It's the same as when people tell me that I should a difference in SQ due to using 'higher grade' cables - I don't, and I'm personally satisfied that there is substantive scientific evidence why I don't. If you do, that's fine.
So you are suggesting that in the hdvd800 the balanced sounds more to your liking than se. That is up for debate for hdvd800 owners to discuss and may reflect the tech they have used in those particular dac amps.
Well, I really don't want to derail this thread, but given that Senn is including a balanced cable with the HD800S it's hardly altogether off topic. Have you read what Tyll says in the thread I linked? Here's some of it:-
I want to echo gpalmers sentiment here: As you go up and up with a traditional unbalanced amp, especially once you get above $1K (not including DACs and such) you begin to be pretty hard up against the diminishing returns curve, so doubling your price gats you only a few percentage points of sonic performance improvement. But doubling the price with adding (effectively) double the electronics of a balanced amp seemingly DOUBLES the performance, which is a damn good deal when your normally so hard against the diminishing returns curve. That "doubling" of performance may be an overstatement, but it's pretty clear, to any one that has heard it, that something very special happens with balanced amps that would be very hard to get any other way.
Balanced transmittion lines is a similar thing but really not the issue here. Using balanced trasmition line schemes can dramatically reduce common-mode interference on audio transmittion (and many other things like telephone lines) over distance, but it is not really the issue here. Balanced mono-block power amplifiers for speakers is a more direct analogy, and has long been done in the speaker world for similar improvements in the higher end of that spectrum of product. When we came out with the BlockHead (the first commercially available balanced headphone amp) our intention was to exactly mimic the balance mono-block paradigm of the high-end audio world. At first we did it simply because we wanted to make a rediculously expensive headphone amp that the broad audiophile audience would understand. After listening, we were gald we did, as the improvement is truly dramatic.
You are free to disagree of course, but I'd be interested if you have had any experiences that lead you to believe the opposite.
OT: OK, the same thing was a bad choice of words, but I stand by original point re: the purpose of a balanced circuit and the lack of scientific evidence of why it should affect the audio signal beyond eliminating possible ground noise. If you can supply some real evidence - as opposed to anecdotal evidence - to the contrary, I'd be happy to take a read of it!
Can purchase these anywhere at all right now? What is the price for a pair? I Can't find them on the Sennheiser site as available right now I am either wanting a pair of these or a pair of Audeze LCD-XC. Yes I also know they are two different styles headphones and one is open and one is closed
Can purchase these anywhere at all right now? What is the price for a pair? I Can't find them on the Sennheiser site as available right now I am either wanting a pair of these or a pair of Audeze LCD-XC. Yes I also know they are two different styles headphones and one is open and one is closed
and something here too
http://www.head-fi.org/t/777735/mrspeakers-ether-c-review-announcement-a-new-closed-back-planar-magnetic-flagship-from-mrspeakers
google search gives:
compared with HD800
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It's darn hard to chose between the HD 800 and HD 800S. I'm getting some good prices on both directly from Sennheiser as a Sennheiser retailer and the difference itself is more or less the cost of the included XLR-cable. But I'm not entirely convinced on the need or advantage of the XRL-cable so I'm not really sure if I'm willing to pay the extra price even though the price difference pretty much equals the cost of the cable in and of itself.
Everything I can gather from comparisons between the two the HD 800S sounds to be a bit warmer and not as forward and analytical as the HD 800. As I do prefer a more open, wide and analytical soundstage it does not sound like pay more for the HD 800S makes much sense to me, unless the addition of the XLR-cable is something that would greatly benefit me in some way or the other. The one upside on the HD 800S is the reports of it being much more forgiving in-terms of both the equipment used and the audio that is being played.
It's darn hard to chose between the HD 800 and HD 800S. I'm getting some good prices on both directly from Sennheiser as a Sennheiser retailer and the difference itself is more or less the cost of the included XLR-cable. But I'm not entirely convinced on the need or advantage of the XRL-cable so I'm not really sure if I'm willing to pay the extra price even though the price difference pretty much equals the cost of the cable in and of itself.
