The HD800 & HD800S thread

+2 for the SDR mod if you already own the HD800. The cost of buying/selling just wouldn't make sense.

 

Sorry I'm just bad with words. I don't mean the treble is heightened by the Chord Mojo. It's just that... the Chord Mojo sounds.. shrill? with the hd 800. My impressions with the Mojo are similar to this user
http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/chord-mojo.218/page-6#post-25028
but it seems like we are the outliers who are the only ones experiencing this

Might have to do with the USB input as well?

http://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/chord-mojo.218/page-6#post-25221

I didn't know the Mojo sounds different off different inputs. I was using USB input so that might explain it.

YMMV I guess

 

What did you think about Elears sound?

 

I don't remember seeing this on SBAF. I found it interesting. There is quite a bit on making the HD800.
(Try to ignore the Closed Captioning, it is horrible.)

Sennheiser Factory Tour - Hanover, Germany (Dec 3, 2014)

 

Hmm, only from brief demo, they're pretty good if you're in for a fun headphones because dem bass, powerful impact etc but for 1000€ they're not what I want for critical listening and IMO not as clear as the HD800. At my 1st demo in Essen, I tried em with my Cayin i5 and they sounded kinda muddy, might be because my i5 is warmish. At 2nd demo at HiFi On Tour, they paired it with a Questyle CMA600i and they sounded clearer, but I guess I still longed for the treble extension and air that the HD800 has.

 

Anyone compared an HD800 S to an original HD800 with one of the "brightness taming" mods (the Arnaud, Anaxiuls, or similar)?

Right now there's like a $727 difference between the two on Amazon, and I'm wondering if the cost is justified...

Basically I guess I need to know is the S version just less bright, like a modded original? Or does it actually hit lower? I'm no basshead or anything, don't listen to hip-hop... But beyond the brightness thing, I never felt the original HD800 was able to reach low enough to accurately portray deep bass on many tracks... Like on rock tracks. Always felt thin to me.

 

Get the regular version, apply mods and buy Sonarworks. Save your dollars, forego your warranty.

/thread

 

The 800S is significantly warmer than the SD modded HD800. First off all the SD modded HD800 only reduces the 5.5k peak about half as much as the S does, in addition the S adds about 2.5db of effective bass. The tradeoff being the THD in the bass frequencies of the HD800S at 90db matches the THD of the HD800 at 100db, a terrible tradeoff. You could simply EQ the bass up 2.5db on the stock HD800 without paying that THD price. For some reason Sennheiser decided to intentionally increase the distortion on the HD800S driver.

So the modded HD800 will have cleaner bass than the HD800S, even after level-matching the bass via EQ. On the flip side, it will be noticeably brighter still at 5.5k, so the modded HD800 requires some EQ to make it outperform the HD800S, but it can be done. It also won't have a balanced cable included in the case, or some small stuff like a USB drive with frequency response plot.

 

the hd800 hits low just fine i think. initial self-testing it reaches down to 28hz as an usable frequency range. what you like is ''fat'' bass or bit thicker low-bass with a boost around 30-50hz range. i think your best option is the original hd800 with the sd mod. i never found the need to eq the hd800 with the sd mod. the hd800s is prettier looking and comes with bit extra stuff but, i think it does not justify the extra few to several hundred bucks in my opinion.

i listen to all types of music and never found issues with the hd800's bass performance. i actually think it's one of the best bass performers i ever experience so far and i use to own some stax stuff and even the stax lambda pro which is one few stax capable of 20hz with a powerful amp behind it. my modded lambda pro(to tame it's insane air response brightness) was my favorite headphone till i got the sd modded hd800.

 

Thanks for the replies.

Sounds like the modded HD800 and some EQing are my best bet then...

 

On the topic at hand; I'd say it's only worth going for the S if you want a warranty and don't want to deal with modding.

 

Anyway, good point about the warranty... That's something to consider. Thanks!

 

Why couldn't you still have the warranty with a new (from authorized dealer) HD800? All the common mods are reversible, and only SDR is a tad bit invasive, but still reversible

 

Presumption on my part that the headphones would be very closely inspected for a warranty service request and that they would care. If they aren't super anal about warranty requirements then I'm horribly wrong .

 

Guys, someone is sellling the Anaxilus mod on Ebay...

Is this allowed?

 

Ah sorry guys. Did not mean to promote it.

 

This may be nitpicking, but since this is an enthusiast forum after all...

When buying a HD800/S, make sure the one you are getting has tight cable connectors. My new HD 800 S had them a bit too loose for my liking. If you moved your head a lot (rare, but can happen sometimes) the left connector could and would transfer small sounds into the enclosure due to this movement. It´s a small thing, but perhaps the only known build quality issue with these headphones (it´s quite known that if you connect and disconnect the headphones a lot the connectors will eventually loosen up a bit). I asked Sennheiser about this and they said it´s within spec.

In other words there can be small variation between units (I have seen this in the various demo HD 800´s I´ve seen too; some are better some are worse), so when buying make sure you get one of the better ones and if you don´t need to switch cables don´t do it since that can loosen the connectors. This issue doesn´t exist in the HD600/650 or HD 700. With those in my experience you can disconnect the connectors as much as you want and there won´t be any small sideways movement at all. Since the HD 700 is a newer design than the HD 800 and fixed this issue it´s quite likely this will remain unique to the HD 800 models.

That being said, I made the call to sell them. Not because of this issue in particular, but they just generally weren´t getting as much use as my trusted HD 650´s so I in the end I couldn´t justify keeping them around. They were mostly being used for gaming and for that I can get a used HD 700 and enjoy the (for my head) much better long time usage comfort. The HD 800 series are great headphones, but for me they simply aren´t the all rounder the HD 650 are. I thought I could move to using the new S version as much or more, but turns out I couldn´t.