Anyone who has heard HD800s with proper hardware, and EQ knows that there are no better headphones on the market, why spend more money than necessary?
It's really hard to come out with a statement like that. It's really quite hard to properly compare headphones for which you think are the best when you're talking about comparing your headphones that already have your best personally modified EQ's. I've found it's important to level match the EQ's between your different headphones and then when you're comparing them you leave the amp at the same setting, switch the headphone & load up it's level matched EQ. I have the HD800 (not the S version), and it took me quite a while to get the EQ into a good place, and then to compare it level matched vs my best EQ on my K702 headphone - turned out I like the EQ'd HD800 more. Process described in some detail at this post here:
The "S" owners have a review thread to chirp away in but anything OG HD800 related can go here without disrupting things elsewhere. I know @Robbo99999 has a pair and is struggling to find an EQ that is just right, largely for the bass. To my mind these are not the 'phones to go for for tight...
www.audiosciencereview.com
I still haven't compared the EQ'd HD800 directly against my best HD560s EQ, and previously my best EQ'd HD560s was my joint favourite headphone with my best EQ'd K702, so logic stands to reason I'll like the EQ'd HD800 more than my best EQ'd HD560s, but I'd have to test it with level matched EQ, and it's no doubt that the EQ'd HD560s does better bass than the EQ'd HD800, so it might not be a straight forward comparison & win for the EQ'd HD800 vs EQ'd HD560s. I do think strength of HD800 is indeed soundstage & the treble once you can get the treble right, and the soundstage is affected by the EQ too, so I think it's right than HD800 does have some inherent high potential in these areas, and the bass is OK & quite good with the right EQ but bass not it's best feature. Either way it's really quite difficult to compare different headphones that have both been EQ optimised because overall tonality differences should be small or non existent between them at that point (so judgement is then about other factors that are harder to identify rather than just gross overall tonality differences that would be in play if we were instead talking about comparing stock headphones) (albeit easier than comparing speakers probably in terms of "setup effort" required), and if you factor in the pretty high cost of a new HD800s vs other headphones that are pretty affordable like HD560s (& a lot of others) then it's difficult for you to also say it's the best headphone in context of "why spend more money than necessary" that you mentioned, as this latter part is less likely to be close to the truth.
(Sorry, I've used the word "difficult" so many times it's ridiculous! But I think it's true, it's difficult for you to make the statements you did, it's difficult to properly compare EQ optimised headphones, it's difficult to avoid the pitfalls, it's just difficult alright!)
