Sennheiser HD800S Review (Headphone)

[gatucho]

since everybody loves EQ in this thread I just had to come and say I hate the idea of EQ.

if you dislike how your headphones sound just replace them with some other headphones.

or chose one of your pairs depending on your mood/music.

I have all the classics - HD650, K712, DT880 (pro 250 Ohm and special 600 Ohm versions) and more - they are all very different and while you could try to make them sound sort of like each other with EQ, it would defeat the point.

also pretty sure frequency response does not show the full picture. for example, AKG K712 supposedly has a very similar frequency response to HD800, but can you hear all the details and separate instruments as easily?

Nice! I also have all the classics and like them for different reasons.

To me EQ is not about making them all sound the same (i.e. rendering their FR as close to an ideal as possible) but to "fix" their main shortcomings. The idea that through EQ you can manipulate the FR as you wish is just silly. These are mechanical systems we are talking about, not electronic signals! EQ can only amend the FR of headphones in broad strokes.

I see a lot of PEQ settings with silly values as Q>5 and gains>15dB. I know that those settings will just end up sounding grotesquely bad.

Take PQE as car tuning, you can improve car performance WHITIN A RANGE .But you can't tune a Honda Civic into a Porsche GT, if you try you will only end up with an unbalanced monster. Besides, if you put the same effort into the Porsche there wouldn't be any comparison. And if for a y reason you actually beat the Porsche to the finish line (i.e. the FR in our case), you still didn't have the "Porsche experience" (sound stage, layering, etc in our case). Note that these last elements are in fact objectively measurable (easy and more exciting handling for example) just not by the lap times.

 

[phoenixsong]

Nice! I also have all the classics and like them for different reasons.

To me EQ is not about making them all sound the same (i.e. rendering their FR as close to an ideal as possible) but to "fix" their main shortcomings. The idea that through EQ you can manipulate the FR as you wish is just silly. These are mechanical systems we are talking about, not electronic signals! EQ can only amend the FR of headphones in broad strokes.

I see a lot of PEQ settings with silly values as Q>5 and gains>15dB. I know that those settings will just end up sounding grotesquely bad.

Take PQE as car tuning, you can improve car performance WHITING A RANGE .But you can't tune a Honda Civic into a Porsche GT, if you try you will only end up with an unbalanced monster. Besides, if you put the same effort into the Porsche there wouldn't be any comparison. And if for a y reason you actually beat the Porsche to the finish line (i.e. the FR in our case), you still didn't have the "Porsche experience" (sound stage, layering, etc in our case). Note that these last elements are in fact objectively measurable (easy and more exciting handling for example) just not by the lap times.

True, EQ can be used to mask resonant frequencies (though usually they are already tuned down by manufacturers)

 

[gatucho]

I've been hesitant to use EQ because of past experiences with the Onkyo Free HD Player. Its EQ clearly degraded the sound quality, especially apparent when set to flat (all bars at 0) then toggling it on and off. Anybody has any recommendations for one without this issue? I'm using Android and Windows

In windows good old foobar2000 has a pretty nice eq and you can download additional plugins. It even has a convolver which allows an almost arbitrary equalization, and it is free.

In android free options are lacking I'm afraid. But there are excellent pay options. Poweramp is very nice. Neutron has an excellent PEQ. And my favorite is usb player pro, it is the most expensive but it's PEQ is topnotch and has Tidal HD integration.

If you are serious about audio quality, viper for android allows converting an old android phone into an audio processing workhorse. Although I don't know if this has been updated lately.

 

[DavidMcRoy]

If the marketing material is to be believed, they were going for a diffused sound created with 8 speakers in anechoic chamber. I don't know of any real room with such characteristic but that was the old calibration method.

The measurement they post is very crude (1/3 octave?) which was also surprising (from the manual for 800S):

View attachment 99574

30 years ago this was the measurement standard. But today? How can they gain any insight from this? And what are these deviations supposed to mean anyway? It seems to show the headphone has more bass???[/QUOTE

To the extent to which the curve in the graph deviates from flat response, there is basically a broad dip centered around 4kHz. This would impart a sense of elements in the sound field have a greater physical distance from the perspective of the listener, creating a greater illusion of space, and that’s probably why it’s there.

 

[bobbooo]

Ooo, nice, I got the HifiMan HE4xx on order at the moment....the reason I bought it was reports of excellent soundstage rating from rtings combined with hopefully low distortion and also an EQ'able frequency response and finally also not too expensive....according to rtings it has better soundstage rating than K702, if this is really the case then HE4xx could be my final headphone (although I'm happy with K702 as final headphone if HE4xx not better). Have you got HE4xx, how's the soundstage, you got K702 as well?

