Sennheiser HD 820 Review (headphone)

[phoenixsong]

Agreed, I just find t very difficult to believe that if I were willing to spend $5k there's no closed back alternative that can approach the HD800S.



K712Pro seems to catch a lot of flack on forums, but I agree with you. I read numerous disparaging comments about "detail retrieval" and "cloudy mids" and while there may be some grain of objective truth to those criticisms I thoroughly enjoy listening through them.

I agree that the K712pro has some flaws, but spatiality- which happens to be the topic of discussion that led us here- should not be one of them. At least, not with proper amping

 

[phoenixsong]

Agreed, I just find t very difficult to believe that if I were willing to spend $5k there's no closed back alternative that can approach the HD800S.



K712Pro seems to catch a lot of flack on forums, but I agree with you. I read numerous disparaging comments about "detail retrieval" and "cloudy mids" and while there may be some grain of objective truth to those criticisms I thoroughly enjoy listening through them.

It shouldn't be surprising- even amongst open back headphones (thus removing the limitations of physics) and without a price cap you'll be hard pressed to find a handful of worthy competitors for the HD800/s with regards to spatiality

 

[Propheticus]

Open backs will always surpass closed back in sq and Will present The Sound more natural like speakers, imo.

Unless you can hear your neighbours using the power washer, your girlfriend in yet another work call, etc, etc.
Yes open back sounds better to me as well, but you have to consider the use-case.

 

[Chagall]

Thank for the review @amirm.

I didn't quite get how much of spatial effect is lost compared to HD800s, or is it the same?

 

[solderdude]

What are some alternative you can recommend? I've probably seen the Q dozens of times, "what is the closed back alternative to the HD800" and so far I haven't found a convincing answer. I see what you mean about the spatial quality - I don't hear it on the Stellia, which was surprising to me given the price point. Even "base-model" open backs like HD650 and K712pro sound better to me which is somewhat shocking given the enormous price disparity

The problem with spatial qualities is that it not only depends on the headphone itself but also on your ears and how your brain processes the incoming 'information' and creates an 'image' in your head. For instance the K7** headphones sound just as narrow as most other headphones to me while many glorify them as having a great sound stage. I heard owned, and still own, some from these series and they don't work for me.
All I know is that the HD8** series is hard to beat on that front. It also isn't of huge importance to me.

Closed alternatives that sound good to me are some DCA closed headphones (own none) and like a modified and filtered DT1770 but not for spatial qualities. So there are alternatives in the sense that there are decent to good sounding closed headphones around but they might not tick everyone's boxes.
So is the HD820 not universally liked. Some even hate it. It is just where you place the importance the most. I tried buying headphones based on recommendations, based on graphs and whatever and rarely agree with all aspects myself so ... nothing as personal as a headphone.

 

[solderdude]

@solderdude, can you fit the HD800 pads to these or are they different mounts?

Physically one probably can. I don't own the 820 nor will I in the future so can't say what it does. When the original pads would work fine on the HD820 they would have mounted them most likely. Maybe someone who owns the 820 and 800(S) can give it a try.

 

[Helicopter]

Thanks for the review of another important headphone.

I am not reading as much bias here as others. It is basically a closed HD800/s, with typically mystifying price. HD800/s has obvious flaws and trade-offs. Why would we expect 820 to be amazing?

Why is this $700 more than HD800/s? Why is Focal Utopia 2020 $1400 more than Stellia? Yes that one has the carbon fiber and fancy cups, so OK, but quite similar electronically. Everyone knows headphone prices don't make sense.

As for the measurements, 820 is very peaky, especially under 1kHz where other headphones have nice smooth response, but 820 also tracks the target curve pretty well if you smooth out the peaks/dips, and it hugs the curve without any mess in the important 1kHz to 2.5kHz range. I am not too surprised subjective impressions are decent despite the ugly FR curve. The distortion is a bit concerning to me though. I wouldn't get these. I think I would try Focal Stellia first as a $2-3k closed back, but I am happy with my Focal Celestee and Bose QC35ii for the use case, so I'm not really in the market.

 

[Robbo99999]

Something going on with that 3-5kHz dip that Amir couldn't EQ out with negative effects, distortion is higher right at that spot too, so the 7dB boost you'd require in that area to get it up to the Harman Curve would increase that distortion even more. I can't really like the deficiencies of this headphone, it's one that I would avoid based on looking at the various measurements. Also there's the higher %THD at the 60Hz dip, so I would imagine that EQ'ing up that dip would increase distortion percentage even more, so that's another bad omen. I'd avoid this one.

 

[peniku8]

Overall, this is a low distortion headphone other than 3 to 5 kHz where our hearing is most sensitive.

Hi Amir, could you please elaborate on what you mean by that?
The lowest harmonic to 4k (center of that region) is at 8khz, with the 3rd harmonic being at 12khz, at which our hearing is less sensitive.
So I'd conclude that distortion in that range is less audible because of psychoacoustics, or am I on the wrong track here?

The statement in itself might sound misleading to those who don't have a proper understanding of how harmic distortion works and they might take that as a bad thing, whereas a 5th harmonic at 800Hz would be much more offensive in comparison.

 

[phoenixsong]

Hi Amir, could you please elaborate on what you mean by that?
The lowest harmonic to 4k (center of that region) is at 8khz, with the 3rd harmonic being at 12khz, at which our hearing is less sensitive.
So I'd conclude that distortion in that range is less audible because of psychoacoustics, or am I on the wrong track here?

