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Why does the Sennheiser HD800s have such a wide soundstage?

PH14

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Can anyone tell me (in very simple terms please, not a techie) why the Sennheiser HD800s sounds so very wide?

Is it the large cups and distance from driver to ear? Is it the driver tech? Or is it some tuning that I can see in a graph?

I'm interested so I can see what other headphones might have a wider soundstage or not at all, so if it's something that can be deduced from a frequency response graph it would be possible.

I'm also curious because from what I hear, no other headphone ever even came close (nor do any brands try to mimic it - maybe most don't like it?)
 

Dunring

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The AKG K7XX comes close to it in passive soundstage size, but it's resolution is worse so what you hear at a distance isn't very well defined. I've had the hd800s and they just nailed on the design for soundstage. The ones I've heard that come to 80 percent of it's size maybe are the Audio Technica ADH1000X and the Amiron Home, but they each have their downsides too.
Rtings keeps a leaderboard of their passive soundstage testing if you want see the models they've ranked.
 
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PH14

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Is there any 'overlap' in their frequency responses? An area that one can point to and say: if this looks like that, a headphone will have wide soundstage?
 

Katji

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Very likely a combination of those factors.
 
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