OMG HD800S! Actually f'ing awesome and the naysayers were assholes

Awesome.

Also, jerg, you can let TheAlchemist know you're not a friend yet on here and he'll fix that.

 

Too bad making a helmholz resonator is beyond the modding community.

 

What's the account status do, if I may ask?

 

I'm trying to figure out how the helmholz resonator is going to fix the enclosure issue. When I think helmholz resonators, port tubes and transmission lines come to mind.

 

From Wikipedia:

"Helmholtz resonators are used in architectural acoustics to reduce undesirable low frequency sounds (standing waves, etc.) by building a resonator tuned to the problem frequency, thereby eliminating it.

Helmholtz resonators are also used to build acoustic liners for reducing the noise of aircraft engines, for example. These acoustic liners are made of two components:

• a simple sheet of metal (or other material) perforated with little holes spaced out in a regular or irregular pattern; this is called a resistive sheet;
• a series of so-called honeycomb cavities (holes with a honeycomb shape, but in fact only their volume matters).

Such acoustic liners are used in most of today's aircraft engines. The perforated sheet is usually visible from inside or outside the airplane; the honeycomb is just under it. The thickness of the perforated sheet is of importance, as shown above. Sometimes there are two layers of liners; they are then called '2-DOF liners' (DOF meaning Degrees Of Freedom), as opposed to 'single DOF liners'".

I would guess they've done something like this to help with the problematic spike.

 

I have to say I do like the color of the HD800S - I wonder if they are going to be using different drivers altogether and just use a fancy new word for them, or very similar drivers and just use different damping materials as most believe (as far as damping materials go). They may tweak the bass a bit and reduce treble. I am guessing the price will be closer to the HD800's current price, maybe a little more because of the extra cable -but I don't suspect it is going to be more than $1600 - $1699 IMO. But I cannot see them being more than $2000 - I just don't see that happening.

 

Two layer honeycomb/perforated resistive sheets was also my first thought when I saw Arnaud talking about Helmholtz resonators, as no other type would fit inside the HD800 cup cavity. Unfortunately, the modding community is severely outplayed by the technical capabilities of Sennheiser. However, funny enough, rugliners aren't too different from what Sennheiser is trying to do here XD

Also, I can see this being integrated with the dust cover as one piece, or screwed/glued into the cup directly.

 

So...does the Anax mod constitute a helmholtz resonator?

The way I had thought of the issue was that the enclosure dimensions (specifically the diameter of the metal ring) created a rigid boundary, and when you have a rigid boundary you get resonance at a given frequency (proportional to velocity and wavelength). By putting an acoustic material over the boundary, you're essentially changing the boundary equation. What happens depends on the material...you can remove energy from the system (definition of damping) and/or slightly change the wavelength of the resonance.

Based on what I've outlined I fail to see how any damping scheme constitutes a helholtz resonator. I'm not an acoustic wiz by any stretch though so someone please correct me. Someone summon Arnaud

 

Looks like they're not using the same type of damping schematic like the DIY mods.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/785577/sennheiser-hd800s-unveiled/390#post_12022723

 

edit: argh, posts these too late XD

 

Wow, just saw the pics. So the driver is changed directly ...

 

Covering the mesh but not the metal ring....hmmm....get to work on that Bill

Hold on, do my eyes deceive me or is that the same as what I'm looking at with existing HD800?

 

What are the differences?, Only difference I see is a thick ring of something on the center of the baffle?

 

So, thread topic needs to be changed then.

 

Yes, I realized that too. some damping in the central circle over the driver. If I'm not mistaken, the central part of the cone diaphragms are responsible for the treble response as well.

This new HD800s with some anax mod over it could yield a rather dark headphone.