Sennheiser HD800S Review (Headphone)

[restorer-john]

Perhaps some hardware is your solution. A real EQ.

Funny isn't it? We (us old guys), had every type of EQ you can imagine, including PEQ DSP back in the day and decided it wasn't worth bothering with.

Much better to pick the best gear in the first place than try to make silk purse from a sow's ear...

 

[Doodski]

Funny isn't it? We (us old guys), had every type of EQ you can imagine, including PEQ DSP back in the day and decided it wasn't worth bothering with.

Much better to pick the best gear in the first place than try to make silk purse from a sow's ear...

I can't stand listening without EQ now. It's essential. I've always dialed up the treble and sometimes the bass a little too. Presently I dial the bass back because I can't hear it anyway and it takes power and I dial up the high frequencies to the max for my Sennheisers. I like hearing the high hat and drums with snaP!

 

[maverickronin]

Frequency response deviations are arguably the most significant factor in why anything sounds different from something else in a proper A-B comparison. Be it minor roll-offs, dips or extension.

Yes. It's basically always the most obvious difference, but at the same time I find it's usually the easiest to acclimate to. You listen to it for a while, you get used to the FR, and it doesn't bother you anymore. Or at least that's my experience.

Headphones mostly have a different set of tradeoffs than speakers but it shouldn't be too hard see why a less linear on-axis FR would be preferred to something more linear but with port chuffing or terrible directivity.

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,

Well, I am in the somewhat opposite camp.

I can understand that people want to EQ things and I do not mind.
But me, I am no sound engineer.
I just want to plug in my thing and having sound the way I like it (not saying "good"... well , or maybe "good for me").
If I have to fiddle around with settings to "improve" things as they sound out of the box, then that product is not conceived to fit my likings.
And I try to find another one...

Maybe my expectations have diminished but as I am now, I am almost perfectly happy with the sound coming out of my setup.
And I like it all as is, out of the box.
Lucky am I not ?

Regards.

 

[Doodski]

Hi,

Well, I am in the somewhat opposite camp.

I can understand that people want to EQ things and I do not mind.
But me, I am no sound engineer.
I just want to plug in my thing and having sound the way I like it (not saying "good"... well , or maybe "good for me").
If I have to fiddle around with settings to "improve" things as they sound out of the box, then that product is not conceived to fit my likings.
And I try to find another one...

Maybe my expectations have diminished but as I am now, I am almost perfectly happy with the sound coming out of my setup.
And I like it all as is, out of the box.
Lucky am I not ?

Regards.

What new cans are you using that you enjoy so much?

 

[restorer-john]

Yes. It's basically always the most obvious difference, but at the same time I find it's usually the easiest to acclimate to. You listen to it for a while, you get used to the FR, and it doesn't bother you anymore. Or at least that's my experience.

That is indeed very true. Especially with speakers where it is very easy for our brains to "fill in the gaps" and normalize a response within a short period of time.

It's only the stark realities of an instantaneous A-B that highlight those deficiencies/diiferences.

 

[maverickronin]

I just want to plug in my thing and having sound the way I like it (not saying "good"... well , or maybe "good for me").
If I have to fiddle around with settings to "improve" things as they sound out of the box, then that product is not conceived to fit my likings.

That's totally understandable, and really, the way things should be.

It's just the state of the market and current research which unfortunately dictates that almost nothing sounds its best out of the box.

 

[magicscreen]

Hi,

Well, I am in the somewhat opposite camp.

I can understand that people want to EQ things and I do not mind.
But me, I am no sound engineer.

There is already done EQ profiles.
For example oratory1990 for my HD555.
Unfortunately my HD555 became worse when I applied that EQ.
If a headphone has weak bass you cannot EQ it to good. You will have more bad bass only.

 

[Joachim Herbert]

Perhaps some hardware is your solution. A real EQ. Put it between the DAC and headphone amp. There are many used ones for sale.

Yeah. Don't worry if it's missing those peaks and dips. It's cool, so who cares.

 

[Doodski]

Yeah. Don't worry if it's missing those peaks and dips. It's cool, so who cares.

I'm sure it sounds better than no EQ @ all.

 

[JustIntonation]

I would need more time to analyze what is going on. As I noted though, my current hypothesis is exaggeration of certain frequencies above 5 kHz combined with the larger caps and maybe even driver design. If it is the latter aspects then measuring their effect is beyond our reach right now.

The HD800S has a few things going on that the HD650 does not.

First of all, the drivers are angled a bit so the sound comes more from the front and hits the ears differently than with the HD650 which comes from pure left-right. Some experimentation would be needed to see how this affect the testrig "ears" and measurements/frequency response.

