Sennheiser HD800 Certificate for Frequency Response Arrived
Sep 26, 2013 at 5:25 PM Post #391 of 746
  Brunk, by real conditions I mean considering that the sound will change with break-in. Is the diffuse field graph made in factory accounting for this? Since everyone agree that the HD800 sound not to good before break-in (at least 100h before final sound sets in) are we all talking abouth graphs of bad sounding headphones? :)

 
Break-in results in minimal mechanical changes at best IMO. Especially when we are talking about 100 hrs. of psychoacoustics thrown into the mix, but that's a whole different topic 
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Oct 3, 2013 at 9:27 AM Post #393 of 746
I had the chance to listen to two HD800 side by side at home on my system for more than a day. One of the phone had over 400h of use and the other was a brand new one out of the box. I can confirm without any doubts that there is a significant difference in the sound of the two sets. The sound of the new set was kind of in between the HD600 (which I also have at home for comparison) and broken-in HD800. The sound had not yet a fully extended and was lacking details. Contrarily to what is often reported, I did not find the new set to be crisper than the old one, just lacking extension and details. Speed may also be a tad slower on the new set. 

 
Being able to compare the sets side by side should remove most of the psychoacoustics effect off the equation (It was not a blind A/B comparison but the difference was obvious enough). So either break-in is real or the specs of the Seenheiser HD800 varies wildly from set to set, which I doubt.
 
So this brings me back to my initial point: Are we looking at graphs that are matching the final sound of the HD800? I'm sure that some of the differences are not showing on a frequency response analysis (there are other important parameters that define the sounds of the phones). But from what I heard it seems that the frequency response did change over time.
 
It would be interesting if someone with the proper equipment could publish the graphs of a new and a 400h+ phones. Anyone interested?
 
 
 
Oct 16, 2013 at 8:45 AM Post #395 of 746
I had the chance to listen to two HD800 side by side at home on my system for more than a day. One of the phone had over 400h of use and the other was a brand new one out of the box. I can confirm without any doubts that there is a significant difference in the sound of the two sets. The sound of the new set was kind of in between the HD600 (which I also have at home for comparison) and broken-in HD800. The sound had not yet a fully extended and was lacking details. Contrarily to what is often reported, I did not find the new set to be crisper than the old one, just lacking extension and details. Speed may also be a tad slower on the new set. 



 


Being able to compare the sets side by side should remove most of the psychoacoustics effect off the equation (It was not a blind A/B comparison but the difference was obvious enough). So either break-in is real or the specs of the Seenheiser HD800 varies wildly from set to set, which I doubt.


 


So this brings me back to my initial point: Are we looking at graphs that are matching the final sound of the HD800? I'm sure that some of the differences are not showing on a frequency response analysis (there are other important parameters that define the sounds of the phones). But from what I heard it seems that the frequency response did change over time.


 


It would be interesting if someone with the proper equipment could publish the graphs of a new and a 400h+ phones. Anyone interested?


 


 

 


Well, if you're confident that you can identify a big difference in sound, then the thing to do is not use the 400 hour set until the new set also has 400 hours, then compare again :) Alternatively, make some measurements for comparison but I dare say this will be fraught with difficulties.

As far as the graphs are concerned, I would expect that Sennheiser takes the headphones off the production line, measures them, then distributes them. Therefore, if you assert that the sound changes with time, the graphs will not represent the 'final sound', unless Sennheiser has determined and applied a correction curve (which I doubt).
 
Nov 25, 2013 at 1:15 PM Post #396 of 746
I had the 400h+ set only for a while (I had to return it) but the sound was pretty close between the sets after the 2 first days of use (around 50h). I was playing music continously on my set at normal listening level and observed that the biggest sound change occured in the first day. I would say for the first hours but I was not willing to test them overnight. :)
 
As anoobis said, I'm quite sure that the curve that Seinnheiser output shows the factory sound.
 
Dec 18, 2013 at 8:53 PM Post #401 of 746
I've sent in my registration/ frequency chart request for my new pair, #26089. How long does it usually take to get? All I can say is these cans sound amazing on my Decware rig. They may be giving the LCD-3 a serious run for the money ...
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