[Morph201]

Sorry, no offense intended. I guess it's like any other headphone, either you love it or hate it. Lord knows I spent enough time defending the K70x's..

 

[feifan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Morph201 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry, no offense intended. I guess it's like any other headphone, either you love it or hate it. Lord knows I spent enough time defending the K70x's..

No offense taken, no apologies needed. I just wanted to state my opinion that people are usually sincere when they say they like something.

BTW, I really like the K701.

 

[Soundinista]

Thank you for this very nice review, NeoVibe!

Although I can’t have an opinion on the HD800, since I haven’t yet had the chance to listen to them, I find it very easy to relate to what you expect from headphones and amp. Some two years ago, I wouldn’t even have understood your metaphors. For a long time, I was a “neutrality” freak in pursuit of “audio truth”. I haven’t turned into a euphony freak; far from it. But my time with the DX1000 has taught me that transducers in general can judiciously deviate from neutrality and sound all the more seductive for it. Whenever I put them on my head, I know somebody at JVC deliberately set out to manipulate me. I know I’m getting a clever, amazingly subtle and talented sugarcoating of my music and movie soundtracks, the kind to which this neutrality freak just can’t object. I know headphones are not supposed to give me this three-dimensional acoustic image, this kind of palpable illusion of the instruments and movie action around me. And yet, that’s what I get whenever the recording is top-notch. If there is air in the recording, I get plausible air. If there is continuous let-to-right motion, that’s what I get. If there is depth, I get depth. If there are layers, I get layers. And if something is wrong, it never gets very wrong! Somehow, some brilliant minds at JVC made the right calculations. It's been disarming for this neutrality freak -- every time for the last two years. I just can't argue with the silly smile the DX1000 puts on my face!!

Is that a picture of sonic perfection I’ve painted for myself? No. I can imagine better – like perfect holography, like live action. And maybe some version of that has been found for headphones. I’ll stick with the DX1000 until the illusion gets even more impressive. IME, there hasn’t been better – certainly not overall better – than the DX1000.

As for the RPX33, well, I haven’t had a whole lot of experience with top-notch headphone amps, unlike some of our fellow Head-Fi’ers. But maybe it does make sense to compare head gear with non-head gear when we’re gauging the sound that comes into our ears. In that case, I can say that, having listened to amps by the likes of Krell, MBL, Burmester, Primare, Cary, Audio Analogue and Unison Research through speakers by the likes of KEF, B&W, Opera, Monitor Audio, Dynaudio, DALI and Sonus Faber, I’ve never known better than the sound I get from the RPX33. Is the RPX33 my idea of perfection? No. I can imagine better – like perfect holography, like live action.

There are some great metaphors and analogies in your review, NeoVibe. Insightful stuff!

 

[DoYouRight]

Wow that makes me wet for a pair of DX1000

 

[NeoVibe]

Thank you all for your kind comments

I am very glad many of you were able to relate to what I wrote, it is very gratifying to hear that.

I'll address two comments in particular:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stephen Murphy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks for the interesting reading! I have not heard the HD800s yet, but I do own the HD600s, and I don't agree with your assessment of them. If you can't get any "joy" from some good ol' school Senns, which are pretty much considered like a pair of well used blue jeans around these boards, then I wonder what your sources actually sound like? I get ear to ear smiles from my old Senns all the time and I look forward to hearing the new ones.

Point is, many times my 30$ earphones plugged to a laptop make mp3's feel more alive/joyful than my home setup. If this is the way it should be then my stuff will all be for sale in no time. I really don't believe that is the case. I'm more inclined to think the laid-back, mellow nature of the Sennheiser character cannot express some feelings as well. Also please note that I'm talking of what it feels like to me, not how it sounds. If you don't notice that, then you're happier with your HD-600 than I am with mine

Quote:

Originally Posted by feifan /img/forum/go_quote.gif (...) Your review brings into sharp focus the issue of warmth in the HD800. In many of the reviews I've read, writers, almost as an afterthought, mention that the HD800 has warmth. But there's a strange reluctance to go into detail, and this observation also seems to pop up out of nowhere in the text, seemingly out of context. I think this disconnect occurs because they sense a paradox, analytical clarity and revealing dynamics on an unprecedented scale, on the one hand, and this unexpected warmth on the other. This has been my experience. Both remarkable resolution and warmth. But it's not the same kind of warmth that I get from the HD650 and the GS1000. With these two, the warmth is in the intimacy, the sense of physical proximity to the performers. I don't necessarily mean a small soundstage, but the feeling is one of a smaller, enclosed space like a nightclub. Very natural, palpable almost. The audio and visual images vibrate through and around you, making you feel one with the whole. This is not the HD800 warmth, though. The HD800's warmth is also natural -- so much so that I'm aware of it only on the periphery of my consciousness. But it's the emotional dimension of the HD800 that makes it extremely listenable. After many hours, I don't feel fatigue and forget that I'm actually wearing 'phones. Without this warmth, the HD800 would be, for me, too analytical, causing irritability and fatigue after 10 minutes or so. BTW, my comments here are by no means a disagreement with your findings, and I post this not to dispute your claims but to share a different experience. Once again, thanks for a wonderful review.

If I understand correctly you mean your experience of intimacy comes essentially from the fact that they vanish and you are not aware of them and also from thei non-fatiguing nature. Agree completely. But the warmth I refer to is only the 'other' sort: "The audio and visual images vibrate through and around you, making you feel one with the whole".
Maybe with a broken in pair and a few weeks to get to know them I could find some more warmth, but the one I (we?) found is not enough for me

By the way, DX1000 are on their way from Germany

 

[NeoVibe]

By the way, when I got the chance to re-listen at home with the HD-600 the track I used in the HD-800 audition I remembered I didn't post very specific song-by-song comments. So, although still very subjective, I've added in the 1st post impressions of some songs in the section "So, tell us what you’ve heard…"

So, tell us what you’ve heard…

First some classical music.
With Mozart’s Requiem (Karajan / Philarmonic Orchestra of Viena), the HD-800 sounded very assured and completely correct in the sense that you do not doubt whether they are being true because they are so confident and in control of everything. But by comparison they sounded very ‘dry’ (neutral perhaps) while the HD600 by contrast sounded more ‘juicy’: part because soundstage is more compact and intimate (the sound ‘happens’ inside your head, like it is a miniature stage, while with the HD-800 it is an abstract space, neither in your head nor outside of it) and part because I can feel sort of a permanent resonance when listening to the HD-600 – I can’t quite describe it but this is a key part to what makes me be aware that I am listening to them; by contrast the HD-800 disappear and your are left with sound (music?) alone.
It is as if with the HD-600 the sound is jammed between the headphones and your ear, confined to a room smaller that is adequate; with the HD-800 the sound feels much more extended, like it is now free from the confines of that room, but not in the sense that you feel you are in a live venue, more like a top studio, perfectly damped with no resonances or reverberations. With the HD-800 you do feel you are ‘there’… but ‘there’ is more abstract than real. But true to the CD for sure.
Even with chamber music (Giardino Armonico [Decca], Italian 17th century music) this is apparent, maybe even more because with just a couple of instruments you are much more aware of the space they are playing in. The HD-600 put them all together in your lap, in an loving way; the HD-800 separate them in that…space.

With some more emotional soundtrack themes (Piano, Schindler’s List, The Village), overall feeling is that on the HD-600 everything sounds more intimate and perhaps more human. Hilary Hahn’s delicate performance in “The Vote” is more ethereal in the HD-800 because it is so precise and detached from reality, because you are not aware of the headphones… but not more emotional than the HD-600 with all their faults.

Finally Hilary Hahn’s this time playing Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark ascending” a piece that relies in silence, very quiet playing and again Hahn’s delicate performance: the correctness of the HD-800 is fabulous, the detail and transparency even more so – the sound of the bow touching the strings is detached from the sound of the instrument, and very evident.