Secondly, the HD800S has largely reflective inner cups. The effect of this is clearly audible and in my opinion contributes to its "spacious" sound.
To test this use completely dry percussive sounds or even clicks / impulses and compare the sound of them on the HD800S with a headphone that has ample padding in the cups. The difference between the HD800 (I did not have the S version) and the Beyer DT1990 I had was quite large in this respect, with the HD800 colouring the impulse of the sound whereas the DT1990 was dry like an anechoic chamber. (to measure this and display it in a waterfall or decay plot you'd need to have at least the reflectivity of skin on the ear and head part of the testrig)

edit:
Btw, I liked the artificial/added spaciousness at first but it wore off after a while.
I found that while it gave some music a nicer presentation, with some other music it got in the way of transparency and "realness", especially with classical music. I could clearly recognise this aspect as the "HD800 added sound" after a while.
For instance the HD800, also after EQ based on a host of measurements on other websites, did not do justice to my favorite organ music which is absolutely wonderful on some dry headphones like the DT1990 and in two near anechoic chambers I heard it on different speakers.

With the HD800 there was no proper sense of 'being there'.

 

[Bob-23]

I hope for the HP loving world you are right that the 702 can compare. Ill buy a pair if so.

left: K701/right: K702

left: HD800s/ right: K702

 

[Dreyfus]

Rtings' ratings are nice! Great orientation for those listening through a HATS.

 

[Nango]

Rtings sees Sundara on par with HD 800, cool!!!!

 

[Erispedia]

Rtings sees Sundara on par with HD 800, cool!!!!

HD800 sounds cleaner than Sundara tho. And a bit more spacious too. Comfort is easy win for HD800. If not for the godawful clamp force of Sundara, I wouldn't looking for to buy a used HD800.

 

[Zensō]

Hi,

As far as I am concernend, I am ready to spend some money on EQ.
BUT : how do I do it ?

My two concerns are :
- 1°) I am not always listening to music from a device that has EQ abilities. For example, I more and more often use a small dedicated music box that plays my files. And unless I have oversee the setting, there is no way to modify the sound of it, except playing with the "DAC filters"... But those are "presets", nothing I can do myself... So how do I perform EQ for a "little extra" ? I can also stream music from the computer to the networked Blu-Ray player that has no EQ settings either...
- 2°) when I listen to music streamed from my computer, I use Linux. What can I use to EQ my music with Linux ? I found "PulseEffects" but enabling that also automatically resample the bitrate... So not sure I'd like to trade EQ for resamploing :-(

Of course, if you can show a path, I'll take it...

Regards.

Roon has a number of built-in DSP tools, including a 10 band parametric equalizer, headroom manager, and crossfeed. Using these with Oratory 1990’s EQ curves has consistently improved the sound of my various headphones (Focal Elex, Focal Elegia, Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro, Sennheiser HD 660S).

 

[wasnotwasnotwas]

That's indeed the point here. Perhaps other types of measurements with dynamic signals are needed and psychoacoustic modelling is needed to asses those types of measurements instead of merely looking at FR. Which is the most important aspect but not the only one.

Exactly. Otherwise we sound like the folks banging on about dacs sounding different but measurements don't tell the whole story. We can't even really do blind tests that prove a difference. If we look at FR and opinion post EQ as the basic scoring measures then those saying k702 /4xx are comparable to 800S have measurements on their side. Without necessarily having heard the 800S or other "high end".

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

In headphones you can easily found the thd and FR
Measure headphones is a lot easily, but at the same time you cannot measure everything as speakers

hum~ I am still a bit skeptic on the Harman curve for bass, I remember a brief usage of a old HD800 in my listening room now using the Genelec 8030, I don't recall the HD800 being so bass light and I felt the bass was actually similar to the 8030Cs! but to the curve the bass at 50hz should be +7.5db to do that.

You cannot profesionally review a headphone because the things are different, you need the ears..
For example if you push the sub bass +10dB the hd800s still dont gonna move air and gonna sound like a speakers with roll off, planar magnetic are better, zmf too.
The research of measurements in headphones and in ear are just incomplete vs speakers. There is no way in how to do a pro review in in-ears and headphones.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

With headphones you can get bass down to 20 Hz. With the EQ I have, I am able to play my speaker killer tracks with ease and incredible, clean bass response. It is not tactile in the way speaker bass is but it is wonderful to have such bass response. Your Genelecs can't produce such bass so it is not a good reference. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Is a little weird when a headphone can show the 20hz easily but isnt tactile as speakers.. Even that tactile effect in headphones are different but how you can cuantify that? I mean is a importante aspect

 

[threni]

- 2°) when I listen to music streamed from my computer, I use Linux. What can I use to EQ my music with Linux ? I found "PulseEffects" but enabling that also automatically resample the bitrate... So not sure I'd like to trade EQ for resamploing :-(

If you can choose between pulseaudio and alsa my fairly limited understanding is that alsa is better but pulseaudio allows more than one device at a time via support for mixing. I did some eq using pulse but it was glitchy and used a lot of cpu and I read it was buggy. The eq i use on alsa is low cpu and rock solid. If you're interested in alsa I could probably provide some help. If someone here knows more about it I'd be interested in learning more myself. I'm about to write a short blog about how I built a portable music player out of a raspberry pi 3 and lego and the Apple usb dongle which will include details about the alsa eq.