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Advice for my HD 800S

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Hello, first of all I am French so sorry for the translation.

I have a sennheiser hd-800s paired with a topping dx7 pro.


By reading this article I understood with astonishment that the Toppings are really bad on the HD 800S. And it saddens me at the price I paid for it.


I wanted to try another headphone amp. Do you have any recommendations for me.
The sennheiser hdvd 800 is the best seen that it is the same brand?

I have a budget of 1000 euros. Thank you for your help.
 

Zensō

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Hello, first of all I am French so sorry for the translation.

I have a sennheiser hd-800s paired with a topping dx7 pro.


By reading this article I understood with astonishment that the Toppings are really bad on the HD 800S. And it saddens me at the price I paid for it.


I wanted to try another headphone amp. Do you have any recommendations for me.
The sennheiser hdvd 800 is the best seen that it is the same brand?

I have a budget of 1000 euros. Thank you for your help.
Your Topping amp is perfectly fine - I wouldn’t give much credence to the article you linked. The most important thing is to figure out a way to EQ your headphones since the HD800S has some frequency response issues that need to be corrected. Depending upon your source, you can do this in either software or hardware. What is feeding into your Topping?
 

FrantzM

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Read Amir's review oh the HD800s HERE Then Apply Amir EQ settings to JRiver ...

index.php


and ..enjoy a fine headphone . Advice: Stay here and abandon all of subjective reviews. There is an objective reality to correct reproduction of sound. Interestingly Topping tend to subscribe to that philosophy.

Peace.
 
OP
Protect Dreams
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Thanks very much. Okay then the Toppings tend to make the HD 800S good.

However, I don't know where to put the settings you gave me.
 

tr1ple6

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Thanks very much. Okay then the Toppings tend to make the HD 800S good.

However, I don't know where to put the settings you gave me.
Go to Tools, Options. Should take you to Audio and under Settings choose DSP & output format. You can add Amir's settings in the Parametric Equalizer
 

Count Arthur

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Thanks very much. Okay then the Toppings tend to make the HD 800S good.

However, I don't know where to put the settings you gave me.

Click on the "cog" symbol, or go to Player > DSP Studio, or press CTRL + D, then select Parametric Equalizer:

1651688757298.png



Click Add, then select "Adjust a frequency (Equalizer Filter)", then enter the Frequency, Bandwidth(Q) and Gain values. Click "Add" again to add as many as you wish.
 

Doodski

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@Count Arthur if the "Equalizer" is selected does a GUI come up with sliders for adjusting the EQ? Instead of entering text for parameters.
 
OP
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Thanks for your help.

I must then add how many lines to have as AMIR?
 

LTig

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I have a sennheiser hd-800s paired with a topping dx7 pro.[..}

By reading this article I understood with astonishment that the Toppings are really bad on the HD 800S. And it saddens me at the price I paid for it.
This is bullshit. The HD800S is a rather light load (150 Ohm impedance) and just needs more voltage than headphones with lower impedance for the same SPL. As long as the amp delivers it's fine. I think the reason SBAF recommends tube based amps is that they want to compensate the HD800s peak in the frequency response at 6 kHz by an amp with a "warm" (falling?) frequency response. This cannot and will not work. Our member @solderdude offers passive filters to fix it, on his website.

I own a HD800 and before I bought it I tested it with an expensive headphone amp. I bought it and expected that I might need to invest into such a headphone amp because I had read similar stories about it. Therefore I was very astonished when I found out that the HD800 sounded better than any of my other headphones (HD580, DT990) on every headphone output I tried it, including my smartphone (Samsung S5 neo). So I safely put those stories into the urban myths drawer.
I wanted to try another headphone amp. Do you have any recommendations for me.
The sennheiser hdvd 800 is the best seen that it is the same brand?

I have a budget of 1000 euros. Thank you for your help.
There is only one headphone amp at this price point which makes sense to upgrade to, but only due to its vast range of capabilities (EQ, tone controls, adjustable cross feed, adjustable loudness, ...): the RME ADI-2 DAC. That this DAC/Amp is not even listed on the SBAF page tells enough.
 

Rayman30

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Using EQ like others previously mentioned is your best bet. Pay no mind to the audiofools on the internet claiming certain DAC/AMP pairings go better with different headphones.

Fact is that a good DAC is indistinguishable from the next (assuming no defects) and amplifiers do vary, but not by enough to be concerned with, most of the differences these snake oil connoisseurs claim are placebo, silly adjectives like "Synergy" or "Driver control" are baseless non-sense. The HD800S would be great on even the cheapest Topping gear.
 

nyxnyxnyx

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I paired hd800s with certain OTL amplifiers and got good subjective result, but I think your topping can be just as nice when properly tested.
I tend to experience both sides and see for myself instead of just taking someone's advice as gospels (it's not much different from audiophiles claiming cables always make a difference).
If you still have doubt or curiosity, try for yourself first then come back and let us know.
 

Count Arthur

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Is this how I should do it?


Looks about right, but you need to check the box to enable it:

1651696016412.png

You can then check and uncheck it to compare with and without. :)


@Count Arthur if the "Equalizer" is selected does a GUI come up with sliders for adjusting the EQ? Instead of entering text for parameters.

No, with the parametric equalizer you have to enter the values as text. I don't really use it with headphones, but I've used it with good results with the equalizer settings suggested by REW when measuring my speakers with a UMIK-1 for room correction. It's a bit fiddly, but it doesn't take that long to copy and paste the EQ settings from REW to JRiver.


As well as a whole bunch of other things there is also a standard 10 band equalizer with the usual Rock, Pop, Classic, Custom, etc., settings:

1651696287211.png


Whenever I mess about with it I can never make my mind up as to whether it's better or worse with or without it, or perhaps this song sounds good, but not that one, and so on - there's too many options, so I leave it off. :)
 

Zensō

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@Protect Dreams

If you’d like to learn more about applying EQ to headphones, this is a good place to start:

 
OP
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Hello, first of all I would like to thank you. I did the tests. The sound with the AMIR settings is more serious, the bass is more present.

But the sound is less clear.
 

Count Arthur

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Hello, first of all I would like to thank you. I did the tests. The sound with the AMIR settings is more serious, the bass is more present.

But the sound is less clear.

You can always try altering Amir's settings.

You could untick some of the filters, perhaps these two:

1651759466693.png


This will leave the "top end" unaltered and may restore the clarity.

You could also try adjusting the vales, perhaps instead of -2dB at 10,000 Hz, try just -1dB, etc.
 

Zensō

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Hello, first of all I would like to thank you. I did the tests. The sound with the AMIR settings is more serious, the bass is more present.

But the sound is less clear.
I’d give yourself some time to mentally adjust. The treble peaks give the impression of more clarity but are inaccurate.

I’d also suggest trying these settings which I prefer over Amir’s (no offense):

 

MrEWhite

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I’d give yourself some time to mentally adjust. The treble peaks give the impression of more clarity but are inaccurate.

I’d also suggest trying these settings which I prefer over Amir’s (no offense):

I agree with this, oratory’s HD800S EQ settings sound fantastic on my RME ADI-2 DAC FS + a Topping A90.
 
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