The HD800 & HD800S thread

It's funny you bring that up. I actually edited the "rambling" portion of my post down, but was originally musing on spending the time to "artificially" walk through the upgrade path. Half the fun of this hobby is slowly moving up the gear tiers and carefully listening for the subtle(and sometimes not so subtle) improvements each new piece brings. The problem is that it ultimately ends up costing a boat load more cash since you are usually losing capital with each purchase, even if buying and selling used. That being said, I miss the journey so to speak. The 800S feels like a good companion to revisit the sickness and chase after the dragon for a bit again.

tl;dr Does someone have a used Valhalla 2 they can sell me?

 

Darn, I was going to get an HD800S and have Colorware paint it silver like the original. I actually like the original look better.

 

I wonder which friend is this, must be heresy to dare even say HD800s is inferior to the original HD800.

On a serious note, since owning the HD800s for about a week plus and I am not totally convinced that it is the HD800 that I once knew, probably because I could tolerate the 6K peak unmodded but much preferred the Anax 2.0 mod instead. It felt like the 800s was somewhat overly damped which I don't particularly liked about it in which the highs feels less exciting (face tweeter experience ?)

 

I actually regret the journey...
Would go "good enough" or TOTL once and for all, if I could do it over again.

 

You could consider maybe getting the HD800 and some replacement HD800S drivers from Sennheiser? That could potentially cost less than the HD800S and give you that silver look.

Spoiler

How long till we see people swiping resonators from the HD800S at shows to stick in their HD800?

 

Of course, if you could Colorware it, then it wouldn't be authentic because the paint won't chip off every time you pick up the headphone.

 

Three weeks ago I went to a live concert where the entire Goldberg variations by Johann Sebastian Bach were rendered by a string trio made up of a wonderful violin, viola and double bass.

I bought their album with the Goldberg's recorded in the same location I listened to live. In fact the string trio launched their album on CD that same day.

I was quite central and five rows back to the trio and could hear everything.

Live: The violin was exquisite and dominated the viola and double bass. The viola struggled to keep up with the violin's reach whilst the double bass rumbled its low notes nicely and at times filled the room with such stupefying low end.

I listened to the album on my speakers fed by the Yggdrasil/Rag and could feel the same atmosphere. The ribbon tweeters in the Monitor audio speakers need careful placement, but once found the violin was again almost as sweet as the live performance. The bass roars steadily and the mids are clean but not overpowering.

As I am typing this post I am hearing the same album with the HD800S via the Yggdrasil/Rag. The first aria was different from the one I heard live and on the speakers. The instrumental balance is somewhat inverted. The double bass is omnipresent and at times overpowering. You hear every nuance of this beast of a string instrument.

On the HD800S the viola is more present and almost as pronounced as the violin.
The violin is beautifully rendered but its volume is slightly subdued.
The balance is somewhat inverted, favouring the bass and mids instrument.

So I searched the intricate way the violin sounds and found that the violin bridge resonates at 3kHz, and (you guessed it) 6 KHz! Could this be the reason for this?

As I listen to the 25th variation, a slower more sombre one, the violin has taken over. It is the dominant player. However it does use its lower registers, whilst the double bass and the viola use their upper registers. The last few arias show the same pattern of slightly more prononunced bass and mids.
The final aria which should be similar to the first one is strangely more balanced between instruments.

The microphone placement, recording and mastering may also be a reason for the discrepancy. There may also be greater synergy between the Yggdrasil/Rag and the HD800S as I don't have a sub paired with my speakers with less pronounced sub-bass. I am also not much experienced with headphones as other notable Super Best friends, such as Sorrodje, so take this with a huge pinch of salt.

I recently sold my HD800 and unfortunately can't compare it directly to the HD800S. It seems however that the HD800S has lost a little of that air, that sparkle of its older sibling that made well recorded music more addictive to listen to and less well recorded music at times painful.

Do I miss the HD800? Yep, but both headphones are imperfect, so pick (or mod) your poison and enjoy the music.

 

Makes me question where the girl on the right's right hand is.

 

I bet Axel Grell has a waifu pillow at home

 

The HD800 (and i guess the HD800S too) has a warm-tilted midrange. So, it's most prominent in the lower midrange, and slopes down to 4khz, where it's 10db lower than at ~500hz. Violins will sound a bit subdued with the HD800's midrange, much more akin to sitting further back at a concert. Something like the HE-560 or HE-X have a slight hump around 3-4khz, so they will emphasize the violins.

 

Does the 800S still have this paint chipping problem. I would love them to be a bit more resilient and not need babying. My old hd25s have gone through 10 years of abuse, been stood on, thrown accidentally and generally attacked - they look new.

 

It must be part of the HD800S experience, I'll have to pick one up myself now.

 

Well I am trying my best not to find out! But it seems like the paint is anodized or hardened somehow on the S. So I think it is less likely to chip...

 

@sorrodje

The French ran with it again! Haha damn that's insanely promosing. Can you please comment on material used? I'm going to redo my mods today and I'd love to try this while I'm at it.

 

@sorrodje that looks very promising. Does it sound as good as it looks? Especially compared to the S?