Tried all of the latest and past flagships, and currently settled on the Abyss Phi.
This interests me A LOT though. HD 800 was my first flagship ever and I always liked it. Curious if I'll end up as an owner of an 820 within the next year or so.
Bass extension is the only major issue I have as a HD 800 S owner - if they keep most of the soundstage/resolution while delivering on the closed headphone bass potential they have a huge hit on their hands. Bass extension* is the weak point of all open headphones, it´s just physics.
One of the (if not the) main selling points of the entire Focal high end lineup is that they managed to extend the bass by quite a lot in an (semi?) open design which was until then more or less unheard of. It was done by designing a speaker like driver with more excursion than usual. This is another approach at the same goal, but doing deep bass in a closed design is going to be a lot easier than in any open one. It´s the same as with in ear monitors: if you break the seal the sub bass is the first to go. An open headphone is basically like an IEM without a good seal.
* And bass distortion too as the drivers have to be driven really hard to provide any decent amount of low bass.
I love how it looks and I hope it will sound good too, because of my kids I use only close back headphones, and I'm really looking forward to try them.
I'm sorry but I have to giggle just a little when I hear folks pining for more bass response from Senn hd800/S. These have some of the very best bass in the game with just a simple bit of EQ.
They certainly look the part. I think it’s a shame that they’re so expensive as I really thought they would be pitched around the same price as the 800S. I just have the feeling that they could earn their keep around €1400, and not taking the big leap towards 2400, joining the rapidly expanding roster of other totl ‘phones.
I haven’t heard the AKG 872, but I’d be interested how these two compare.
Back to my HD800S!
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