[Failed Engineer]

 
I have no idea what I'm going to do for the month and a half trip out of the country next month. Anything that comes close to HD 800 in closed form?

 
The JH13s.  In some ways even better, but they are very similar sounding to me.

 

[icebear]

And that is only half of the battle. The other half is personal perception.

Harry Pearson of the absolute sound magazine thought that the sound of live, unamplified music should be benchmark to which all music reproduction is judged. This sounds good in theory, but even one's perception of what "live, unamplified" music sounds like is skewed to their personal experience. If one heard all concerts at Carnegie Hall and a different person heard the same orchestra outdoors at their community park, both people would have a different perception of what the instruments sound like. If you then asked both of these people to judge the same audio component, my guess is that both would have completely different takes on that components accuracy.

.....

 The key is to ask the person who listened at Carnegie Hall to judge recordings from Carnegie Hall and the person who attented the open air concerts to judge the recordings from these live events. A recording can only reflect a particular acoustic event in an actual space and only if you were attending the live event, you can have some clue if the recording matches what you have heard live. Difficult problem here : ususally it will take a long period of time until the recording becomes available, at least if we are talking about commercial recordings.
 

  That's why a few of us got together and tried an experiment. There were several parts and I won't reproduce the whole thing. But the house has a large living/dining room in an old french chateau with a Steinway baby grand in it. After a lot of tweaking, we compared the live sound to the recorded on different rigs. The HD800 rig ended up one of the systems that came closest to sounding like the real thing. SR009s did well too. As did a system with Focal 1027 BEs... The speaker rigs had to be tested more from memory, since I can play the piano in the room and then put headphones on and listen. But if you do that with speakers in the same room, you get the recorded ambiance of the room plus the actual ambiance of the room...

 
Now that's an interesting experiment, unique chance for a direct comparision.
I am not surprised that the HD800 seems to score well in such a test.

 

[Maxx134]

I say,
if you prefer sissy headphones that cover up imperfections in your gear the hd800 is not for you..

If you prefer nice opamp base toys like O2 then the hd800 not for you.

When you finnally admit your system is not up to par(!),
and you are finally ready to hear all that is wrong with YOUR SYSTEM,
then Ur ready for the Gawd afull truth the HD800 will deliver..

So if you want to upgrade your system to sound realistic & fantastic,
instead of a just a personal "sound signature",
then you move to the hd800...
NOT BEFORE,
Or you will have all types of erroneous type of comments which sound to me very naive and like complaining..

Oh well sorry to sound brash but believe me I been there done that and got rid of my hd800 first time simply because I did not understand it was my system, NOT THE HEADPHONES..

IN OTHER words, it does not matter if the can is bright, TO YOU,
What matters is if it reproduces anything harSh,
it is only playing what your other cans are HIDING from you!!..

 

[agooh]

 I listen to hd 800 it was normal nothing draw you to music, I find myself enjoy philps X2 more .
 
hd 800 sound normal and itchy,ringing in your ear which will cause loss of hearing ,deadly headphones for hearing .
my friend had strong headache cause from his hd 800 .  Doctor tell him to buy speakers and sold his headphones  .
 
hd 800 :Soundstage sound big but fake not real so many head fier's thing this is a strong point, but it's weak spot cause you lost a huge amount of detail . that's my point .
 
Note : to Sennheiser, I didn't want to repeat myself but something wrong cause headache after listening for couple of hours why is that ? Ring Radiator Driver is the reason behind that pain or what ?
I post this before but no answer so let's see here .

 

[paulchiu]

   I listen to hd 800 it was normal nothing draw you to music, I find myself enjoy philps X2 more .
 
hd 800 sound normal and itchy,ringing in your ear which will cause loss of hearing ,deadly headphones for hearing .
my friend had strong headache cause from his hd 800 .  Doctor tell him to buy speakers and sold his headphones  .
 
hd 800 :Soundstage sound big but fake not real so many head fier's thing this is a strong point, but it's weak spot cause you lost a huge amount of detail . that's my point .
 
Note : to Sennheiser, I didn't want to repeat myself but something wrong cause headache after listening for couple of hours why is that ? Ring Radiator Driver is the reason behind that pain or what ?
I post this before but no answer so let's see here .

 
This is very disturbing news.

 

[sfoclt]

I got my estate plan in order exactly so I can continue to enjoy these headphones.

