The HD800 & HD800S thread

also anyone have experience with these?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Jensen-Tran...193326?hash=item54162b5c6e:g:K2oAAOSwKrhVXQnd

I heard some people say this is better then the summed single ended output out of the Gungnir Multibit/Yggdrasil, pretty expensive though, is there really a difference?

(hd800s "review" on last post of page 28)

 

ya with se u gotta be careful with power and ground loops in my experience

 

I agree with quite a bit of what you wrote but there is one meaningful point I think you missed out on.

So like you, I find the classic HD800 pretty summit-fi and the treble peak mostly doesn't bother me, except in poorly mastered recordings and a few overly emphasized sibilants here and there. I also like the sense of air around the instruments and I have only ever heard anything comparable or better on a few electrostatic rigs that cost megabux. And although all headphone listening involves headstage rather than soundstage, you gots to give it up to Senn engineers for the width and depth of the classic as well as the delineation or imaging of instruments in complex musical passages. I would certainly argue that anyone who has an HD800 already try to demo the S rather than buy blind.

But, where the S outclasses its classic older bro, is in the rendering of timbre. I thought that the best piano ever heard on headphones was on the HD800 with arguably something similar (slightly different tradeoff) in SR009 expensively amped. Until I heard the S, that is. There is something about the bottom weight of it, the undertones , that just sounds a wee bit more correct. I live with a steinway baby grand, and when you plunk around on it for a while and then listen to the S and classic it is almost instantly obvious what I mean. The little bit of extra heft down low on the S sounds more real, and the airiness of the classic, while totally beguiling, just isn't quite there with the real thing. You don't hear it as much on violins, but once you start to hear it in one place you begin to notice it a bunch of other more subtle places as well. It's interesting when listening to Symphonic music. The airiness and delineation between instruments just seems better on the classic, but the timbre is just mo' better on the S. Listen to something with Timpani and you will get it right way. Brass is more correctly full bodied on S than the Classic dude. These diffs are small for sure, but nonetheless for me at least pretty important. Finally, because the S is less peaky, the wide dynamic range of Symphonic music sounds better, I never have to reach for the volume knob at a crescendo.

Anyway, just thought this might be a good spot to offer one or two centimes.

 

Totally agree with you. With Jazz and classical being the main genres i listen to now i find the HD800 to my preference. And similarly I only found the 6KHz to be an issue in certain song. So where it performs better would be that it retains most of what ppl love about the original HD800 but at the same time making it more versatile with a wider range of genre.

 

LOL! More like asking a cocaine addict to leave his fav drug and have to deal with reality as is... "but I don't wanna give it up, everything is just a little brighter and more lively."

 

its honestly true though, if you listen to an unmodded hd800 for long enough your brain gets used to it and then you switch to a can without the peak it seems really boring and dry

 

The same is true in reverse, though.

See below for an HD650 user trying the HD800 (or any Beyer for that matter)

 

yep that is also true

 

Yup its the highs you get from it.

 

Don't think I didn't see what you did there.

 

Just got my HD800S in the mail. I find them so so so much more palatable than my stock HD800s were. Its interesting how such a small change can make such a huge difference for some people. Probably 90% the same sound, a touch more intimate and without the top 1% sizzle at 6khz. I like them 1000% more.

 

where are people getting the 800 S? I can't find it for sale anywhere.

 

Jan Meier in Germany. $500 cheaper than here in Australia.

 

no, I mean in the real world... not foreign.

 

You mean somewhere that delivers quickly to the US at a competitive price and keeps you covered by Sennheiser's international warranty?

I told you - Jan Meier.