Sennheiser HD800 S Impressions Thread (read first post for summary)
Jan 6, 2018 at 9:11 PM Post #2,941 of 8,577
Look, let's get to the guts of this: what I object to is Tyll acting like he has come down from heaven and runs the headphone world.

The infantile "Wall of Fame", which he manipulates at will, is insane. In a subjective hobby - a "what sounds good to YOU? hobby" - I resent him using his less-than-state-of-the-art measurements (with his refrigerator running in the background??) to "prove" the superiority of his totally random, arbitrary, subjective, whimsical "taste".

Here's what I selfishly want:

1) Reviewers who can help me make decisions when I spend $$ on headphones, without the drama.

2) Sennheiser to come here and simply tell us what they have done to make the 800S sound like the 800S.
 
Jan 6, 2018 at 9:32 PM Post #2,942 of 8,577
So you are telling me (and Alex Grell) that HD800S don't have higher distortion but has more bass/more extended which is not present into measurements? :)) -- please tell me how is that!

The driver is the same, the same impedance, the same measurements, the same material, the only thing that differs is that Acoustical absorber)
(Which ADDS MORE BASS without altering nothing?-- AMAZING resonator at it's best)

Please post all the measurements and come into a conclusion because here something doesn't look right. Interpreting the measurements counts MORE than the gear used (to a certain extent OFC)
https://www.rtings.com/headphones/1-1/graph#290/1227/245 - The same amazing GRASS? Maybe we should call them and measure a pair of HD800 to see another side of the story, the third point of view. :)

This looks shady...I was thinking buying the HD800S but now after all this, allI see is a bad product re-marketing...sorry!
 
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Jan 6, 2018 at 10:01 PM Post #2,943 of 8,577
Look, let's get to the guts of this: what I object to is Tyll acting like he has come down from heaven and runs the headphone world.

The infantile "Wall of Fame", which he manipulates at will, is insane. In a subjective hobby - a "what sounds good to YOU? hobby" - I resent him using his less-than-state-of-the-art measurements (with his refrigerator running in the background??) to "prove" the superiority of his totally random, arbitrary, subjective, whimsical "taste".

Here's what I selfishly want:

1) Reviewers who can help me make decisions when I spend $$ on headphones, without the drama.

2) Sennheiser to come here and simply tell us what they have done to make the 800S sound like the 800S.
Are you trolling?
 
Jan 6, 2018 at 11:30 PM Post #2,944 of 8,577
I think Tyll does what he does because he enjoys it and he owes nothing to anyone.
He reviews headphones the way he like and share a database of his work, which by the way it's tons of it by now.

The wall of fame is nothing but a list of the headphones he feel more comfortable recommending for various reasons (not only absolute performance). And he updates it when he feels it's convenient. That's it. He's just a normal guy, like you and me.

Then some sort of lazy people, always seeking for and creating semi-gods in their mind, gave Tyll a place he didn't ask for, so they can simplify their decisions. And the same happened to his wall of fame. Lazy people started wanting the headphones on that list and using the list as a confirmation that they have made the right choice. Many of those then got angry at Tyll when he retired their headphones from the list.

This is all silly, and has very little to do with a hard-working man and his way of sharing his work with the community.
With this in mind, I don't think the criticism Tyll is receiving lately is deserved. If you like Innerfidelity, you can read it. Tyll has worked so it's there free for you. If you don't like it, no one will force you to read. You'll find tons of other reviewers with very different perspectives.

With regards to HD800 and HD800S, we all know and have certainty that HD800S has less energy in the mid-treble relative to HD800. Since tonal balance comes from the relative presence of each part of the spectrum it's perfectly normal to perceive the bass on HD800S a little bit more present than on HD800. It's also entirely valid to point that good part of what we call bass in our music is indeed a more complex array of sound formed by different frequencies. For instance, the attack and sharpness come as a result of the upper midrange and treble performance. In that sense, it's likely that the higher treble on HD800 can improve the perception of clarity and layering of what we call bass.

On a side note, I don't think 'there's plenty of money involved here' since HD800S boasts an outstanding reputation all around the globe, with or without the harmonic distortion in the lower bass published on Innerfidelity.