 

[inseconds99]

Looking into purchasing HD 800's with my tax returns this month. I use my headphones to listen to sound, I don't use sound to analyze my headphones. I guess that would mean I am not an audiophile, I am a music and movie lover as well as an avid gamer. I am all about having the best in technology an equipment, whether it be my custom PC, calibrated 65zt60 Panasonic plasma or potentially these headphones. 
 
I have previously owned the HD 700's and I felt that there price per performance was severely lacking at that time. I found the treble peaks insanely irritating for the genre of music I was listening to. Also, I did not find them as comfortable as everyone made them out to be as my ear faintly touched the pads in a way that caused my ear to feel itchy.
 
Currently I am using the Soundblaster X7 as my Dac/Amp. Four questions I have before I 100% commit to the purchase;
 
1. Will the X7 be able to correctly power the 800's. (Some say the ohm spikes would cause an issue from proper amping, others say that's untrue) If not, would an o2/odac and or a Modi2 or Loki and an Asgard 2 do the trick?
2. Are there fatiguing treble peaks similar to the HD 700's?
3. Taking into account of diminishing returns would something like the HD600's, AKG 712Pro or another headphone get me 80% the sound of the 800's at a third of the price?
4. How are these headphones comfort wise, I will be using these headphones everyday for at least 5 hours. They will be used for music, movies and gaming, are they viable all-day comfort, multiple usage headphones if not why?

 

[MattTCG]

  Looking into purchasing HD 800's with my tax returns this month. I use my headphones to listen to sound, I don't use sound to analyze my headphones. I guess that would mean I am not an audiophile, I am a music and movie lover as well as an avid gamer. I am all about having the best in technology an equipment, whether it be my custom PC, calibrated 65zt60 Panasonic plasma or potentially these headphones. 
 
I have previously owned the HD 700's and I felt that there price per performance was severely lacking at that time. I found the treble peaks insanely irritating for the genre of music I was listening to. Also, I did not find them as comfortable as everyone made them out to be as my ear faintly touched the pads in a way that caused my ear to feel itchy.
 
Currently I am using the Soundblaster X7 as my Dac/Amp. Four questions I have before I 100% commit to the purchase;
 
1. Will the X7 be able to correctly power the 800's. (Some say the ohm spikes would cause an issue from proper amping, others say that's untrue) If not, would an o2/odac and or a Modi2 or Loki and an Asgard 2 do the trick?
2. Are there fatiguing treble peaks similar to the HD 700's?
3. Taking into account of diminishing returns would something like the HD600's, AKG 712Pro or another headphone get me 80% the sound of the 800's at a third of the price?
4. How are these headphones comfort wise, I will be using these headphones everyday for at least 5 hours. They will be used for music, movies and gaming, are they viable all-day comfort, multiple usage headphones if not why?

 
IMO...I wouldn't buy the 800 to be used with the x7. Nope, no way. You'd be much better off getting the hd600 and "making the journey" to get to the 800 when you're ready to invest in the amp/dac that bring the 800 to the place that you'd enjoy. 
 
On the wrong amp/dac the treble can be very harsh. 
 
The hd800 is super comfortable. I can wear it for hours and have no fatigue. 
 
GL!!

 

[Currawong]

We're now over 400 edited or deleted posts in this thread, all a result of derailments. Please keep cable and amp discussions OUT of the thread unless directly related to your experience with the HD-800s. 

 

[pearljam50000]

Well my HD800's finally arrived 

But just my luck, i got recommended to buy the Grado Mini adaptor, but i can't find it in any store(called about 8 stores)
i bought a chinese cheap adapter but it sounds like crap.
So now i can't use them with my Geek Out at all until they stores will have the Grado adapter again , and who knows how long that will take 

 

 

[agooh]

   
This is very disturbing news.

it's real news .

 

[62ohm]

  Well my HD800's finally arrived 

But just my luck, i got recommended to buy the Grado Mini adaptor, but i can't find it in any store(called about 8 stores)
i bought a chinese cheap adapter but it sounds like crap.
So now i can't use them with my Geek Out at all until they stores will have the Grado adapter again , and who knows how long that will take 

 

 
Finally, congrats mate!

 

[wink]

Congrats.
 
HD800 need good quality equipment and material to shine.

 

[pearljam50000]

Thank you all! 

Yes i need better equipment but i will start with the Geek Out until i can afford to upgrade to something better, so this will have to do for now.

 

[wink]

Don't forget to enjoy the journey....