FiGuY1017
500+ Head-Fier
Wow all this reinforces my happiness with the stock sound ,I wouldn’t personally change anything for my set up...actually both of my set ups. Probably the music I like plays into the equation as well.
Zero stress on cable. Remove and install the cable daily will cause wear off the coating on contact pins, which applied for improve electric transfering
Howdy gents,
I'm evaluating whether to keep the HD800. I think I will, for the usual mind-blowing reason, but I could use some help evaluating the frequency graph (attached at the bottom) and EQ suggestions. I'm blind, so it'd be great if one of you could "read" the graph for me by stating it in dB. I understand the graphs are very smoothed out, but maybe it will provide some useful info to me. Similarly, EQ discussions are always carried out using images. It's a bit awkward buying $1000 headphones that I don't like listening to without EQ, but that's the story. Mids are too thin for violins and cellos to have body, tiz and sibilance are bad. WHat's not to dislike? The lightning transient response and imaging, of course.
Playing with EQ, I've learned two things. First, my disdain for EQ was premature, since I'm fairly stunned by the good results with the HD800, even using a simple 31-band GEQ in Foobar. Second, I've learned that I suck at predicting what bands correspond to which sonic characteristics--lack of experience.
What I've roughed out so far is the following:
* -6 dB @6kHz. Kill it, kill it, kill it until it's dead!
* Next, I took literally everything else down about 2 dB to give me some room to play with boosting.
* Brought up the low bass just for fun.
* Brought 2.5 kHz up to 0 dB for a Grado-like spike--sheepishly, because I sold my SR-225i years ago to get away from this spike. I think I need to bring up surrounding bands, since the highs are now unnaturally spotlighted.
* Importantly, I progressively dropped bands from 800 Hz down to 200 Hz by very slight amounts each time to add fulness to the fundamentals.
...That's pretty much the story so far. Comments and suggestions, particularly in relation to how this seems when juxtaposed on the individual frequency response graph?
For context: According to my ears, the HD600s are "correct" and my gear shoots for neutral, though I have all Bur Brown DAC chips in everything by choice. Amp is TEAC HA-501, said to be neutral.
A couple of other questions:
* What's with the diamond-shaped raised area on the screens inside the ear cups? Are we decorating ear cups now?
* Early HD800 impressions didn't report the 6kHz spike, and there are at least some suggestions that the trend in drivers is toward more treble since 2013, either intentionally or just batch variation? Did early adopters just not hear the spike and bright treble because they couldn't see it on the graph, was it something that became more of a real problem in the drivers along the way, or do newer owners just hear it as more profound because they are already listening for it? I know I legitimately cringe at the spike. I just kind of worry about the possibility that I either have an extreme unit, perhaps even a fake (EBay), or that newer units just ain't what they used to be.
Bought 2 pcs in my local, in an AVshow. Made of Aluminum. Laser mark in back : Design by elago in California made in Korea.Where did you get the Sennheiser stand?
One of these days I need to devote a whole day to compiling my HD800/K1000 review into something postable...or /more/ postable.
Since no one else has responded, I'll chime in with what I came up with.
I use Tone Boosters TB FLX4 and TB FLX which are parametric EQ plugins that have been installed in Media Center in the DSP Studio section.
I have written up the settings I use and posted them here, along with a couple of 'companion' tweaks that dovetail well with the EQ I'm (and others) are using.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-diyrs-cookbook.781268/page-15#post_12300653
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/the-diyrs-cookbook.781268/page-24#post_12489775
But by itself Sonarworks is a really good introduction into what is possible using EQ, and what I've done, using the Tone Boosters EQ, is to 'adjust' the FR curve of my 800's to be closer to flat and along with adding the SSBB, which brings up the extreme bottom end all the way up to ≈ 100Hz, the results are most gratifying.
JJ
That was just a rumor. The sound difference people were hearing was the older earpads being squished & used up vs a pair with brand new ones.
Though I think there was a revision in tuning, but that was from the first batches of HD800 a decade+ ago. I think the first few hundred produced.