Now into the topic of discussing the measured difference in terms of harmonic distortion between these two measuring setups, we'll just have to wait until more units are measured in both setups. Hopefully Jude and Tyll can measure the same headphones and solve this out for us.

It's also very important to note that normal/healthy listening levels live well below the 100dB mark on Tyll measurements, so even if there happens to be a difference in 2nd order distortion between HD800 and HD800S as seen on Tyll's plots, the difference at typical levels is much lower so the audibility of that difference at normal levels (70-75dB average) is challenging to say the least.

Since this is HD800S impressions thread, I’ll add that I don’t think my HD800S has significant higher amount of bass relative to the HD800 I’ve owned until last month. Both are borderline bass light in the big scheme of things, designed in such a way that they don’t exhibit any hint of “bloom” or loss of control when plugged on a neutralish setup with low output impedance. Both have less bass quantity/warmth than the AKG K812/Tesla T1.1/Tesla T1.2/AKG K712. In my experience both HD800 and HD800S are similar to my former DT880 Pro and late AKG K702s in terms of bass quantity.

In terms of quality, the bass on both HD800 and HD800S is remarkably clear to my ears.
 
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Jan 7, 2018 at 12:22 AM Post #2,945 of 8,577
I still freak on my hd800S.
 
Jan 7, 2018 at 2:58 AM Post #2,946 of 8,577
This looks shady...I was thinking buying the HD800S but now after all this, allI see is a bad product re-marketing...sorry!

Ummm... ook .. yes. I had both at the same time, and clearly it's not, nor there is anything in this weird but interesting thread that can really make you think that.
 
Jan 8, 2018 at 9:08 AM Post #2,947 of 8,577
Cat's out of the bag.....now to wait for comparisons. : )
Screen Shot 2018-01-08 at 8.59.22 AM.png
https://en-us.sennheiser.com/high-end-headphones-audiophiles-hd-820
 
Jan 8, 2018 at 9:15 AM Post #2,948 of 8,577
Soooo I have a whole year to next Boxing Day sale to decide to buy these. Let’s bring it on. Who’s starting the new thread
 
Jan 8, 2018 at 10:01 AM Post #2,950 of 8,577
I was at ALMA International's annual conference last weekend. (ALMA International is the International Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing & Acoustics.) At the conference I gave a talk to an audience consisting mostly of audio industry acoustical engineers, discussing consumer-facing measurements, DIY measurements, and our measurements. Among other things, I showed them videos explaining how we measure headphones -- specifically, how we place headphones on the fixtures for measurement. I'll post more information and videos here on the forums after CES, going over the placement technique and tools we use here when we measure headphones.

This was my second ALMA conference, and it has become one of my favorite events -- the people, the discussions, the seminars, the whole experience. There's something to learn from everyone I meet and talk to at ALMA. I've been speaking with Dan Foley of Audio Precision (and current president of ALMA International) for quite some time about more progressive headphone measurement testing, and received some new ideas this weekend from engineers that we have the tools at Head-Fi to explore now. Anyway, more on that over time.

For now, I wanted to post some additional measurements taken of the Sennheiser HD800 (S/N 00342) and HD800S (S/N 13134) -- those are the second-unit HD800 and the brand new HD800S previously tested. (We have not yet received the brand new HD800's.) These measurements were done at the show, in conditions noisy enough to be far less than ideal for testing headphones. For these, then, we went to 100 dBSPL (at 40 Hz) to get above the din, and also tested at times when it was a bit less crowded.

The following are measurements taken by Brüel & Kjær at the show. I placed the headphones on the head, and Vince Rey from Brüel & Kjær did the final positioning and conducted the measurements using their latest HATS (head and torso simulator) and their PULSE analysis software. Here are the results:

BK-ALMA-AISE-2018-HD800.png

BK-ALMA-AISE-2018-HD800S.png


The cursor on the HD800S measurement is placed at 80 Hz, so you can see that H2 is at 72.219 dB and 72.357 dB. The cursor on the HD800 measurement was not at 80 Hz, but you can see that the difference between these measurements is around 3 dB to 4 dB. This is similar to what we were getting back at the office.

