Sennheiser Orpheus II vs JPS Labs Abyss AB-1266 first impressions and comparison:
The day began with a text message from the Swedish Sennheiser sales manager that the schedule for the listening sessions at the Waterfront hotell is a closed session only for press journalists, and that they had 30 bookings of the day.
So he was very uncertain if everyone could have a listening to the Orpheus II...
⛈⛈
Next time is at the Munich HighEnd he said ;(
But, it is a shame to the one who just give up , so i called some of my contacts and pulled some strings and manage to get the second last session with the Orpheus II .
I had a listening to the Abyss with the SuperConductor HP cable at the High End fair Event one hour before the Orpheus II session, so i had the Abyss sound fresh in my memory when i entered the small Sennheiser room on the 4th floor in the Waterfront Hotell.
I sat down in the sofa next to the phones and the Sennheiser Orpheus head developer/Designer gave me a small presentation about the build and spec of the huge gold coloured nano diaphragms (costs 3000 Euro each) and the small but powerful 780 volts power amps integrated in the headphones for zero resistant and loss in that short distance . It is like the amp are welded on to the driver almost.
( I was forbidden to take any pictures on the parts he showed me)
The diaphragms have more than twice the area of a normal dynamic headphone because it is a electrostatic type, you need bigger area if you want a to achieve a deep shivering bass and airy sound.
The finishing was overall nice with the marble and the motoring door and tubes going up and down. But i think the headphones felt a little to plastic-light and a very similar to the HD600 / HD650 in the felling of the headband, but it got a nicer micro fibre / skinn clothing against the head.
The Orpheus was connected to a T+A CD/SACD 3000 HV player with some
Wire World XLR cables with Neutrik plugs.
No fancy power filtering or anything like it where used.
Listening & Comparison:
The Sennheiser reference SACD sampler disc were inserted and out came the sound with the volume set to 12 o'clock = Medium High level.
Tracks that was played:
1. Wolkenmeer - Beo Brockhausen
2. No Sanctuary Here - Chris Jones
3. When I Didn't Care - Sara K.
4. Closer - Steve Strauss
5. I Love Paris - The Bassface Swing Trio
The first thing that came to mind was the big warm and meaty Magna Planar sound !?
The headphones did shiver and shake in the lower base notes in comparison to the dead silent Abyss. Here i think we need some dampening padding in the final version i said to the Sennheiser designer and he said that he had also head it, but it was hard to fix it.
The sound spectra is from over your ears and down to your jaw very big, but not so big soundstage as i hade imagine. It plays and present the lead singer / instruments and choir very narrow my ears, so you do not get the feeling that it plays from a distance away. Good or bad is your own reference. But it got a bigger band sound than the Abyss, but not as clean bass or detailed in the upper mid / trable.
Here both Abyss and HD800 are much cleaner and got a wider soundstadge.
The Orpheus II sound where not so delicat or exclusive as the Abyss has, and i missed out the pitched black background, it was more some sort of distortion / noise hiss in the background.
The bass is very deep and have a great impact, so this is the first electrostatic headphones with some balls as the designer / developer said
And he is true!
But the control and the fine inner detail resolution, dept , bass quality , black background goes to the Abyss
Orpheus wins in the big band feeling.
The Abyss was the best i had heard before, but i think Orpheus plays even more dynamic and you got a bigger sound but less controlled and precession.
It doesn't ones get sharp or veil, it is very warm and lively, but misses the fine detail in the same way.
So my conclution is:
If the Abyss had a bigger diaphragm driver it will be on top of the Orpheus II from my listening perspective!
I also think in the end, the Orpheus was a fun and very warm headphone with great drive to listening to, but the Abyss winns in the end with more control , fine detai and infra pure controlled bass.
The Abyss sounds more like a labratory testing instrument in comparison to the Orpheus II, who sounds more like a heavy tuned HD650 on steroids, with a warm livley sound, but does not got the last in control over the diaphragm, and does not sound electrostatic, more like hybrid btw magna planar / Electrostatic.
It could also be that the Orpheus II pre amp stage who got tubes that gives the noisier background and warmer than normal sound sound i think.
So i did find the headphones warmer and slight more playful, but i would not pay the acclaimed 55.000 Euro price tag, it is the headphones that is the nice pearl, but you cant drive them with any other amp or buy the headphones separatly, so you have to buy the hole set.
So in the end i keep my Abyss with a good amp like the Wells Audio HeadTrip as a winner, because the sound is better overal.
Read more about the Abyss + HeadTrip + DAVE combo $35.000 system here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/775550/wells-audio-headtrip-amp/0_50#post_12376524
It was great fun to hear this very rare and special headphone nevertheless !
(Im laying in bed with 39 celsius on the thermometer
, so im sorry for my English)
