[BournePerfect]

Quote:

 
try grado rs1i

I did like them pretty well on my AD2000, which is supposed to be similar. Their haunting ballads actually work really well on the HD800-think Porcelina, Galapogos. It's the hard rockers like Siva, BWBW, Cherub Rock that I find lacking.
Quote:

Pearl Jam and R.E.M. are phenomenal through the HD800. Radiohead haven't really jumped out as truly exceptional through this headphone. As much as I love this band (saw them live a few months ago) I don't really listen to their music much nowadays. I think I'm kinda burnt out on Radiohead.

I agree Pearl Jam and REM are also incredible on these. In fact, RH and PJ are the two 'rock' bands I love the most on these-although their stuff is definitely on the softer side of rock, and is easier for the Senn to excel at imo. The Pumpkins-not so much. Automatic for the People is truly remarkable on these headphones-it's uncanny how Stipe and Yorke sound so very similar at times imo. Pearl Jam's slower stuff is truly excellent on these too: Jeremy, Yellow Ledbetter, Given to Fly, Better Man and more are all pretty incredible-assuming you're listening to the remastered/remixed Rearviewmirror versions. The original Ten and VS albums sound pretty inferior here imo.
 
As for Radiohead-yeah you must be burnt out on them or something. As great as REM and PJ sound on the HD800-RH is simply an astounding pairing that is untouched for synergy imo. I'm sure the ZDSE/DP1s' holographic nature have a lot to do with it as well. In fact, I'd argue one hasn't really experienced the best RH has to offer unless they've heard a topflight HD800 rig. Imo of course. Here's hoping my TH900 arriving tomorrow can capture a lot of that synergy with RH-but I doubt it.
 
-Daniel

 

[R Giskard]

That is impressive! I assumed the procedure was irreversible. I would not go so far as to say this would make a significant difference or even a noticeable difference in most cases though. I would do it after everything else has been dealt with. Often that means custom everything, including the amplifier and source. The contradiction here would be that wiring makes less difference with higher quality stuff such as encapsulated PIO capacitors, coil-wound resistors and silver-wound transformers. I always found other things to do than to change the wiring. Not that I would not use silver wire (there's a factory here that can make any diameter from 0.5mm to 20mm out of 4N silver) in lacquer coating and teflon tubes but like I said, there is always something else that would yield a more noticeable difference. 

 

[matti620]

To anyone looking for a 240v Crack, I listed an almost new one for sale.

 

[frankty]

Quote:

It nice to see David Chesky still making great recordings. I hope this continues as this is really some of his best work regarding recordings as I have quite a few Chesky Disc and these two surpass all my prior albums on the Chesky label. The HD800 really lets you hear how good they are.

 
Chesky is superb.  My favorite demo album is the SACD:  http://www.chesky.com/audiophile-vocal-recordings.html
 
Speakers or HD800 - simply wonderful.
 
Frank

 

[Ian S]

Quote:

I would not go so far as to say this would make a significant difference or even a noticeable difference in most cases though. I would do it after everything else has been dealt with. Often that means custom everything, including the amplifier and source.

 
My experience is that wires are critical to the sound.  Even on somewhat mediocre equipment it can sometimes transform the sound and step the quality up a level or so.  I again proved the point a few months ago when a friend bought a low cost integrated amplifier and budget small speakers.  Running from his iPod, I plugged in a metre of the varnished silver wire and replaced the speaker leads with the old PTFE silver from my own speakers.  It was a surprising amount better, clearer, information coming through instead of just muddle.  Mostly friends just have me leave the wire there with them a they don't want their old stuff back in.
 
And as far as a top quality system goes, just 0.5m of low cost stranded copper wire interconnect can ruin a system as that is then the weak link and it's unpleasant character what your listening to.  This happened when a friend had replaced one such interconnect.  He was complaining the system was not sounding right.  I went there, listened, agreed it was not as good as the last time I was there a week earlier.  I had a look around and saw a very low cost fat pair of leads.  Replaced them for the silver ones he's erroneously swapped out and normality was restored and he was happy.
 
Sometimes though, a system does synergies with fat stranded leads.  Another friend with an expensive system has gradually evolved to using Acoustic Zen leads.  They make a ton of fat warm bass which he wouldn't have otherwise.  The 0.71mm varnished silver wire as interconnects are much clearer, faster transients, cleaner, better in every way apart from making nearly no bass at all on his system.

 

[Ian S]

Completed one side.  Is playing now.
 
It may be a simple solution but it took a few ideas, trials and errors to get there.
 
The next side might be a bit neater.
 
Can't tell at this stage if it sounds any better.  Might be difficult to tell with just one side being done.
 
Can tell that the mechanical noise from bumping the silver leads is a lot less in the upper frequencies.  Lower frequencies may be a little more.  I was rather hoping all the mechanical noise would be attenuated by the somewhat padded connections to the hard plastic of the ear piece.
 
I had to go to this length of fixing as these hard drawn silver wires are quite rigid and strong springs and will rip off those tiny solder tags just about straight away.  And as the leads move, the wire twists inside the PTFE sheath and so the soldered end are stressed one way and another and soon break off.
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

[preproman]

Quote:

Completed one side.  Is playing now.
 
It may be a simple solution but it took a few ideas, trials and errors to get there.
 
The next side might be a bit neater.
 
Can't tell at this stage if it sound any better.  Might be difficult to tell with just one side being done.
 
Can tell that the mechanical noise from bumping the silver leads is a lot less in the upper frequencies.  Conducted bass may be a little more.
 