Yes I have the HE4XX, the soundstage is great. And yes its distortion is nice and low:

So it will give you no problems when EQing the bass up to the Harman target. (Unlike the 35% post-EQ distortion of the 'TOTL' HD800S here. Lolz.) Oratory has also said the HE4XX units he measured had very little variation between them, so EQ based on his measurements should be nicely accurate.

I've tried the K702 but only without EQ, and felt like its large soundstage was a bit artificial (probably due to the somewhat wonky stock tonality though), and that the HE4XX's soundstage sounds more natural (but I wouldn't trust that comparison really).

 

[bobbooo]

To do a sanity check, I used Webplotdigitizer on Oratpry1990’s HD800S data. With that, get a 76, he states a different standard deviation, using that I get the same score of 83 (meaning I at least got a similar slope, 0.125). My digitized data looks identical, so I have no clue how he is getting a decently better standard deviation (2.63 vs 3.21).

Are you directly entering in the data to the spreadsheet from Listen Inc. I linked to in this post to calculate the score?

As for why @amirm ’s HD800S is scoring a ridiculous 50, the main difference is the 10kHz dip.
It’ll be too complicated to show both on the same graph, but:

Amir HD800S
View attachment 99677Oratory1990
View attachment 99676

Maybe this is due to the RA0402 hi-res coupler being different to the RA0045 one Harman used for the measurements the formula was based on, as Listen Inc. warn in their documentation could result in inaccurate results for the preference rating (and EQing to the Harman target). As shown in the above linked post, the hi-res coupler measures 6 dB down from the RA0045 at 10 kHz (for in-ear headphones, maybe it's even worse for over-ears. EDIT: Just saw Crinacle's HD800S measurements which also use the hi-res coupler and they don't have such a huge 10k notch as here either, so that might rule out that theory). Or it could be unit variation. Or non-ideal positioning with fewer, less methodically placed and averaged measurements with multiple reseats at each position as Oratory does. Who knows.

 

[ernestcarl]

That's what I thought, too, at first glance. But in fact there is an average difference in treble preference between older listeners and more experienced listeners.

On average, older listeners preferred the in-room bass treble response to be tilted down by about 1.1dB less than experienced listeners did:

View attachment 99478

Ofc, I don't thin this tells us anything per se (for a start, we don't even know anything about the hearing abilities of the subjects in this study).

And I think @pozz's explanation a few posts back was an interesting one, i.e. that it's not about compensating for high-frequency hearing loss per se, but rather for differing perceived loudness levels.

I presume they would have excluded people who had any obvious hearing loss.

There was a synthetic simulation demo of different levels of hearing loss in youtube of a single track of music. I found it incredibly illuminating. I've tried to look for it, but couldn't quite find it again -- I've disabled my YT history tracking. There comes a point (with profound hearing loss) where compensation of any sort simply becomes useless. Most of us can deal with the slow loss in HF, but slowly losing the midrange i.e. speech articulation/intelligibility is just so awful.

 

[GimeDsp]

I think you and hope yo

Equalizer APO for Windows seems good if you prefer manual tuning. I prefer using it with Peace GUI. If you just want reasonably makes sense presets to choose for specific headphones, SoundID by Sonarworks works well too. But the Sonarworks software will disable any spatial audio feature while APO doesn’t.

I have an MSI/AMD ryzen7 desktop set up with windows 10 and I spent a year trying to get APO to work right, it never did. It would work for a few days then stop, I finally got a mini dsp ddrc 24 so I didn't ened to deal with APO/

 

[Tachyon88]

I have an MSI/AMD ryzen7 desktop set up with windows 10 and I spent a year trying to get APO to work right, it never did. It would work for a few days then stop, I finally got a mini dsp ddrc 24 so I didn't ened to deal with APO/

Do others have issues with AMD cpu as well ?

 

[magicscreen]

To me EQ is not about making them all sound the same (i.e. rendering their FR as close to an ideal as possible) but to "fix" their main shortcomings. The idea that through EQ you can manipulate the FR as you wish is just silly.

Yes, you are right.
For example I has a Grado SR60e headphone. It has magical highs. Why on earth I would want fix that?
Of course if someone cannot bear that highs he can EQ it out.

 

[bluefuzz]

To me EQ is not about making them all sound the same (i.e. rendering their FR as close to an ideal as possible) but to "fix" their main shortcomings.

I beg to differ. Either the frequency response is correct or it isn't. There is a certain amount of leeway in what people consider 'correct' (i.e. how much bass they like) but that preference will be the same for all headphones. At least it is for me.

