I had the chance to demo the Composer alongside an HD800S and an HD600 a couple days ago. My only other experience with audiophile gear is with the HD598 and HD6XX, with the HD6XX being what I currently own at home.
With all three, I listened to a few of my favorite tracks, primarily orchestral/classical, although with a bit of gospel mixed in. On symphonies, the HD800S felt like I was sitting in the concert hall. The instruments felt balanced and positioned like I would expect if I was quite close to the stage, but not "in" the orchestra. The Composer felt more like I was in the orchestra itself. Also, the Composer made it so I felt the bass from the cellos (is that called subbass?), it seemed a bit exaggerated to me. Listening to the Imperial March from the Star Wars: A New Hope soundtrack really rumbled with the Composer, which is not really an experience I remember from the concert hall.
For violin solos, I listened to Henryk Szeryng's performance of Bach's Sonatas and Partitas. The HD800S brought out echos in the recording which I had heard previously, but which now made me feel like I was in the room, hearing the performance live. Again, it felt natural to me. I could hear the same details with the Composer, but it felt more like I was listening to a recording.
However, when I got to Kirk Franklin's Love Theory, the HD800S fell flat. I'm not a bass head, but the HD800S didn't feel right here, even though I could hear all the instruments. In contrast, the Composer's rendition of this track was much more enjoyable. I'm not sure why, as by that time I needed to leave before I could parse out the differences.
As for the HD600, well it just seemed to pale in comparison. No matter what I was listening to, the recording felt compressed, with all the instruments and sound just mashed together, and I was shocked to realize that this sad sound was also the familiar sound of my HD6XX. Needless to say I didn't spend much time demoing that one.
That said, the price of either the HD800S or the Composer is a bit difficult to stomach. But I'm definitely on the hunt for an upgrade.
I become curious after reading your post. Since I have had the composer for only 5 days, I haven't tried it extensively with classical music.I have the HD800S. I even have a copy of the Szeryng you mentioned, and I am pretty familiar with it. There a few caveats, one is that both the senn and the AA are pretty reactive to what you feed it. The AA is much easier to drive, but I find it's more reactive to the dac than the senn, or more precisely, the dacs I have on hand. The other thing is that my brain has burn in issues, it gets used to a headphone, so when I switch it almost always sounds weird for a bit. So I tried longer listening, rather than quick back and forths, to give my addled brain a chance to catch up.
The last thing is that for me when I play something like Beyonce Renaisance, or Kendrick Lamar's to pimp a butterfly, it's not even close. Although the HD800s reflects everything in the mix, it is almost like half the music is missing, the bottom end on the Composer is beguiling, full and fun. The HD800s is one of the very best headphones for classical music and symphony in particular, so this is an interesting test.
For the Szeryng Bach, the HD800 wins hands-down. The violin just sounds a little more airy and right. The HD800s treble is so lit up that it's like you hear every nuance of the bow on the string. Actually the composer felt that way too, until I listened to the HD800s. Another interesting thing is that the violin was more piercing on the Composer, even though the Senn is more trebly.
So just for fun, I played Isabelle Faust's hi res version of the same Bach piece (in the this case sonata no 1). Now this is a modern recording, the sound is spectacular, and Faust is a modern master. Wow, to my total surprise, the gap between the headphones became much narrower. I can say the Senn is still slightly my favorite. But the Composer has a kind of deeply resonant quality that makes you feel like your hearing more of the richness of the violin. But the airiness of the senn seemed like the slightly better tradeoff. But it was so close I could imagine I decide the opposite tomorrow.
So next I moved to symphony. Actually, I kind of hate Symphony on headphones. The soundstage is usually way to narrow and everything takes place inside my head. I am probably a 2 channel stereo guy, but due to travel, my desire to keep good relations with my wife and the fact that my stereo gives off so much heat that in the swelter of southern france summer, I find myself grateful for the opportunity to keep the tunes flowing that headphones offer.
Anyway, so given all that, the single reason that I will never sell the HD800S is that it's about as good as symphony gets on headphones, at least until you spend seriousl;y more money. So I tried Klieber's definitive version of Brahms 4th. And having gained some curiousity after the last test, I also tried Chailly's Brahms. I used the 3rd movement of the 4th symphony, lots of banging on the drums and huge dynamic shifts from loud to soft.
Here it wasn't as immediately obvious to me which was better, but Ok the senn is better. The overall openess and slightly wider staging partially overcomes what I don't like about headphones and symphony. On the Klieber (a considerably older recording), instruments sound more crowded together on the Composer. I get why you might find it too boomy, but I did actually like the visceral feel of the tympani on the composer better than the more timid rendering of the Senn. This could be because we used different dacs/amps, I dunno. I am using the lehmann BCL and meier stagedac for this test. When I switched to Chailly, once again the differences narrowed. The Composer opened up much more. The boomy-ness of the tympani was less. Still I liked the senn better, again the airiness and wider staging is worth losing a little bottom end.
So headphones seem to have this problem that there is no jack of all trades. The Composer is ok for classical, the HD800s is better. But for a ton of other music, I am guessing the composer wins. Just out of curiosity what was driving the headphones?