The statement in itself might sound misleading to those who don't have a proper understanding of how harmic distortion works and they might take that as a bad thing, whereas a 5th harmonic at 800Hz would be much more offensive in comparison.

Harmonic distortion only works for a single frequency tone, not a frequency wide sweep. In this sweep it is found that there is a distortion spike at 3-5kHz, where our hearing is most sensitive/discerning no less
*Edit: I assume Amir used a sweep for this test

 

[phoenixsong]

Hi Amir, could you please elaborate on what you mean by that?
The lowest harmonic to 4k (center of that region) is at 8khz, with the 3rd harmonic being at 12khz, at which our hearing is less sensitive.
So I'd conclude that distortion in that range is less audible because of psychoacoustics, or am I on the wrong track here?

The statement in itself might sound misleading to those who don't have a proper understanding of how harmic distortion works and they might take that as a bad thing, whereas a 5th harmonic at 800Hz would be much more offensive in comparison.

Oh I think harmonic distortion is more applicable in stuff like DACs and amps rather than headphones (edit: nvm, remembered this is not the case)

 

[solderdude]

The lowest harmonic to 4k (center of that region) is at 8khz, with the 3rd harmonic being at 12khz, at which our hearing is less sensitive.
So I'd conclude that distortion in that range is less audible because of psycho acoustics, or am I on the wrong track here?

You can be 100% sure you won't be playing music with 4kHz at 114dB SPL. Consider that you would be around 94dB when playing loud music.
2nd harm. being 0.4% in a very narrow band is not going to be audible at those levels.

 

[Sharur]

https://headphonedatabase.com/oratory?ids=254,58
The DT880 is virtually flawless from 100 Hz to 5 kHz

 

[Fernando]

I agree that the K712pro has some flaws, but spatiality- which happens to be the topic of discussion that led us here- should not be one of them. At least, not with proper amping

The akg k702 with EQ is much better than k712pro. El k712pro is muddy in comparison.

The happy panther has also missed me.
Others with better measures have died in the attempt.

 

[solderdude]

https://headphonedatabase.com/oratory?ids=254,58
The DT880 is virtually flawless from 100 Hz to 5 kHz

But it's not closed, the HD820 is.
Besides the DT880 will be a horror show at 114dB SPL with >10% distortion numbers.

 

[Chocomel]

The uneven group delay we often saw in Measurements is probably just due to noise, also why it's less on a closed back headphone like we see here. I don't think it has anything to do with spatial abilities.

 

[Sharur]

But it's not closed, the HD820 is.
Besides the DT880 will be a horror show at 114dB SPL.

isnt 114dB SPL very dangerous?

 

[respice finem]

Amir vs Oratory1990:

Spoiler

View attachment 125757

Amir vs Jaakkopasanen (measured by Oratory1990):

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View attachment 125758

Oratory1990 vs Jaakkopasanen (measured by Oratory1990):

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View attachment 125759

PEQ profile by Amir (from my post #4 above):

Spoiler

Preamp: -4.8 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 67 Hz Gain 4.0 dB Q 4.0
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 139 Hz Gain -5.0 dB Q 3.0
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 300 Hz Gain 5.0 dB Q 2.0
Filter 4: ON HS Fc 11000 Hz Gain -4.0 dB Q 1.0

PEQ profile by Oratory1990:

Spoiler

Preamp: -5.5 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 74 Hz Gain 6.8 dB Q 2.8
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 158 Hz Gain -8.4 dB Q 1.1
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 170 Hz Gain -8.4 dB Q 0.17
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 268 Hz Gain 2.3 dB Q 3.0
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 270 Hz Gain 14.5 dB Q 0.8
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 1000 Hz Gain -2.3 dB Q 2.0
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 2850 Hz Gain -4.5 dB Q 3.5
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 4000 Hz Gain 5.5 dB Q 0.7
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 5130 Hz Gain -7.5 dB Q 3.8
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 7450 Hz Gain -2.9 dB Q 4.0

PEQ profile by Jaakkopasanen (measured by Oratory1990):

Spoiler

Preamp: -6.6 dB
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 27 Hz Gain -5.0 dB Q 1.08
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 46 Hz Gain -4.1 dB Q 2.33
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 141 Hz Gain -9.5 dB Q 1.43
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 291 Hz Gain 8.2 dB Q 2.39
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 3742 Hz Gain 5.1 dB Q 3.83
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 75 Hz Gain 2.6 dB Q 6.57
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 980 Hz Gain -3.1 dB Q 2.12
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 1860 Hz Gain 1.9 dB Q 2.70
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 5109 Hz Gain -3.0 dB Q 6.65
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 9677 Hz Gain 3.1 dB Q 1.36

If we would display them all a once, the proposed EQs would be "all over the place"... Maybe due to variations in production, partly different measurement settings, but in the end, one must more or less go by his own ears. This brings me back to the idea of measuring as close as possible to the individual eardrum. Utopia, I know...

 

[solderdude]

isnt 114dB SPL very dangerous?

Not in the lows, and not with short peak levels.

 

[AdamG]

Let’s try to keep the conversation focused on the Sennheiser HD-820 that was reviewed. Please and thank you.