I see a lot of PEQ settings with silly values as Q>5 and gains>15dB. I know that those settings will just end up sounding grotesquely bad.

As mentioned further up the thread, the headphones I have EQ'ed could take some quite radical filters. I know the received wisdom is to only use broad low-Q filters and only attenuate the peaks, but I find the more brutal the better. Obviously, there are limitations to a physical system. I have an old pair of Beyer DT48's that can never be induced to play decent subbass no matter how much I tweak them, but for the other 'phones, the closer I approach the target curve with EQ, the better they sound ...

 

[KeithPhantom]

Yes, you are right.
For example I has a Grado SR60e headphone. It has magical highs. Why on earth I would want fix that?
Of course if someone cannot bear that highs he can EQ it out.

Well, there are other people (like me) who can't bear those highs, also, they sound fake to me.

 

[KeithPhantom]

Either the frequency response is correct or it isn't.

What is a "correct frequency response"? Personally, Harman doesn't sound right to me at all, so would you say my headphones sound incorrect in my case?

FR curves are pretty subjective in preference, even when derived objectively.

 

[bluefuzz]

FR curves are pretty subjective in preference, even when derived objectively.

I agree there is probably a range that could be considered correct but that range will be generally the same for the same person. My personal 'correct' frequency response seems to correspond very closely to the Harman curve both for loudspeakers and for headphones.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I agree there is probably a range that could be considered correct but that range will be generally the same for the same person. My personal 'correct' frequency response seems to correspond very closely to the Harman curve both for loudspeakers and for headphones.

Personally, I consider more correct to my ears both the B&K HiFi curve and the modified Sennheiser Diffuse Field curve for speakers and headphones respectively, but yes, everyone has a different flavor for sound.

 

[bigjacko]

Do others have issues with AMD cpu as well ?

I got MSI motherboard and Ryzen cpu too, no issue on EqualizerAPO. What is the problem that will involve problem with cpu and motherboard?

 

[Frank Dernie]

I see a few mention, as our hearing declines, we never notice it. So a totally neutral speaker will sound completely normal to us, but at the same time, if our hearing changed, how could it?

I do not believe we become accustomed TO losing hearing completely. Maybe to some degree, but if we did, then a hearing aid would make everything sound wrong to us.....??

I am not sure how we can have it both ways.

A hearing aid does make everything sound wrong, according to my wife who is hard of hearing, but it makes it easier for her to hear people talking and the TV.
She hates them.
I OTOH have slight hf loss, according to my measurements. This happens very slowly as one ages so, obviously nobody notices it.
So in summary, if you start going deaf you notice it.
If you have age related HF loss you are very unlikely to notice since it progresses slowly and affects a part of the hearing range which contains zero speech information and only a very, very little musical information from a tiny range of percussive instruments.

 

[Frank Dernie]

I always replace any TV I buy that doesn't have the right color balance out of the box. I mean, why would I bother adjusting it? I'd rather keep shopping until I find one that matches my exact preferences..

Amusing but ridiculous. Headphones don't have any adjustments unless you buy an extra device and learn how to use more software.
Also a TV which does look shite out of the box probably is shite - like headphone that sound shite out of the box.

 

[Frank Dernie]

See this thread. I recommend Neutron Player for Android.

I only listen to headphones on the move.
I have tried loads of mobile players over the last 30 years but don't like carrying more than I have to.
I remain a Google and Microsoft free zone for a couple of reasons (I started programming 50 years ago and have a long memory) so it looks like I am going to have to stick the headphones I like without EQ since the only thing I am prepared to carry is my old iPhone.

 

[Feelas]

What is a "correct frequency response"? Personally, Harman doesn't sound right to me at all, so would you say my headphones sound incorrect in my case?

FR curves are pretty subjective in preference, even when derived objectively.

It's actually pretty easy to define the objective "correct frequenecy response" - the one that yields a "flat" (or exactly matching personal preference) when used on one's head. Why is Harman thrown around so much in here, when it doesn't actually matter to this?

If engineers knew that each pair would sound like DF or like Harman or like pretty much anything else (but always the same), then it'd be easily possible to both mould the sound into artist's intention AND have it reproducible AND for the user to reproduce their intended reference curve. I just can't help stressing how important a standardized curve would be, NOT only to retailers, merely to the whole market which would have a choice to comply or not - and even if they did comply, it'd be a matter of simple tonal corrections to work into personal curve, not losing a lot. Right now, pretty much nobody gets any gain from the state of affairs.