[arnaud]

What a tough job to define what should be the voicing of a new product, especially if you're already offering very different flavors. I agree that not everybody wants the whole truth from the transducer just like some get frustrated by the lack of resolution of some headphones.
 
I thought there were actually trends in the evolution of voicing over the years, which are basically influenced by the needs / response of the market towards some products. Even Stax, often judged as independent,  is certainly not keeping a blind eye on the competition and, to me, the shift from O2 to 009 wasn't just a byproduct of innovation but probably also influenced by sennheiser's move from hd6x to hd800.
 
You could argue that technology makes headphone improve their resolution over the years, but as purrin has mentioned, voicing can easily be altered, it's just a matter of target for the (competent) designers (and competent sennheiser certainly is...). Like others, I would have been more excited by a bit warmer sounding hd800 than what the hd700 appears to be from the impressions so far (all surprisingly consistent with each other). But, I guess the hd800 has been selling very well...
 

 

[Austin Morrow]

Quote:

Keep in mind that the MSRP of the HD650 is $650, so really you're comparing a $1000 headphone (HD700) to at $650 headphone. What I'm curious to see is whether or not the HD700 will be allowed to be sold below MSRP like the HD650, or if there will be strict price controls as with the HD800...

Honestly, I'm really interested to see how the scalability factor varies between the two. I know my HD650 sounds boring and lifeless without proper amplification and sourcing.

 

[donunus]

Quote:

I think the pricing strategy will be very interesting and, personally, could cause me to abandon Sennheiser as a customer if the continue down the 800 path.  I've been running some general searches on the HD 650.  It seems that, while $650 is the purported MSRP, the retailers all are gathered at $499 (which seems higher than it was in the past on both ends; perhaps someone can confirm or correct).  I haven't spent enough time to determine if there are price-cutting outliers, but it doesn't look like it.  I wonder if the $499 is the de facto minimum that is being enforced by Senn.  If so, it would appear that its pricing strategy is not unique to the HD 800, and can therefore be expected in the HD700.  Alternatively, what I could see happening would be for the HD 800 to drift back down to its earlier ~$1300 price and the 700 drift down accordingly.  Note that I believe resale price maintenance would still be in play, just not as overt--i.e., retailers "coincidentally" settling on a price exactly $150 below "MSRP."  Since the Leegin decision, this behavior is not necessarily per se violative. 
 
But it still stinks.

I was recently about to buy a brand new HD650 for $405 including shipping from ebay when i ended up getting another hd600 instead so yah they do sell them less than $499 in some places.

 

[ac500]

For the past half of a year practically, HD650s have been selling for $350 in the US brand new from authorized retailers.
 
Yet HD800s have always been price-fixed... which is why I'm also concerned about the HD700 price. The HD700 could be a seriously tempting upgrade option for me this summer, but quite frankly there's no way EVER I'm gonna pay $1000 for an HD700 when I could get an HD800 for $1300. I don't think I'm alone to think this.

 

[logwed]

Quote:

For the past half of a year practically, HD650s have been selling for $350 in the US brand new from authorized retailers.
 
Yet HD800s have always been price-fixed... which is why I'm also concerned about the HD700 price. The HD700 could be a seriously tempting upgrade option for me this summer, but quite frankly there's no way EVER I'm gonna pay $1000 for an HD700 when I could get an HD800 for $1300. I don't think I'm alone to think this.

I don't know where you're finding $350 HD650s, please share! Also, the HD800 now costs $1500 new everywhere, Sennheiser raised the price for some reason.
 

 

[Sweden]

This is one ugly ass can IMO, but damn it looks comfortable. I have not worn any Sennheiser exept the HD-25 that weren't premium in comfort though. Sibilance? Glad I already have the HD-600 and LCD-2's.. 

 

[BlackbeardBen]

Quote:

I think the pricing strategy will be very interesting and, personally, could cause me to abandon Sennheiser as a customer if the continue down the 800 path.  I've been running some general searches on the HD 650.  It seems that, while $650 is the purported MSRP, the retailers all are gathered at $499 (which seems higher than it was in the past on both ends; perhaps someone can confirm or correct).  I haven't spent enough time to determine if there are price-cutting outliers, but it doesn't look like it.  I wonder if the $499 is the de facto minimum that is being enforced by Senn.  If so, it would appear that its pricing strategy is not unique to the HD 800, and can therefore be expected in the HD700.  Alternatively, what I could see happening would be for the HD 800 to drift back down to its earlier ~$1300 price and the 700 drift down accordingly.  Note that I believe resale price maintenance would still be in play, just not as overt--i.e., retailers "coincidentally" settling on a price exactly $150 below "MSRP."  Since the Leegin decision, this behavior is not necessarily per se violative. 
 
But it still stinks.

You can see for yourself here: http://camelcamelcamel.com/Sennheiser-HD-650-Headphones/product/B00018MSNI
 
Three weeks ago they were as low as $326 new sold from Amazon (not a marketplace seller).  They haven't always been that low but for the past half year or so they've been in the mid-upper $300s.  It would not surprise me if Sennheiser forced up their minimum price to reduce the price gap between the HD 650 and HD 700.  Obviously there was a bigger gap to the HD 800 before, but it was enormous in comparison.
 