I also took these headphones to the Audio Precision exhibit, and we measured both on Audio Precision's AECM206 headphone test fixture. Ryan O'Connor from Audio Precision helped with the measurements. Here's what we got:

FFT-Spectrum---HD800---HD800S--100-dBSPL---40-Hz---2.866-dBSPL-delta.jpg


In this test, the difference between the HD800 (gray) and HD800S (black) at H2 (80 Hz) is 2.866 dBSPL.

Again, these measurements were done in far less than ideal conditions (in the exhibit area at the show), but we did try to go loud enough and average enough to separate the fundamental and H2 (and H3) from ambient. These measurements are consistent with our other measurements of the HD800 and HD800S so far.

Thanks to Vince Rey and Ryan O'Connor for their help.

Since this thread is long -- making this topic a bit challenging to track -- here is a summary (with links) of the posts so far:


2017-12-27: For nearly two years, it has been accepted as fact by many that Sennheiser may have deliberately increased 2nd order harmonic distortion with the HD800S by 20 dB to achieve its fuller sound. Our initial measurements last summer suggested otherwise, and feedback from Sennheiser was consistent with our findings. We looked into the origins of this theory, and did an entirely new set of FFT measurements on the HD800 and HD800S we had on hand. You can see this at the following link: Did Sennheiser Add H2 Distortion To The HD800S? (Our initial measurements suggested the answer is "no.")


2018-01-02: We measured a second Sennheiser HD800 and (with those measurements) offer a possible explanation for how this theory of deliberately-added higher 2nd order distortion in the Sennheiser HD800S may have come about. Long story short, our measurements so far do not support the assumption that Sennheiser added 2nd order harmonic distortion to the HD800S, which is also consistent with feedback from Sennheiser. You can find out more at the following link: Additional Sennheiser HD800 FFT measurements, as well as a closer look at the measurement that started this assumption nearly two years ago.


2018-01-03: We received a brand new Sennheiser HD800S (S/N 13134) from Sennheiser and measured it. I also posted the serial numbers of all the Sennheiser HD800's and HD800S's measured to date. You can see the brand new Sennheiser HD800S's FFT and the serial numbers of the other units at the following link: Brand new, unopened Sennheiser HD800S measured


2018-01-04: I posted with more information and details about our measurement systems. You can read that at the following link: The Audio Measurement Lab at Head-Fi HQ


2018-01-04: I posted a link to more information about (and photos of) the DIY headphone measurement rigs from which many (perhaps most) of the headphone measurements you see on the web are made. You can see this at the following link: DIY Headphone Measurement Rigs


2018-01-04: We take a closer look at the InnerFidelity FFT that led to the nearly two-year-old theory that perhaps Sennheiser deliberately added 2nd order harmonic distortion to the HD800S to tune its fuller sound (a theory that our measurements so far do not support). I think more interesting than the HD800S measurement is the HD800 measurement which shows higher H3 than H2 (which seems to be largely responsible for the difference at H2 between these models in this one measurement). Was the HD800 in that original FFT measurement modified? The HD800 labels on it read "HD 800 DP Mod," whereas the HD800S labels read "HD 800S." Here's a link: Taking A Closer Look at InnerFidelity's Original HD800/HD800S FFT


2018-01-04: @daltonlanny asks why I'm not depending on distortion measurements from DIY measurement rigs (shown in a link above) to get us closer to answering this. I discuss this, including a link to an article by Audio Precision's Dan Foley that covers (among other topics) the importance of instrument precision in measuring distortion. Here's a link: Should We Count On DIY Headphone Measurement Rigs For THD Measurements In This Discussion?


2018-01-08: I was at ALMA International's annual conference last weekend. (ALMA is the International Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing & Acoustics.) I gave a talk at the conference to an audience consisting mostly of audio industry acoustical engineers, discussing consumer-facing measurements, DIY measurements, and our measurements. Among other things, I showed them videos explaining how we measure headphones -- specifically, how we place headphones on the fixtures for measurement. I'll post more information and videos here on the forums after CES, going over the placement technique and tools we use here when we measure

While at the conference, I visited the exhibits of Brüel & Kjær (B&K) and Audio Precision (AP) to measure HD800 (S/N 00342) and HD800S (S/N 13134) using their headphone test fixtures. Again, these measurements are consistent with our findings so far, and do not support the original theory (that Sennheiser deliberately added H2 distortion to the HD800S). Here's a link to those measurements: HD800 and HD800S FFT Measurements From ALMA International's Conference (That is a link to this post.)


