[whirlwind]

Damn, 22 pages of this thread in one day.
 
This thread has gone viral 

 

[meraias]

I think I'll just wait for the HD1000 due in 2020...

 

 

[TonyNewman]

How this version compares with the modded HD800 will interest me. The modded version addresses the treble issue, so if the new version does that and not much else, then it might be a tough buy decision for the folks that already have the modded HD800.

 

[raband]

Especially if they have to pay extra for cables they either already have, or do not need.
 
(unless the extra cable comes with no bump in price from the HD800 RRP)
 
edit: might not be as silly as it sounds. HDVD wasn't on my shopping list - until I saw that the S comes with balanced cables. Might be a "loss leader" that works real well for them if they went that way.

 

[James-uk]

I think the pricing of this incremental upgrade from sennheiser will say more about the competition than anything else. If sennheiser had to compete with other dynamic headphones in this price bracket for the title of best dynamic headphone in the world then we would most likely see the current HD800 price cut and the HD800S coming in around $1500 /£1000.
Unfortunately nothing is even close to knocking the HD800 off its perch so sennheiser don't need to cut its price and can charge more for the HD800s.

 

[dan.gheorghe]

Since HD800s is an "Improvement" version, I afraid it will be $2.2k to $2.5k to be compete with HIFIMAN HE1000 pricing and HD800 is not EOL.

 
From a performance point of view I think that the "old" hd800 beats HE1k at half the price. Ah, I also liked he6 more than the new flagship. I hope that they don't want to compete with HE1k just from a price point of view. If one has an unreasonable price, it shouldn't be taken as example by others.

 

[intlsubband]

  I think I'll just wait for the HD1000 due in 2020...

 

 
Already released well over a decade ago  http://static.tz.nl/f/g/28852php9IEUmr.jpg

 

[phonomat]

And probably lurking in the wings, getting a feel for what pricing would seem to be acceptable and for ideas on the best blurb to launch/release it with.

I got one: RESHAPING SIBILANCE!

 

[ScubadudeSA]

Positioning for a new dynamic flagship if you ask me. Senn has history of continuing dethroned flagships and I expect same will happen here. HD800 could command a hefty price premium at launch because it was clearly streets ahead technology wise. Now the market is more competitive than ever, so HD800 price probably needs to come off 20-25% to exist alongside other old and new flagships. So launch the bundle at a slight discount to 800+balanced cable and reduce 800 by 10 or 15%. Then when the new flagship is launced drop the cable to reposition the S as well.

 

[arnaud]

I had only a short hour to enjoy the fujiya-avic festival this fall but I was blessed: anakchan and I got to spend 20-25min talking to Axel Grell, who is actually the father of the HD800 and HD580/6x0 series among other things. That was just awesome!

We could talk about the hd800s tuning and he repeated pretty much the words from the video (response was made a bit flatter and extended at both ends of the spectrum).

When discussing the diy mods that were done to the hd800, he actually mentioned sennheiser tried to reproduce them to see what the enthusiast were raving about. Actually, you'd be amazed how much open he was and clearly listening to the pulse of the crowd (following head-fi in particular). For the felt mod, it turns out sennheiser felt this was kind of ruining their efforts to make a resolving transducers with too much attenuation of the highs and also affecting staging because of the dissymetric absorption in the earcup.

The hd800s tuning is not your typical diy trick apparently. Axel mentionned about a tuned absorber for specific frequencies (helmholtz resonator for those who know a bit about acoustics). That was, they might have addressed the 6khz peak without killing of the upper treble (they managed to extend the highs actually).

Unfortunately, I ran out of time to try the hd800s (would be hard to comment without familiar source and music anyhow) so I will let others comment on the actual sound attributes.

We also had some conversation in regards to the manufacturing of the electrodes for the new orpheus, I will post that in the other thread I guess. That was pretty cool conversation!

The good news is that Axel seems to be back to headphone R&D even though his official role is more in marketing as I understand. He was for instance involved for both the new orpheus and hd800s projects, so a great news I think (I still think the HD800 was one of if not the most innovative phone to be released in the past decade). We briefly talked about the moderate success of the hd700, and I have a feeling Axel will get involved in its successor and/or evolution (note: he did not say he was working on hd700 successor, that's my take from the conversation).

Cheers,
Arnaud

 

[raband]

They gave a glimpse of the "unobtainable" a month or 2 ago.
 
By bundling the cable and relaunching the HDVD I reckon they're testing the water a bit to see if they can gain traction with the whole transport from the source to the ears.
 
I'd be tempted to wait to purchase anything until they do the amp/dac release - may be better deals if you get the whole shebang at once.

 

[prot]

From a performance point of view I think that the "old" hd800 beats HE1k at half the price. Ah, I also liked he6 more than the new flagship. I hope that they don't want to compete with HE1k just from a price point of view. If one has an unreasonable price, it shouldn't be taken as example by others.

Indeed it shouldn't. But that is exactly how it works.

1. Some smartarse comes up with a wildly overpriced product. Somehow it's successful.
2. Many follow and the fastest are successful too. The lucky schmuck at no1 is now a 'genius'.
3. Everyone follows and there is an industry-wide crash. Sometimes a few 'geniuses' are lynched by the even smarter (and by now ruined) mob.
... rinse .. repeat ..
And since we are the smartest monkeys, all the above is nowadays done 'scientifically' by economists & marketers.

I'd say that hifi is approaching the end of the 'golden era' at no2... very fast! May even be past it but no3 only becomes official after the first genius ruins himself and everyone around.
The patient will be rewarded with a glorius aftermath garage sale

 

[lukeap69]

@arnaud
Do you know if the 'absorber' will be available as an accessory?

 

[raband]

Doubt it - probably won't fit MK.I and warranty would be void as soon as you open anything to insert it

 

[sgtbilko]

Indeed it shouldn't. But that is exactly how it works.

1. Some smartarse comes up with a wildly overpriced product. Somehow it's successful.
2. Many follow and the fastest are successful too. The lucky schmuck at no1 is now a 'genius'.
3. Everyone follows and there is an industry-wide crash. Sometimes a few 'geniuses' are lynched by the even smarter (and by now ruined) mob.
... rinse .. repeat ..
And since we are the smartest monkeys, all the above is nowadays done 'scientifically' by economists & marketers.

I'd say that hifi is approaching the end of the 'golden era' at no2... very fast! May even be past it but no3 only becomes official after the first genius ruins himself and everyone around.
The patient will be rewarded with a glorius aftermath garage sale

As someone who works in both product marketing and marketing in general, I think your observations are spot on. From a pure 'value proposition' point of view, to outsell a crowded market, you have to offer something that no one else is able to offer - what we call a compelling event. As such things are rare, price becomes the next battleground.
 
I agree we're probably getting into the end game of your stage 2 above, which will mean a few will continue to offer silly priced goods, and most will drop back in order to sustain some level of sufficient sales to recoup investment costs.
 
What also surprises me, is the number of times I read a review on here about HP's or IEMs that states they are punching way above their price bracket. I do feel that such a state is now the new normal and that we're actually seeing the beginnings of the point where quality is more commoditised, and accessible to those with slimmer wallets.