Everything I can gather from comparisons between the two the HD 800S sounds to be a bit warmer and not as forward and analytical as the HD 800. As I do prefer a more open, wide and analytical soundstage it does not sound like pay more for the HD 800S makes much sense to me, unless the addition of the XLR-cable is something that would greatly benefit me in some way or the other. The one upside on the HD 800S is the reports of it being much more forgiving in-terms of both the equipment used and the audio that is being played.
It's darn hard to chose between the HD 800 and HD 800S. I'm getting some good prices on both directly from Sennheiser as a Sennheiser retailer and the difference itself is more or less the cost of the included XLR-cable. But I'm not entirely convinced on the need or advantage of the XRL-cable so I'm not really sure if I'm willing to pay the extra price even though the price difference pretty much equals the cost of the cable in and of itself.
Everything I can gather from comparisons between the two the HD 800S sounds to be a bit warmer and not as forward and analytical as the HD 800. As I do prefer a more open, wide and analytical soundstage it does not sound like pay more for the HD 800S makes much sense to me, unless the addition of the XLR-cable is something that would greatly benefit me in some way or the other. The one upside on the HD 800S is the reports of it being much more forgiving in-terms of both the equipment used and the audio that is being played.
Both headphones have an identical soundstage, or headstage to be more precise, and are detail/imaging monsters. IMHO the S is slightly less detailed, has a more natural timbre on acoustic instruments and is slightly more forgivingabout amps but still pretty picky (it has the same complex impedance characteristics of its older bro). For a lot of music it does seem to be a little more forgiving than the classic.
OT: OK, the same thing was a bad choice of words, but I stand by original point re: the purpose of a balanced circuit and the lack of scientific evidence of why it should affect overall SQ (including aspects such as transparency and frequency response) beyond possibly reducing ground noise. If you can supply some real evidence - as opposed to anecdotal evidence - to the contrary, I'd be happy to take a read of it!
I have to say that if you compare the HD800 balanced and SE there is a big difference in SQ - and not just in volume (at least there is on an HDVD800). I'm convinced that's the main reason why Senn has chosen to include the Balanced cable with the HD800S; they know how much better it sounds. (Well, that and making more money!)
I do wonder how many people have (and will) buy the HD800S and try it with the balanced cable and make comparative judgements to the HD800 which they've only ever heard SE, not realising how much that might skew the results in favour of the HD800S. Good tactic by Senn!
It's actually a very legit point that I should do some A/B with a balanced classic HD800, or listen to the HD800 S single ended for a fair comparison (though I need to push myself to give up some of the magic to do so, and I'm honestly having a hard time with that ).
My Taurus has some really different power specs SE vs balanced. The Taurus isn't the best educational example though (balanced of the Taurus is not exactly 2x single ended), and I don't want to overcomplicate things and most probably don't understand it myself so deep into technicalities either. So let's keep things a bit more simple. A Violectric V281 seems a better example as it is basically 2 V200s in push-pull.
First of all, a lot of those amps have a sometimes substantial different output impedance SE vs balanced. Hard to link stuff right now (using my smartphone and slow internet on the train), but Tyll wrote a good article about damping factor on Innerfidelity if I recall well, and there is certainly enough to find when searching for output impedance and damping factor. The output impedance interacts with the headphone's own impedance and can very well alter the frequency response of that headphone, because the headphone's impedance is not a single value most of the time. Ortho's (planar magnetic) often have a very even and linear impedance curve and aren't very susceptible to this behaviour, but allthough the HD800 (S) is rated at 300ohm, it presents itself for the bass frequencies as an up to a 600ohm load to the amplifier. The interaction of 300ohm vs 600ohm with that amp's output impedance will result in a voltage alteration, which will alter the volume of that frequency (so impact the frequency curve). Good examples are Sennheiser's own HDVD600/HDV800, or tube amps, which don't have a near to zero output impedance (trying to nullify its impact). Some tube amps even have a switch to change the output impedance (e.g. Icon Audio HP8 MkII) because the impact can be rather pleasing. If you ever have the chance to test this out, play around with it and hear the differences for yourself.