Listening to Jazz (Gene Harris Quartet – “Listen Here!”), the same feeling, that the sound the HD600 produce is bigger than the room they create to play it so everything sounds contrived (by comparison). In the HD-800 the room is limitless and the sound free/extended.
The character is much more mellow with the HD-600 tough: in Diana Krall’s “If I had you” (“All for you”) the HD-600 feelt liquid and mellow, while the overall feeling with the HD-800 was that of dryness and control.
With Herbie Hancock’s “Gershwin’s World” the HD-800, while not being what I would call ‘fun’ are much more ‘sparkling’ instead of laid-back like their predecessors; everything is smoother (highs in particular) and … more high-resolution.
Miles Davis’ trumpet at ”Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud” sounds ‘hard’ and insistent with the HD-600, but much more balanced and less tiresome with the HD-800; also much more transparent and extended.
Russel Malone’s guitar in “The Angle” sounded more articulate and faster in the HD-800.

To end, acoustic guitar. First the fabulous “Friday night in san Francisco” - what I remember most with the HD-800 was the detail, control and precision accentuating the staccato character of the guitars, while the HD-600 focuses more or the harmonics. Again, mellowness with the HD-600 contrasting with some ‘fire’ coming out of the HD-800 (in a good way).
Last but not least, Antonio Forcione and Neil Stacey “Live at the Edinburgh Festival”, a song called “A Tempo” – just two guitars in a sometimes frenetic, sometimes mellow crescendo that ends in a fabulous peak. The HD-600 sometimes lose the grip on the highs that become tiresome and too much in-your-face; the HD-800 maintain their high-tech control at all times, lots of speed and detail.


If I had to use an image, the HD-600 are like a classic, wood and leather room, cosy, warm and relatively small, in brown tones; the HD-800 are a spacious high-tech, space-age, minimalistic room, white leather and metal.


All of the above is, of course, a rather pointless description of what it felt to me.
Some people will find their experiences similar, others not so. I will not argue.

 

[sonq]

Not that I disagree with Neo Vibe, but could his feeling of the HD800 sounding sterile be the result of the source? Or rather, the HD800 revealing the source's shortcoming?

I've had negative experiences with well regarded phones & amps when the source is not up to scratch.

 

[pp312]

I'd have thought it more likely the result of their not being broken in. I have the 650, and I'll never be able to afford the 800, so it wouldn't bother me if everyone said the 800 was crap (except I might have sympathy pains for Sennheiser). However, I would never attempt to seriously evaluate any phone, let alone one at this price, before it was fully broken in.

That said, I think the review was brilliant, giving a real feel for the overall sound rather then concentrating on aspects. Even if impressions might and probably will change once the phones are burned in, I still feel I have a better sense of where 800s are coming from than after reading other reviews.

 

[NeoVibe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pp312 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'd have thought it more likely the result of their not being broken in. I have the 650, and I'll never be able to afford the 800, so it wouldn't bother me if everyone said the 800 was crap (except I might have sympathy pains for Sennheiser). However, I would never attempt to seriously evaluate any phone, let alone one at this price, before it was fully broken in. That said, I think the review was brilliant, giving a real feel for the overall sound rather then concentrating on aspects. Even if impressions might and probably will change once the phones are burned in, I still feel I have a better sense of where 800s are coming from than after reading other reviews.

Absolutely agree. I made sure I specified that it was a zero-hour pair in the beguinning of the review, precisely because of that. Point is, getting to listen to them was as good as I could do, so it's better to have had that experience instead of no experience with them.

So, to be clear, this is a "review of a zero-hour HD-800". And despite the fact that I didn't come back thinking these were perfect (for me), I am very curious to know if they wouldn't be after 100hrs... And I'm so curious I have a feeling my credit card is about to go on fire...

Just bought a pair of DX1000 though, and they went from "I'm definitely sending these back" at zero hours, to "I might keep these" at 70 hours... so there's a perfect example.