[Sorrodje]

 The HD800 are what they are, and are not really my cup of tea, which is a shame as some of the things they do (crazy low distortion, best sound staging in any headphones yet, incredibly fast transients, smooth sweet mids) I love.  
I just cannot deal with that wonky, unnatural frequency response. 

 
I personaly have no problem with the frequency response, I personaly don't think the HD800 Soundstage is the best of the world ( Abyss one is IMO slightly better) I don''t think the HD800 is incredibly fast ( All stax I tried are faster) and I don't think HD800 have smooth sweet mids. I even think mids are maybe the worst flaw of the HD800 and I even think that this flaw makes the HD800 an incredible headphone for classical music because a lot of classical recordings are mid centric. I compared carefully my HD800 to a SR009 (EC Electra as amp) and FR of both headphones are close in my opinion. the HD800 is a bit brighter where the SR009 is more neutral with fuller mids. Just my opinion based on a short (but qualitative) experience. 
 
So we're not talking about absolute truth but only subjectives opinions. Fortunately the Headphone world is large enough to provides many options for different listeners and I don't see why the HD800 would be transformed to please to .. let's say .. Audeze fans . As much as I like the Audeze I tried , I much prefer the FR of the HD800 . Even if Olive/welti said what the "best" (??) FR is , I really don't care. My ears are what matters for me.
 
About Anax mod'. Never tried Yet but I hope to grab one soon to make my own opinion. I never felt any necessity of it until now . I think it's because I listen mostly to well recorded music and because my DAC and my amp smoothen it a bit ... even a bit too much for my tastes. Not sure yet .. but I have to manage with my musical tastes and I listen to a lot of EDMs who are definitely mastered too often (but not always) with too treble. IMO , YMMV ans so on.

 

[dxanex]

   
I agree that I don't think the rumoured new e'stat flagship and the rumoured discontinuation of the HD800 are actually related.
 
My guess is that they are going to discontinue the HD800 for an HD800-ii (or something like that), and that the e'stat flagship will be a totally separate venture. 
 
It would make a lot of business sense to improve it, and in the years since it released they are bound to have found ways to do so.
 
After a few years on the market anyone can breeze into the for sale forums and get the product for less, while other newer products take the “flavour of the month” ribbon.
 
Diminishing returns are natural no matter how good your product is.
 
If they put out an HD800-ii then suddenly no one wants to buy the used HD800, even in perfect condition. A lot of the existing HD800 owners are tempted to upgrade. People like me who liked a lot about the HD800 but didn’t like other things become interested again all of a sudden. It’s the latest and greatest for the crowd that follows the flavour of the month…
 
It’s just good business. 

 
Well, sure I'm with you on the good business part, but Sennheiser has quietly made changes in the past right? They changed the old HD 650 black drivers to the new silver ones...but they didn't call it anything else but a HD 650. And from what I understand there's debate on whether or not changing the drivers really did much of anything sonically (veil vs non-veil argument).
 
Some people have claimed that early HD800's don't sound quite like the most recent HD800's, so who's to say they haven't already been making subtle changes here and there? (Personally I think any change is much more dependent on amping/source than serial number). I'm not disagreeing with you, I guess my point is that if they make any significant change it will likely be a whole new model and they will keep the HD 800 the way it is. No way they will drastically change the HD 800 as it stands.

 

[hekeli]

   
I can identify 3 obvious areas for improvement:
 
1) The damping issue highlighted by the Anaxilus mod. If your flagship can be objectively improved with a small piece of felt, I can imagine its engineers might want to take the solution into their own hands.

 
Yet many people prefer it without the mod as it takes something special away.
 
 

2) Not really a big deal, but it is missing a few db of sub bass to be called linear. It’s an area for improvement, even if it’s not exactly make-or-break. That distortion under 30db is really not audible as bass at that level is just rumble anyway.

 
I guess you can tell us how to tune a super open dynamic transducer (not planar) headphone with lots of subbass and sensible distortion figures, keep it tight and snappy? And do this without sacrificing nothing from higher up? Funny how no one has managed this simple feat yet..

 

[EddieE]

   
Yet many people prefer it without the mod as it takes something special away.
 
 
 
I guess you can tell us how to tune a super open dynamic transducer (not planar) headphone with lots of subbass and sensible distortion figures, keep it tight and snappy? And do this without sacrificing nothing from higher up? Funny how no one has managed this simple feat yet..

 
Like I said, I don't see linear bass below 60hz as vital for headphones and speakers. If they can improve it a bit, great, but I don't see it as a deal breaker. 
 
Re. the mod. 
 
Headphone designers, good ones, are engineers not artists. 
 
The FR response of the HD800 (I suspect anyway) is as it is as they were aiming for the Diffuse Field Equalisation curve. They got extremely close to it, so objectively as engineers, they succeeded. 
 
The curve is not neutral, but like you say, some will like it anyway. 
 
The Anaxilus mod addresses an actual flaw (I suspect a reflection off the metal inside of the ear cup) - that is an engineering oversight. I image they want to fix it.

 

[hekeli]

 
The Anaxilus mod addresses an actual flaw (I suspect a reflection off the metal inside of the ear cup) - that is an engineering oversight. I image they want to fix it.

 
Flaw, intentional feature or a ring radiator physical necessity. Yeah I'm sure Sennheiser never measured the phone or detected this "feature", good thing it came up now as it has never been discussed or researched before! 

 
Hey I'm all for a great new flagship even if there are 5 coming every year from every manufacturer. But it's still going to be that, just another phone with a little different signature. Let's see who will build the "most neutral" phone this year.

