quality control... well, let's not even go there.
 
 

 
 
ALL headphones are coloured, if you want to nitpik. HD800 has an annoyingly colored treble. I find the LCD-2 sounds way more like real life. You can have colorations that sound "right" and ones that sound "wrong".
 
My HD800's headband kept snapping off. Cable plugs on my HD480, HD580 gave out. Sennheisers were born for better aftermarket cables because theirs are garbage.
 
No problems thus far with my LCD-2.

 


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Lol, the LCD2 is built like crap compared to the HD800.  It's not even subjective.  FYI, I know what a tank is built like and...well, yeah our tanks are built like crap.  

See above.
 

 

[MuppetFace]

FWIW, I've never had any build quality issues with my HD800. The LCD-2 on the other hand had some serious build issues that Audez'e did eventually correct. Both feel sturdy and durable to me.

 

[ac500]

Funny how this is turning into an HD800 bashing thread by LCD2-lovers. Not everyone has the same preference.

 

[nikp]

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Funny how this is turning into an HD800 bashing thread by LCD2-lovers. Not everyone has the same preference.

+1. It's even funnier when both headphones are coloured in a way. But when it comes to sound reproduction, according to my ears the HD800 is better than the LCD-2. And I'm on the neutral side here as I don't own either headphones.
 

 

[Saintly]

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ALL headphones are coloured, if you want to nitpik. HD800 has an annoyingly colored treble. I find the LCD-2 sounds way more like real life. You can have colorations that sound "right" and ones that sound "wrong".
 
My HD800's headband kept snapping off. Cable plugs on my HD480, HD580 gave out. Sennheisers were born for better aftermarket cables because theirs are garbage.
 
No problems thus far with my LCD-2.

 

As for all headphones being colored, I don't see anyone claiming otherwise.  In fact, you were the one who said you didn't notice any coloration in the LCD-2.  I was just trying to encourage you to not turn a blind eye to the imperfections of your beloved LCD-2.
 
Colorations that sound "right" to you may not sound that way to others.  Instruments and vocals in real life are quite bright for the most part.  The LCD-2 portrays that least realistically among the top tier headphones.  The designers of the flagships didn't give their headphones an ample amount of treble just to piss off the masses of consumers.
 
I'm not sure how you can compare the HD480 and 580 to the LCD-2.  Do you expect them to have the same build quality given the price difference?  As for the HD800, I don't think I've read a second report of headbands snapping off.
 
If you've ever inspected the cable design and construction of the HD800, you'd have seen that its SPC core and top notch albeit expensive connectors blow the LCD-2's out of the water. 
 

 

[John Willett]

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At one point I considered the HD-800s, but after reading a lot of people's reviews and comments, two things made me think other wise: I. HD-800s take the right kind of amping to get the best out of them (this is true for a lot of higher end headphones, including LCD-2, but I heard it was more true for the HD-800s) - and a lot of folks were saying they preferred the HD-650 sound to the 800's. So it made no sense to me to drop triple the price for a headphone that isn't massively better.

Oh - the HD 800 is massively better than the HD 650.  But it is also more revealing and more accurate and some people just like a nice sound as opposed to what is more correct. 

 

 

[John Willett]

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Originally Posted by ac500 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
 
> Built like a tank with metal and wood, with a great cable and connectors, and they sound great. The Sennheiser's are moulded plastic crap with crap cable and crap connectors that sound much less great.
 
HD700/HD800 uses high quality polymers which can be much more expensive (and some polymers can actually be tougher) than metal believe it or not. I really don't think calling it "moulded plastic crap" is even remotely fair or reasonable to say . IMHO Sennheiser is very very smart, much more so than Audez'e, in choosing a polymer construction. Why? Well look at the results -- count how many people find the LCD2 supremely comfortable. Then count how many find the HD7/800 supremely comfortable.
 
If we were getting reports of HD800s breaking, I think you'd have grounds to argue, but until then I don't buy it.

 
Yup - personally I treat metal and wood as crap.  They can ring and/or resonate and, as wood is a natural material, will be acoustically different every time.
 
Wood and metal are more for people who want headphones to look good rather than sound good.
 
ac500, I agree with you.

 

 

[maverickronin]

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Oh - the HD 800 is massively better than the HD 650.  But it is also more revealing and more accurate and some people just like a nice sound as opposed to what is more correct. 

 
It's massively better on all levels except the FR.  They both have colored FRs, they're just colored in opposite directions so its down to preference which one you like.

 

[poikkeus]

 
 
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Yup - personally I treat metal and wood as crap.  They can ring and/or resonate and, as wood is a natural material, will be acoustically different every time.

Good point. It initially bothered me that that Senn used fake aluminum for HD700 and 800 trim; they try to simulate the the buffed aluminum surface you might find on a MacBook Pro or Sony Vaio, but it comes off looking like plastic. On the other hand, I can appreciate why they used plastic: it's considerably lighter, warmer, and resists dents. It's a better material for this headphone. And not all plastic is equal, by any means.

 

[R-Audiohead]

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Good point. It initially bothered me that that Senn used fake aluminum for HD700 and 800 trim; they try to simulate the the buffed aluminum surface you might find on a MacBook Pro or Sony Vaio, but it comes off looking like plastic. On the other hand, I can appreciate why they used plastic: it's considerably lighter, warmer, and resists dents. It's a better material for this headphone. And not all plastic is equal, by any means.

I feel like a lot of people have trouble understanding this and I don't know why.  It should be pretty obvious.

 

[MuppetFace]

I wouldn't call metal and wood "crap." They've been used successfully to produce musical instruments for thousands of years. There are some very fine headphones that use these materials, the Sony R10 for example. The way the zelkova earcups in the R10 were engineered to orient the drivers is a work of art in and of itself.

 

[rhythmdevils]

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Oh - the HD 800 is massively better than the HD 650.  But it is also more revealing and more accurate and some people just like a nice sound as opposed to what is more correct. 

 

Oh - the HD 800 is massively better than the HD 650.  But it is also really bright and sibilant and some people just like an accurate sound as opposed to what sounds like a tweeter being shoved up your butt. 

 

 

[maverickronin]

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I feel like a lot of people have trouble understanding this and I don't know why.  It should be pretty obvious.

Presumably they understand that different woods and metals have different properties but some people never seem to figure out that this applies to plastics too.  The mere existence of balsa wood does not drive people into a frenzy over the thought of framing houses with pine and the fact that gold is heavy and weak doesn't make people question the idea of building skyscrapers out of steel.
 
To give them the benefit of the doubt it can be a lot harder to identify a type of plastic and weed out the good from the bad.  There are many kinds of plastics and the easiest way to identify an unknown plastic is usually to shave off a piece and burn it since different types of plastics burn differently.  Common structural metals and woods are often distinguishable by a combination of density and color while most plastics are of similar density* and can be dyed any color making it harder to identify plastics.
 
 
*As far as the average person can tell just by holding it in their hand anyway.  You could figure out the exact density with a good scale an a graduated cylinder full of water and look it up if you really wanted to.  You'd probably still have to shave off a small piece of it though.