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Looks like Drop might be 'dropping' a HD800

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samwell7

samwell7

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Sorry, you're right.
No need to apologise!
I still think it'd be interesting to hear from somebody with the engineering know-how about how they would've changed the material (I'm guessing only at certain diameters) around the driver for specific frequencies.
 

Takanaka

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Dual resonators sound interesting but Sennheiser is literally shooting themselves in the foot collaborating with Drop. Guess I’ll wait for impressions and measurements, somewhat glad I didn’t double down on the HD800S, I almost bought them recently.
 

threni

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Not really a good deal as far as I can tell. I could have bought the HD 800S for £1200 the other day; this is some variation of those headphones apparently, with unknown performance and some sort of mod, for $1100 (no idea what that'll cost me in total when it's been delivered from wherever it's coming from but it's £=$ these days, plus postage, plus import fees), in November [sic] with a 30 day warranty from Drop. Uh....no.
 
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samwell7

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Not really a good deal as far as I can tell. I could have bought the HD 800S for £1200 the other day; this is some variation of those headphones apparently, with unknown performance and some sort of mod, for $1100 (no idea what that'll cost me in total when it's been delivered from wherever it's coming from), in November [sic] with a 30 day warranty from Drop. Uh....no.
Although, really, as @solderdude suggested earlier, if it is a similar model with some issues potentially rectified for a similar price to the original - if it weren't for it being Drop I'd imagine people would generally be favourable towards it.
 

threni

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$1=£0.72 mind you

No, that might be the averaged buy/sell exchange rate but in the context of this conversation £=$.

Eg. A MacBook Air is $999 on Apple's US site, and £999 on the UK site. Nearly everything is like this. (There's state tax to be added on the US site, whereas the UK price is inclusive of our equivalent, and like I mentioned there are import duties and postage to deal with but that's entirely seperate from how Apple have decided to price the product in different markets; I'd be paying $999/£999 if I bought them from shops in the respective countries).
 
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edahl

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No, that might be the averaged buy/sell exchange rate but in the context of this conversation £=$.

Eg. A MacBook Air is $999 on Apple's US site, and £999 on the UK site. Nearly everything is like this. (There's state tax to be added on the US site, whereas the UK price is inclusive of our equivalent, and like I mentioned there are import duties and postage to deal with but that's entirely seperate from how Apple have decided to price the product in different markets; I'd be paying $999/£999 if I bought them from shops in the respective countries).
With VAT etc. 10x $ tends to be a rough approximation for purchases in NOK as well.
 

edahl

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Although, really, as @solderdude suggested earlier, if it is a similar model with some issues potentially rectified for a similar price to the original - if it weren't for it being Drop I'd imagine people would generally be favourable towards it.
I don't really get the animosity toward Drop, though that's neither here nor there. It seems people expect them to give shit for less than half off for it not to be worse than worthless. The issues with the 800S they're claiming to address in the 8XX are exactly the things I was hoping in the event of a retune, and what has been suggested from what I've seen people say in reviews going back all the way to InnerFidelity. If it was a slightly shittier 800S I'd no doubt just pay the premium and be done with it. Actual Sennheiser research time went into this though, which leaves me intrigued.
 
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threni

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I don't really get the animosity toward Drop, though that's neither here nor there. It seems people expect them to give shit for less than half off for it not to be worse than worthless. The issues with the 800S they're claiming to address in the 8XX are exactly the things I was hoping in the event of a retune, and what has been suggested from what I've seen people say in reviews going back all the way to InnerFidelity. If it was a slightly shittier 800S I'd no doubt just pay the premium and be done with it. Actual Sennheiser research time went into this though, which leaves me I'm intrigued.

I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on Drop. (I've never heard of them other than when I was investigating getting my HD 660S I keep seeing references to 6xx.) In principle it's a great idea but for someone like me who could sort of afford the HD 800S if I really thought it was a big enough improvement over the HD 660S (which I'm very happy with) but who'd want to hear it first, and who expects proper support/refund in the event it dies after a few months/years, paying a lot of money now for something which clearly hasn't been manufactured yet, and has not been reviewed, and where there's probably not going to be a window where they have been reviewed (by someone credible) and are also still for sale...well, that's a big risk. If Amazon or Sennheiser were selling them, or if Sennheiser was providing a warranty (it's still their name on the box, after all) then most of these issues go away and I'm with you on it.
 

edahl

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I hear you @threni. For what it's worth, I'm returning my Massdrop+AKG K7XX to Drop for a refund two years after purchasing, because of wear and tear in the fastening mechanism between the headband and the frame. They didn't have any stock, or they'd send me a replacement unit. In other words, support seems less nebulous to me now that I've actually dealt with them.
 

maxxevv

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After that 7 month wait for the 6XX a few years back .... there's zero chance of me ever doing it again.
Especially when no one has any ideas how the end result of these modifications would pan out.
The HD800S wasn't a completely successful improvement over the HD800 as in some ways, I actually prefer the HD800, unadulterated.

So I'll take my chances and wait for some clear answers on its sound output quality / characteristics first. In any case, they originally "planned" to release no more than 10,000 pieces of the HD6XX. Look what happened after that ?
 

cursive

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They posted a graph so we have a comparison against the HD800s at least.
1613663875943.180521950346079646103871-DropSennheiserHD8XXandSennheiserHD800S5128FR.jpg
 

cursive

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Alright. It's officially shit.
Im with you John, sticking with the Ananda and EQ.

The HD800 came out in 2009, and I think HD800s in 2016, I just feel like somehow they could have gotten the price lower, though maybe that's not the point as it's their "flagship" headphone. I also don't like that they're offering $200 in drop credit, vs just giving you an additional $200 off. Don't get me wrong though, I'd love to have/hear one, and I do think the bass is the most common complaint, and they've addressed that. Just not sure I like all the stipulations of buying through drop so early before shipment.

Also where did they post this?
This graph was in the comments on the drop article, but it was posted by their chief products officer. You can see it's a head-fi graph, so I'm thinking Jude probably measured it for them.
 
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