Sennheiser HD800 S Impressions Thread (read first post for summary)

[csglinux]

Yes the black paint is supposed to make it "dark". LOL.

Seriously now, the added euphonic distortion has surely been dialed in by tweaking the driver itself.

The black paint and the driver must be it But I've never seen this confirmed anywhere.

Can any physicists out there explain what one could do to a driver on an open-back headphone to add this 80 Hz 2nd harmonic overtone?
I guess somehow you could vary the material to allow a particular resonant mode? But if so, why would it only affect the even harmonics?
And how do they limit that distortion to only the lower frequencies?

It sounds awesome. I'd just love to find out its secrets...

 

[Whazzzup]

No special sauce recipe for you!

 

[daltonlanny]

I wonder how the sonics of these and the new Focal Clear compare to each other?
Anyone who has an opportunity to compare them, please share.
Thanks.

 

[groovyd]

Recalibrated HD-800s. Downloaded the curves today should receive the headphones back tomorrow. Top is the original calibration profile, bottom is the new profile. Not a lot of difference except in the bass there is a significant delta that should tone down the correction which will hopefully clean up the bloated bass I was hearing. Not sure if they fully remeasured it as the two are almost impossibly identical above 200hz but if they did the repeatability is indeed impressive on their measurement rig. Guessing they remeasured but then just tweaked the original profile to compensate for the bloated bass.

Original Profile:

New Profile:

 

[TYATYA]

Almost error in FR(not flat respond) cause by hp's respond AND sensivity of listening ears. Because dac and amp usually has much smaller tolerance. To my ears hd800s has peak ~6300hz and valey @8khz (but narrow) and a peak@10khz. Those peak are quite high gain but narrow bandwidth.... If measurement filter the result,ex. 1/3 octaves, or 1/8 octaves... can show different graphs where peak/valey disappears

 

[groovyd]

Received the headphones this morn and on first listen the slight cut to 100hz and high end tweak has fixed for me the glaring issue I was hearing.

 

[csglinux]

Received the headphones this morn and on first listen the slight cut to 100hz and high end tweak has fixed for me the glaring issue I was hearing.

Do you know exactly what was done to your headphones? I presume you're not talking about software changes (i.e., EQ)?

 

[groovyd]

Do you know exactly what was done to your headphones? I presume you're not talking about software changes (i.e., EQ)?

yes, no hardware changes to the headphone only a retuning of the calibration profile (EQ).

 

[YesThisIs]

yes, no hardware changes to the headphone only a retuning of the calibration profile (EQ).

How much did it cost you to get those calibrated?

 

[groovyd]

How much did it cost you to get those calibrated?

depends on if you ship them your headphones for custom calibration or simply purchase new headphones from them already calibrated...

https://storeus.sonarworks.com

highly recommend their systemwide utility which comes with tons of averages profiles for many popular headphones if you want to see how averages correction goes before having a custom calibration done.

 

[peter123]

After spending about a month with the HD800S now and playing around with different sources I'm totally enjoying them. The bass is still a bit bloomy compared to the HE560 and vocals are a bit recessed in comparison but everything else is better on the HD800S to me. I find that eight time out of ten I pick the HD800S.

I find the HD800S to work great with all of my "good" sources and they're also revealing enough to show differences between the sources. This makes them very fun to use as I can switch between sources depending on mood or music that I listen to and still be rewarded with great sound but in slightly different flavors.

In all I'm very happy with my purchase of them.

 

[swspiers]

I agree, Peter. They are an amazing experience, however, coming from something like the Meze 99 Neo's, the bass is anything but bloomy! They still sound like a high-quality "sealed" sub to me.

 

[csglinux]

I went through the entire wall of closed and open-back over-ear headphones at our local distributor here in LA (they stock pretty much everything) and, for my ears, the HD800S topped everything else. Number 2 for me was the Utopia - it can be more revealing on the right tracks and with the right sources, but it can also sound a tad bright on some tracks. For the majority of what I listen to, I prefer the HD800S. And whatever magic Sennheiser worked with that second harmonic distortion, the bass seems just about right to me

 

[endgame]

I went through the entire wall of closed and open-back over-ear headphones at our local distributor here in LA (they stock pretty much everything) and, for my ears, the HD800S topped everything else. Number 2 for me was the Utopia - it can be more revealing on the right tracks and with the right sources, but it can also sound a tad bright on some tracks. For the majority of what I listen to, I prefer the HD800S. And whatever magic Sennheiser worked with that second harmonic distortion, the bass seems just about right to me

Agreed. Anyone describing the bass on these as bloomy, must only listen to Grado. Honestly, if they had a few more decibels of sub bass and mid bass, I’d be fine with that. Most people would say they have quality bass but it is a tad shy of neutral, especially by modern standards.

 

[swspiers]

Agreed. Anyone describing the bass on these as bloomy, must only listen to Grado. Honestly, if they had a few more decibels of sub bass and mid bass, I’d be fine with that. Most people would say they have quality bass but it is a tad shy of neutral, especially by modern standards.

LOL, Grado are my first and beloved cans. That was funny!