That makes the HD 600 the real bargain, relatively:
http://camelcamelcamel.com/Sennheiser-Dynamic-Professional-Stereo-Headphones/product/B00004SY4H
 
Of course, we all know how inexpensive the K701 are now...

 

[oshia86]

Wow. Glad I got my HD650's for $330 just a couple of weeks ago. I got them from Amazon.

 

[The Monkey]

Quote:

You can see for yourself here: http://camelcamelcamel.com/Sennheiser-HD-650-Headphones/product/B00018MSNI
 
Three weeks ago they were as low as $326 new sold from Amazon (not a marketplace seller).  They haven't always been that low but for the past half year or so they've been in the mid-upper $300s.  It would not surprise me if Sennheiser forced up their minimum price to reduce the price gap between the HD 650 and HD 700.  Obviously there was a bigger gap to the HD 800 before, but it was enormous in comparison.
 
That makes the HD 600 the real bargain, relatively:
http://camelcamelcamel.com/Sennheiser-Dynamic-Professional-Stereo-Headphones/product/B00004SY4H

Thanks for the links.  Interesting.
 
EDIT: I agree with your thought as to why Senn might have taken a price increase.  I also wonder, though, whether smaller dealers complained that Amazon was driving down prices.
 

 

[purrin]

Quote:

My guess is that it's because Sennheiser HD700/800 are technological powerhouses with certain non-FR related attributes that no other headphones could hope to attain, like sound-stage, imaging, treble extension. These attributes cannot be "tuned" unlike FR.
 
So theoretically to achieve the best experience, you get cans that are best at everything except maybe Frequency Response (to your liking), then just EQ it. That's the only thing you could fine-tune in headphones.

Unless the FR is so jaggy and has multiple narrow peaks that makes it not respond well to EQ. It's no surprise that in my experience, the cans with a smooth peak-free (but not necessarily flat) FR respond best to EQ (SR009, HD800, LCD3, HP1000, etc.) You can't fix Grado and Audio-Technicas with EQ, not even surgical EQ given FR graphs.
 
Also EQ does not fix areas in the spectrum where there is energy storage, i.e. resonances.
 

 

[Sennhe1ser0fan]

Quote:

This is one ugly ass can IMO, but damn it looks comfortable. I have not worn any Sennheiser exept the HD-25 that weren't premium in comfort though. Sibilance? Glad I already have the HD-600 and LCD-2's.. 

 
Really? I think these look much better than the HD800s and would most likely choose them over the HD800s. Also, $1000 somehow seems a lot more reasonable than $1500, even though they are both well out of each for me. 

 

[skeptic]

Quote:

I don't know where you're finding $350 HD650s, please share! Also, the HD800 now costs $1500 new everywhere, Sennheiser raised the price for some reason.
 

J&R has been selling them at that price point for years now.  At times, their published web price was higher, but my understanding is that you could always get them by phone for $350.
 

 

[davidhunternyc]

The bigger Head-Fi has gotten, the more "diplomatic" official headphone reviews have gotten as well. (Sennheiser is also a featured sponsor.) The sibilance critique is about as damning as a hairline scratch on the Great Wall of China. 

 

[purrin]

Regarding voicing of the HD700: on a whole, overall, the HD700 does sound a bit warmer compared to the the HD800 (with the "Anax mod" which shelves down the region above 5-6kHz about 3db.) So that's certainly a step forward. In fact, it the HD700 were smooth and peak free, it would have been almost perfect. I would say overall, the HD700 is about -5db down in the treble compared to the HD800. Also, there sounds like a recessed area in the mids (similar, but even more than the HD800) that would almost give the HD700 an overall laid back flavor if the treble weren't so peaky.
 
This is why LFF didn't think they were all that bad - his concern was with the pricing. As with me, I'm just cranky and very sensitive to narrow peaks in the frequency band from 5-12kHz. Many people are not so sensitive to such peaks. I do have to say that the HD700 I heard had such sharp peaks that I had never heard before on any Sennheiser including the HD558, HD600, HD650, and HD800 - with the exception of the HD25-i-x-q-z-p-11-2 (or whatever it was they decided to name it). So TP mods, foam mods, Anax mods, or whatever ain't going to fix the problem.
 
As someone else mentioned, it's a shame that the HD800 ring driver technology (with its advertised and lack of resonances - confirmed via measurements) didn't trickle down. The HD700 looks to be similar to the HD650 driver, but tweaked and voiced with high-tech laser beams to sound like what I mentioned above. The unfortunate side effect from this tweak could have been the peaks - or maybe Sennheiser used a stiffer material that gives more resolution at the expense of resonances. This sort of gets to what RD was saying...
 
So to be clear:
 

1. Less treble than stock HD800 (kind of what everyone was hoping for)
2. More treble peaks than HD800 (or any other mid-fi or hi-fi Sennheiser - which is rather unexpected)

 
I figured I needed to post this since I always forget my own HD800s are modded for a treble-cut.
 
 
EDIT: Classical and Jazz good. Pop good most of the time. Rock not so good. With the latter, it's just when those narrow peaks "activate". Seems to be on a track by track basis.

 

[donunus]

Hopefully those peaks go away with burn in.