[jude]

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?

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.

If you look at the measurements we made in better conditions, what we're actually talking about is centers of the ~3 dB H2 differences we're measuring at approximately 45 dBSPL lower than the fundamental (at 90 dBSPL). Remember, we're also talking about the second harmonic, exactly an octave up. This does bring up an interesting discussion about masking thresholds, which perhaps we can examine more thoroughly when I'm back from CES.

Again, the reason we're doing the FFT is because that was the test done that led to the suggestion that Sennheiser deliberately engineered higher 2nd order harmonic distortion into the HD800S, which has become what is essentially a longstanding universal truth where these headphones are concerned, the accuracy of which we're examining in this discussion. Remember, there are a couple of key things to point out about that original FFT. First, that FFT shows the HD800's 3rd harmonic as marginally higher than the 2nd, which might reasonably be said shows significantly different harmonic distortion characteristics than the HD800S. Secondly, as a result, the H2 difference was shown as 20 dB. That constitutes a substantial difference, and led to the theory in question.

Again, once we get a new HD800 (and even more used ones), we'll measure them and post them here.

 

[wldcohso]

At last, I have them back in my possession. Even with Utopia these make an awesome addition to any line up.

 

[Slim1970]

At last, I have them back in my possession. Even with Utopia these make an awesome addition to any line up.

Yes they do. Not many, if any, can do what they do.

 

[wldcohso]

wow.. Listening to some music using my HD800S with HDV820 and it's much better than my old Sennheiser HDV800. Was using single ended while testing between HDV820 and Hugo 2 and Hugo definitely wins in this setup but when I switched to balanced my music opened up so much more.. more air, better treble, clarity, so musical... base knocks harder than Hugo2 but Hugo2 has more resolution... the clarity on both is just really REALLY nice! trying to decide on which one to keep, why does this have to be so hard... lol wondering why some people get an external amp with the H2.. there's way more than enough power to push my Utopia and HD800S.

 

[Whazzzup]

wow.. Listening to some music using my HD800S with HDV820 and it's much better than my old Sennheiser HDV800. Was using single ended while testing between HDV820 and Hugo 2 and Hugo definitely wins in this setup but when I switched to balanced my music opened up so much more.. more air, better treble, clarity, so musical... base knocks harder than Hugo2 but Hugo2 has more resolution... the clarity on both is just really REALLY nice! trying to decide on which one to keep, why does this have to be so hard... lol wondering why some people get an external amp with the H2.. there's way more than enough power to push my Utopia and HD800S.

staying in the chord family you need TT then you can XLR to a perfectly balanced amp, say gsx mk2 run a superb balanced cable to hd800S and be amazed.

 

[wldcohso]

quote -


Vlad Savov The Verge
Senior Vlad
I watched Tyll Hertsens’ video review of them as well, but I honestly don’t hear the distortion of which he speaks. Ultimately, as I argue in my review, the 800 S feels like a more human-friendly set of headphones.

What use is a perfect-response headphone if it doesn’t sound pleasing to people (who are fallible and flawed and have funnily-shaped ears)? Maybe I’d put one of those on a stethoscope or some other tool that requires absolute aural precision. But the HD 800 S have no purpose other than pleasure listening. People don’t typically mix music with open-back headphones.

It’d be good to hear from anyone that believes (s)he can hear an audible degradation in quality between HD 800 models, but I have zero complaints about the clarity of the S.

end of quote -

 

[audionewbi]

Reading all Judes latest result I wonder if ever Head-fi will produce a product, or partner with a manufacture to produce a product tuned around their currently acquired expertise. What would be amazing.

 

[vrln]

These measurements are consistent with our other measurements of the HD800 and HD800S so far.

This may already have been answered, but have you measured early production serial number HD 800 S as well? Just wondering as silent product revisions could in theory also explain these changes (HD 650 had a clear revision done at one point and T1 went through some early changes too).

 

[Bansaku]

As much as I like reading threads like this, wouldn't it have been far easier to simply ask Sennheiser if they add in 2nd order harmonics to the HD 800S?

 

[csglinux]

As much as I like reading threads like this, wouldn't it have been far easier to simply ask Sennheiser if they add in 2nd order harmonics to the HD 800S?

Jude did ask, and Sennheiser denied this. But I guess that only means they didn't do it intentionally So probably any such effects are very small, which is how I'm interpreting Jude's new measurement data.

 

[Mark Up]

The size of the difference, and their denying adding it intentionally has me leaning towards the S version having more bass, and other minor changes, adding "something" beyond more bass, as a side effect. It was heard as 2nd harmonic distortion, which it was to a very small degree. He said they added it, but not "intentionally". If a change made added it, they did, just not intentionally.

 

[james444]

Jude did ask, and Sennheiser denied this. But I guess that only means they didn't do it intentionally. So probably any such effects are very small, which is how I'm interpreting Jude's new measurement data.

As has been said before, this is an opportunity for (further) inquiry and not hastily reaching conclusions.

So far we've seen a very small but consistent bump in H2 for the HD800S compared to the HD800 in Jude's measurements. And we've seen a much larger bump in Tyll's FFT, to which Jude pointed out that the HD800 was labeled as "HD 800 DP Mod". Jude also pointed out strange large spikes at 200 Hz and 2 kHz in Tyll's THD measurements and raised the question if whatever was causing those spikes would affect the THD readings.

Looking through Tyll's HD800S and HD800 measurement booklet, one can see that he measured both stock and modded units of the HD800, and all of them showed lower THD than the HD800S units he measured. Moreover, the strange large spikes at 200 Hz and 2 kHz Jude mentioned show up equally in all of Tyll's measurements of the HD800S and HD800.

Which, in my book, would suggest that so far neither the "mod theory" nor the "spike theory" can plausibly explain, why the difference in distortion between the HD800 and HD800S in Tyll's measurements is much more significant than in Jude's measurements.

Personally, I'd be curious about Jude's THD measurements, to see whether the difference between the HD800 vs. HD800S in THD is similarly small as in his 40Hz FFTs. I'd also be curious about the output impedance of the headphone amps used for measurements on both systems, as this may well have an effect on THD readings.

 

[Bansaku]

Thanks guys for clearing things up! This thread moves fast and sorting through the posts is daunting.

I'd also be curious about the output impedance of the headphone amps used for measurements on both systems, as this may well have an effect on THD readings.

I have been thinking this since this whole measurements hot topic first came up, especially since I just finished demoing the new HDV 820 (review soon!) and comparing my trusty HD 600 between it and my iFi stack (with and without the iTube2); My ears tell me that the graphs would read quite different if they were measured as the HD 600 behaves quite differently between the two.

 

[Thenewguy007]

This may already have been answered, but have you measured early production serial number HD 800 S as well? Just wondering as silent product revisions could in theory also explain these changes (HD 650 had a clear revision done at one point and T1 went through some early changes too).

I can attest to the T1. I had two v1 T1 headphones & they sounded drastically different from one another.

There was also some noise about the Utopia & LCD-4 having silent revisions as well.

If anyone goes back to the earlier HD800 threads, there was a lot of discussions on whether the early HD800 models sounded different from the newer ones as well.
Though I think Sennheiser only changed the earpads, the early models had the thinner pads.

 

[Rikod70]

This is all so ****ing silly lol