I had to go to this length of fixing as these hard drawn silver wires are quite rigid and strong springs and will rip off those tiny solder tags just about straight away.  And as the leads move, the wire twists inside the PTFE sheath and so the soldered end are stressed one way and another and soon break off.
 

 
 
Will a cable this size fit?
 
 
 
[size=16.0pt]Tri Multi-Conductor (equiv. 4x18awg) will fit into a 1/4" diameter hole or 6.35mm at the smallest on one side.  [/size]

 

[Ian S]

The hole into the solder tags area, where the original plug socket goes through, is 6mm x 8mm.  The ends are rounded rather than square.
 

 

 

[Dr.J]

Ian, this is a highly interesting project and I'm thinking likely a good idea (will eliminate the extra terminations). I assume you made the cable restraints yourself?
 
When I saw the pics, I looked back to get a handle on what you're up to.
 
Keep us posted, am keen to know the outcome and good luck!

 

[Ian S]

Thanks
 
Yes, made them from 'chocolate block'.
 
Well, I've spent the last 1 ¾ hours listening in a variety of ways around. I don't have a mono button, but, with the cross feed switched off, listening to only left or right channel from the source (Winamp) and listening from left ear then right ear, the left (hard wired) seemed better.  So swapping the headphone channels after the amp to rule out anything with the electonics, and listening again, left ear piece still sounded better.
 
I began to wonder if my left ear works a bit better so decided to just use the left ear only and swapped the head phones around and channel around each time, ie, left ear piece playing left channel into left ear, followed by turning the headphones and swapping the channel at Winamp and still playing into left ear. It's not ideal as the headphones sound different when on backwards.  But hard wired still sounded a bit better but I expected it would due to socketed being on backwards.
 
So I swapped around to using only the right ear and repeated the whole gamut of channel and balance swapping and headphone turning.  But this time the backwards sounded about as good, of not some ways a tad better.  So that clinched it for me I think.  Does seem to be an improvement.
 
Can't really be 100% sure as there does seem to be a slight difference between my left and right ears.  Last time that happened there was extra wax in one of them!  And it's a laborious, protracted and awkward way to do listening tests.
 
The difference seemed to be that the socketed channel was a bit more 'constrained' and 'contained'.
 
What we've heard before from more solder joints in the signal path is a slightly more dull and coarse sound, a bit less engaging with nuances a bit less discernible.  That seems a bit like what happening here with the hard wiring.  These ODU / Sennheiser plugs and sockets may or may not be transparent.  The pin that broke off and stuck in the socket, precipitating my hard wiring test, appears to be copper rather than brass and they are thin, a bit like Eichmann plugs are, the copper variant of which we've all be finding to be a great deal better that most everything else we were using.  So much so that I keep buying them and lending them to friends and they give me the cash back instead and I still don't have a set of my own!  I think it's highly likely now that when people hear that balanced leads are better they are really hearing the XLR's are better than the very bad sounding and very cheap and ubiquitous plastic with metal strip PCB mount RCA jacks.
 
Anyway, so can't be fully sure.  Other people must have tried it from that French company at least.  Perhaps I need to start a new thread and copy this over so people can add their experiences to that.
 
I could add that I and the recording studio man just spent some time and effort carefully testing the sound of micro miniature relays in the signal path.  They are the silver plated ones used in some of the best pre-amps.  People state they can't tell any difference and claim them to be transparent.  Sadly, they are not; they roll off the top and add significant glare.  He felt they were the best switch he'd tested so far and that includes the, £100 or so, Shallco with it's solid silver contacts, but still, not transparent and I could hear that when I repeated the test with the HD800's system.  So it would not be all that surprising to me if the plugs and sockets on the HD800's did have an effect.

 

[olor1n]

Seems the LCD-2, HE-500 and T1 threads were banished from Summit-Fi to this sub-forum. Curious as to why the dedicated HD800 thread continues to slum it here.
 

 

[ValentinHogea]

Quote:

Seems the LCD-2, HE-500 and T1 threads were banished from Summit-Fi to this sub-forum. Curious as to why the dedicated HD800 thread continues to slum it here.
 

Maybe because HE-6, LCD-3 and HD800 are the top tier headphones from each manufacturer... Although that's valid for T1 too.. But maybe it's getting dumped due to the MRSP of aprox 800 USD?
 
/V

 

[Dubstep Girl]

they should be summit fi, unless summit fi is only electrostats and those rare discontinued and ridiculously overpriced headphones.

 

[Ian S]

Quote:

I would not go so far as to say this would make a significant difference or even a noticeable difference in most cases though. I would do it after everything else has been dealt with. Often that means custom everything, including the amplifier and source.

It's a fair point if there are a load of connectors and solder joints in the signal part then effects of changing one or two joints will be masked to some extent.  My own system is custom made or re-constructed and largely hard wired and that's what I've done for some friends very revealing systems.
 
Last year I went through the DAC area and realised I can delete about 9 joints in the signal path by deleting the remaining joining copper track and directly connecting components to components.  That should have an effect.  Or I may try out the ODAC as that has nearly no analogue stage, just two resistors which I can swap for Vishay Bulk Foils and solder my headphone amp leads directly to those.
 
I just noticed the 1300 post thread here on HeadFi about that so will see if I have time to wade through it in case there're any gems of info in there.
 
Regarding transformers, have you tried Lundahl Amorphous cores?

 

[Frank I]

 The HD800 should be in the high end forum and this question has been asked without getting a no response from the moderator . There does seem odd a major premium high end headphone lingers in the regular forum instead of the high end forum where it belongs.