 

[EddieE]

   
Flaw, intentional feature or a ring radiator physical necessity. Yeah I'm sure Sennheiser never measured the phone or detected this "feature", good thing it came up now as it has never been discussed or researched before! 

 
Hey I'm all for a great new flagship even if there are 5 coming every year from every manufacturer. But it's still going to be that, just another phone with a little different signature. Let's see who will build the "most neutral" phone this year.

 
... Which can be damped as the Anaxilus mod demonstrates. 
 
This argument that "if there was a problem, why wouldn't they spot it" suggests engineers are infallible. 
 
Every speaker and head phone has flaws which get addressed with revisions and new models, and that is how technology continues to improve. 
 
Until we literally cannot tell the difference between a transducer and real life, there is still work to be done.

 

[hekeli]

   
... Which can be damped as the Anaxilus mod demonstrates. 
 
This argument that "if there was a problem, why wouldn't they spot it" suggests engineers are infallible. 

 
Quote from Tyll:

BTW, Axel Grell is aware of the mod and said they did play around with something like it during development. He thinks it's a legit mod.

 
Enough said I guess. EQ or damp as you please, engineers will also do as they please.

 

[EddieE]

   
 
BTW, Axel Grell is aware of the mod and said they did play around with something like it during development. He thinks it's a legit mod.

 
I attended a presentation Axel Grell gave in London and one thing that struck me he spoke about the HD800 was their desire to remove variables between models, and variations in performance over time.  
 
He was saying that these can come about from soft or open materials which can degrade and vary both between models and also over time.
 
For instance, the HD600 and HD650 allowed energy to disperse between the driver and the ear by using open pads made of open foam covered in fabric. But as the headphones are worn, the pads compress becoming less open, and the fabric gathers natural oils, also becoming more closed. 
 
Their solution was the perforated metal earcup and thin closed pad. They could perfectly control how open it was with no degradation and little variability. 
 
If I was to guess why they did not use soft material damping here, that would be it. 
 
It doesn't mean they would not want to damp it, just that doing so without a soft fabric might have taken more research and time than they had (i.e. it would have to be changes to the actual metal piece).
 
They might want to come back to that. 

 

[Zoom25]

http://imgur.com/a/nc4OS#bwKbz42

 

[icebear]

  http://imgur.com/a/nc4OS#bwKbz42

 
Wow, some solid information for a change 

and not speculation about the HD800 being discontinued and a new flagship being imminent. But I guess it will not stop anything. It would spoil all the fun

 

[EddieE]

   
Wow, some solid information for a change 

and not speculation about the HD800 being discontinued and a new flagship being imminent. But I guess it will not stop anything. It would spoil all the fun

 
To be fair it probably will not stop speculation since this is from Sennheiser US tech support.
 
The headphones rapidly disappearing from European shops and being listed as discontinued seems a bit more concrete as this is a European company.
 
As far as the new flagship goes... I haven't been following too closely but my understanding was that its been soft-confirmed by insiders that it is in development?

 

[elvergun]

   
To be fair it probably will not stop speculation since this is from Sennheiser US tech support.

 
   Haha...so true.
 
 

 
   It certainly did not stop you from speculating:
 

   
The headphones rapidly disappearing from European shops and being listed as discontinued seems a bit more concrete as this is a European company.
 
As far as the new flagship goes... I haven't been following too closely but my understanding was that its been soft-confirmed by insiders that it is in development?

 

[money4me247]

   
To be fair it probably will not stop speculation since this is from Sennheiser US tech support.
 
The headphones rapidly disappearing from European shops and being listed as discontinued seems a bit more concrete as this is a European company.
 
As far as the new flagship goes... I haven't been following too closely but my understanding was that its been soft-confirmed by insiders that it is in development?

 
...or maybe a few European retailers ran out of stock or misentered the info in their system. the hd800 still seems widely available from most retailers.
 
Also, I don't see why the HD800 would be discontinued prior to the release of a new flagship. They would want to clear all their old stock first.
 
When has a headphone manufacturer preemptively discontinued their current model prior to the release of a new version? that seems extremely counter-intuitive. I feel like it makes the most sense to discontinued the HD800 AFTER the new flagship is available for purchasing.....
 
Hence, these rumors seem nothing more than silliness.

 

[Hifihedgehog]

   
...or maybe a few European retailers ran out of stock or misentered the info in their system. the hd800 still seems widely available from most retailers.
 
Also, I don't see why the HD800 would be discontinued prior to the release of a new flagship. They would want to clear all their old stock first.
 
When has a headphone manufacturer preemptively discontinued their current model prior to the release of a new version? that seems extremely counter-intuitive. I feel like it makes the most sense to discontinued the HD800 AFTER the new flagship is available for purchasing.....
 
Hence, these rumors seem nothing more than silliness.

I'll play devil's advocate against my own speculation and say, alternatively, this may be simply because of the large volume of purchasing from the holiday shopping season.

 

[Hifihedgehog]

   
Wow, some solid information for a change 

and not speculation about the HD800 being discontinued and a new flagship being imminent. But I guess it will not stop anything. It would spoil all the fun

 

  http://imgur.com/a/nc4OS#bwKbz42

It looks legitimate enough but, judging by the grammar, it looks like an off-shored help agent who just knows the standard answers and wouldn't know very much about such things. As a tablet reviewer, I sometimes try to interface with computer manufacturer's help agents to try to get some leads. But sometimes I get some very interesting answers that contradict press releases and are entirely false. On one occasion, I asked a Lenovo agent about an upcoming tablet and he said it wasn't coming out and it did not exist, all contrary to what the company had officially published at a computer convention just days before.
 
Now, this agent could be right but he could also be wrong. You could try to reach top-tier support or try contacting Sennheiser PR and see if you get anywhere doing that.