2018-01-14: We received three brand new HD800's from Sennheiser, serial numbers 49282, 49759, and 49760. We did a preliminary FFT measurement of the highest-numbered unit (49760), and it is consistent with our other measurements so far. I'll post the results later, after we've measured all three of these new HD800 units.


2018-05-19: A gentleman on reddit (username "oratory1990") posted measurements of his HD800S and a friend's HD800 on reddit. I was pointed to his thread there and asked to respond, which I did (here). You can read my response (and additional details and measurements) at the following link: More HD800 and HD800S Measurements At Higher SPL And Lower Frequency (20 Hz)

 
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Jan 8, 2018 at 11:05 AM Post #2,951 of 8,577
I was at ALMA International's annual conference this weekend. (ALMA is the Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing & Acoustics.) On Saturday at the conference I gave a talk to an audience of audio industry acoustical engineers, discussing consumer-facing measurements, DIY measurements, and our measurements. Among other things, I showed them videos explaining how we measure headphones -- specifically, how we place headphones on the fixtures for measurement. I'll post more information and videos here on the forums after CES, going over the placement technique and tools we use here when we measure headphones.

This was my second ALMA conference, and it has become one of my favorite events -- the people, the discussions, the seminars, the whole experience. There's something to learn from everyone I meet and talk to at ALMA. I've been speaking with Dan Foley of Audio Precision (and current president of ALMA International) for quite some time about more progressive headphone measurement testing, and received some new ideas this weekend from engineers that we have the tools at Head-Fi to explore now. Anyway, more on that over time.

For now, I wanted to post some additional measurements taken of the Sennheiser HD800 (S/N 00342) and HD800S (S/N 13134) -- those are the second-unit HD800 and the brand new HD800S previously tested. (We have not yet received the brand new HD800's.) These measurements were done at the show, in conditions noisy enough to be far less than ideal for testing headphones. For these, then, we went to 100 dBSPL (at 40 Hz) to get above the din, and also tested at times when it was a bit less crowded.

The following are measurements taken by Brüel & Kjær at the show. I placed the headphones on the head, and Vince Rey from Brüel & Kjær did the final positioning and conducted the measurements using their latest HATS (head and torso simulator) and their PULSE analysis software. Here are the results:




The cursor on the HD800S measurement is placed at 80 Hz, so you can see that H2 is at 72.219 dB and 72.357 dB. The cursor on the HD800 measurement was not at 80 Hz, but you can see that the difference between these measurements is around 3 dB to 4 dB. This is similar to what we were getting back at the office.

I also took these headphones to the Audio Precision exhibit, and we measured both on Audio Precision's AECM206 headphone test fixture. Ryan O'Connor from Audio Precision helped with the measurements. Here's what we got:



In this test, the difference between the HD800 (gray) and HD800S (black) at H2 (80 Hz) is 2.866 dBSPL.

Again, these measurements were done in far less than ideal conditions (in the exhibit area at the show), but we did try to go loud enough and average enough to separate the fundamental and H2 (and H3) from ambient. These measurements are consistent with our other measurements of the HD800 and HD800S so far.

Thanks to Vince Rey and Ryan O'Connor for their help.

So another FFT that says the same thing. Good to know but I think THD comparisons would be useful such as the HD800 (dotted line) compared against the Utopia (blue line).

How loud can the HD800 get at 30Hz? People look at subbass sensitivity but maximum SPL at low frequencies also matters.
 
Jan 8, 2018 at 11:58 AM Post #2,952 of 8,577
Jan 8, 2018 at 1:35 PM Post #2,953 of 8,577
I was at ALMA International's annual conference this weekend. (ALMA is the Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing & Acoustics.) On Saturday at the conference I gave a talk to an audience of audio industry acoustical engineers, discussing consumer-facing measurements, DIY measurements, and our measurements. Among other things, I showed them videos explaining how we measure headphones -- specifically, how we place headphones on the fixtures for measurement. I'll post more information and videos here on the forums after CES, going over the placement technique and tools we use here when we measure headphones.