Is a balanced amp always better than a single ended one? Not at all. It is just easier and cheaper to design a very good amp with a high speed and power spec using 2 cheaper motors in push-pull configuration, than using one very advanced and expensive single motor that is able to perform the same task equally on its own. The higher on the scale you get, the more the necessary amount of extra power for very small improvements in speed and drive is out of proportion (law of diminishing returns). (It's very similar actually to racing cars.) The more you push motor technologie to its limits, the more problems and trade-offs will occur (distortion by overloading some components, noise,... single ended setups share one cable for the signal returning to the amp (as electricity is of course a closed circuit), so crosstalk may occur. Balanced uses 2 separate cables, making it easier to avoid this crosstalk). Maybe these issues can all be solved in the single ended design, but often at a great cost.
You can picture it as follows:
The driver coil is like a train wagon that needs to be moved back and forth. One locomotive might do a good job, but just lack enough power (delivered current) to perform the fastest movements fast enough, to resolve the most speedy micro-details and transients. More power would result in greater speed, so better control of the wagon (voice coil) and resolution, which of course is desirable.
You could develop a locomotive with 2x the power at 4x the cost, or you could just add another locomotive at the other end of the wagon, which is exactly what balanced amps traditionally have been doing.
Does a single locomotive exist that has even more power than both the other two together? Probably, but it will most likely cost way more. In this case, your top notch single ended amp will beat your balanced design, as it has more controlling capability on tap.
By consequence, because of the law of diminishing returns, a well designed balanced amp should be more capable than its equally priced single ended competitor using the same technology. Is this always the case? Of course not. That depends on the design, technology used, manufacturing country,... in the real world far more factors come to play.
Is, within the same amp, balanced always better than single ended? Here these other factors are no issue. So in a well and logically designed amp, it actually should be better. It should by design have more power on tap and have better control over the headphone driver.
Is balanced, subjectively, always percieved as the better of the two in this single amp? Not at all. Some other factor might be in play enhancing the single ended sound, or degrading the balanced sound. And even if there aren't any of these skewing factors, sometimes lesser control or a different output impedance can sound better to your ear, smoother, lusher, more to your liking. It may have better synergy with your otherwise too dry sounding headphones. Look at those tube amps that specifically cater switches for high output impedance... if you happen to like an "objectively technically worse" drive, I suggest you simply use it and be very happy with it
Same goes for the crosstalk. Some people like it actually (try listening to some Beatles music with no crosstalk at all... in no way natural that one ear can't hear the least bit of the sounds in the other ear. Some amps, like the SPL Phonitor (2), even offer a crosstalk circuit that is user configurable to counteract this way of stereo mastering by isolating instruments in only one channel.
It's darn hard to chose between the HD 800 and HD 800S. I'm getting some good prices on both directly from Sennheiser as a Sennheiser retailer and the difference itself is more or less the cost of the included XLR-cable. But I'm not entirely convinced on the need or advantage of the XRL-cable so I'm not really sure if I'm willing to pay the extra price even though the price difference pretty much equals the cost of the cable in and of itself.
Everything I can gather from comparisons between the two the HD 800S sounds to be a bit warmer and not as forward and analytical as the HD 800. As I do prefer a more open, wide and analytical soundstage it does not sound like pay more for the HD 800S makes much sense to me, unless the addition of the XLR-cable is something that would greatly benefit me in some way or the other. The one upside on the HD 800S is the reports of it being much more forgiving in-terms of both the equipment used and the audio that is being played.
In light of my previous post, that question can only be answered if you tell us what amp you plan using it with. And even then, you might prefer the "worse" amplification as it could sounds better to your ear... or allow you more enjoyment instead of focusing on every single detail. Some people choose to give up some soundstage to attain this more relaxed sound. Though the general consensus for HD800 (S) is that they get better with more power on tap. Sounds to me like your preferred sound will be enhanced by going to a more capable amp, what balanced will probably be compared to the same amp single ended.
Is this an impressions thread? I thought that was what this forums point is?. Lets wait for more S to hit the market. Hope to hear from users like myself that have had no hd800 back experience as well and compare to other cans in their repitoire
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