This was my second ALMA conference, and it has become one of my favorite events -- the people, the discussions, the seminars, the whole experience. There's something to learn from everyone I meet and talk to at ALMA. I've been speaking with Dan Foley of Audio Precision (and current president of ALMA International) for quite some time about more progressive headphone measurement testing, and received some new ideas this weekend from engineers that we have the tools at Head-Fi to explore now. Anyway, more on that over time.

For now, I wanted to post some additional measurements taken of the Sennheiser HD800 (S/N 00342) and HD800S (S/N 13134) -- those are the second-unit HD800 and the brand new HD800S previously tested. (We have not yet received the brand new HD800's.) These measurements were done at the show, in conditions noisy enough to be far less than ideal for testing headphones. For these, then, we went to 100 dBSPL (at 40 Hz) to get above the din, and also tested at times when it was a bit less crowded.

The following are measurements taken by Brüel & Kjær at the show. I placed the headphones on the head, and Vince Rey from Brüel & Kjær did the final positioning and conducted the measurements using their latest HATS (head and torso simulator) and their PULSE analysis software. Here are the results:




The cursor on the HD800S measurement is placed at 80 Hz, so you can see that H2 is at 72.219 dB and 72.357 dB. The cursor on the HD800 measurement was not at 80 Hz, but you can see that the difference between these measurements is around 3 dB to 4 dB. This is similar to what we were getting back at the office.

I also took these headphones to the Audio Precision exhibit, and we measured both on Audio Precision's AECM206 headphone test fixture. Ryan O'Connor from Audio Precision helped with the measurements. Here's what we got:



In this test, the difference between the HD800 (gray) and HD800S (black) at H2 (80 Hz) is 2.866 dBSPL.

Again, these measurements were done in far less than ideal conditions (in the exhibit area at the show), but we did try to go loud enough and average enough to separate the fundamental and H2 (and H3) from ambient. These measurements are consistent with our other measurements of the HD800 and HD800S so far.

Thanks to Vince Rey and Ryan O'Connor for their help.

Thanks again for all the careful work being done to measure these headphones. I feel very flattered that my favorite open-back headphone is getting this much love :) Personally, I think this is all fascinating, but I need some clever people to help me understand something here, because there are two points I'm awfully confused on now.

1) Only a few posts back, several headfi members were ready to skewer Tyll's head on spike. But if there's a consistently measurable 2-4 dB bump in H2, are we really still ruling second-harmonic distortion out as a possibility? Maybe it's just a happy accident, but that should be totally audible, no?

2) It should be possible to engineer a structure to a damp certain mode shapes. This could give preference to H2. I still don't know why one would intentionally engineer that, because higher harmonics of a pure sine tone are always an aberration. (In any case, Jude's communications with Sennheiser would indicate it wasn't intentional.) I would have thought it preferable to have a resonant mode at some low frequency to boost the bass, but I would have expected you'd want the emphasis of that resonance on the fundamental. Or am I overlooking something here?
 
Jan 8, 2018 at 2:19 PM Post #2,954 of 8,577
1) Only a few posts back, several headfi members were ready to skewer Tyll's head on spike. But if there's a consistently measurable 2-4 dB bump in H2, are we really still ruling second-harmonic distortion out as a possibility? Maybe it's just a happy accident, but that should be totally audible, no?

A 2-4 dB difference at the fundamental frequency should be audible, imo. But a 2-4 dB difference in 2nd harmonic, with H2 being down by -30dB vs. the fundamental? I have my doubts about that...

Having said that, I'd agree that a consistent 2-4 dB bump in H2 for the HD800S vs. the HD800 shouldn't be offhandedly dismissed.
 
Jan 8, 2018 at 2:25 PM Post #2,955 of 8,577
A 2-4 dB difference at the fundamental frequency should be audible, imo. But a 2-4 dB difference in 2nd harmonic, with H2 being down by -30dB vs. the fundamental? I have my doubts about that...

Good point - thanks :) Still interesting that there's a difference at all though, no? Considering Sennheiser says they didn't do anything to cause this.
 

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