Doing an Olympic drive right into the audiophile headphone rabbit hole. Due to being in a townhouse, I can't really have a home theater sound system so I splurged on headphones instead. I went from a Sennheiser HD558 to a HD598se and now a HD800s. Also have a pair of 428s at work. I've always been a big fan of Sennheisers and Klipsh. Initial thoughts is that it isn't as comfy as the 598se, sound stage is definitely brighter and bigger. Needs some EQ to cancel out that brightness but I guess we'll really see how it is after break-in. Anybody else jumped down the audiophilie rabbit hole?
Audio headphones - Down the rabbit hole I go
- Thread starter Pew
- Start date
I've gone back and forth with audiophile territory, but never on the extreme high end. Normally for me something that's an 8 our of 10 is perfectly fine for my uses.
However, I'll be moving into a new house in the next couple of months and certainly plan to get a whole house audio/visual system in place. Time to crack open books again...
However, I'll be moving into a new house in the next couple of months and certainly plan to get a whole house audio/visual system in place. Time to crack open books again...
That's such a deep rabbit hole it's hard to get into here at BITOG. Plenty more on this subject at head-fi, ASR and many other forums. That said, as someone who has lived in this rabbit hole for many years, I find the Sennheiser HD600 to be the most transparent & neutral of their line. The HD800 is voiced too bright, some of its reknown "detail" and "spaciousness" is simply due to exaggerated treble. None of them handle the lowest bass octave well; for state of the art bass reproduction you need a planar magnetic.
i started in 2010 and got one of the original hd 800 and in 2012 i got a pair of hifiman he6 that i paired with a pure class A amplifier. my favorite type of headphones are planar magnetic. they have powerful tight bass and euphoric midrange focused sound. i like clarity, but the hd 800 pushed that too far for my ears. in fact i modified my pair in 2012 to get even more clarity and i damaged my hearing by listening too loud.
my cousin is an audiologist and he checked my hearing in 2014. i prefer high end cans that have darker sound signature like audeze headphones. at one point i had over 15 pairs of headphones worth over 1000 dollars each. nowadays a 5000 dollars pair of headphones is not that rare. headphones over 3000 dollars are common. i had an hegel hd 2500 dac.
the guy responsible for the rebirth and massive growth of high end audio headphones is a chinese guy. Dr Fang Bian. he has pushed the development of planar magnetic headphones and electrostatic headphones to stratospheric levels. now many companies are pushing the boudaries of headphones development.
www.psaudio.com
his 2 flagship products are the hifiman susvara and EF 1000 pure class A amplifier at 18 000 dollars. and the hifiman shangri-la electrostatic headphones and amplifier at 49,999 dollars. the cans alone are 18 000 dollars.
my cousin is an audiologist and he checked my hearing in 2014. i prefer high end cans that have darker sound signature like audeze headphones. at one point i had over 15 pairs of headphones worth over 1000 dollars each. nowadays a 5000 dollars pair of headphones is not that rare. headphones over 3000 dollars are common. i had an hegel hd 2500 dac.
the guy responsible for the rebirth and massive growth of high end audio headphones is a chinese guy. Dr Fang Bian. he has pushed the development of planar magnetic headphones and electrostatic headphones to stratospheric levels. now many companies are pushing the boudaries of headphones development.
Dr. Fang Bian of HIFIMAN – PS Audio
www.psaudio.com
his 2 flagship products are the hifiman susvara and EF 1000 pure class A amplifier at 18 000 dollars. and the hifiman shangri-la electrostatic headphones and amplifier at 49,999 dollars. the cans alone are 18 000 dollars.
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I'm breaking in the HD800s in now while I cook but I completely agree with them being way to bright when stock. I did a quick EQ based off what I found on the ASR forum and it helped quite a bit, but I'm still not sure if I like them more than the 598se at the moment.
The HE6, DT1990PRO, susvarna, and HD650 we're right up on my list too, I basically eene-meenie-miny-moo'd through my list
The HE6, DT1990PRO, susvarna, and HD650 we're right up on my list too, I basically eene-meenie-miny-moo'd through my list
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My best headphones are probably Philips Fidelio X2HR. Alas, I rarely ever listen to music using headphones. Sometimes I use them when watching movies at night.
Most of the time I have something quietly playing through the speakers when I'm working at my desk. Once in a while I crank it up - I'm sure my neighbors love my 12" SVS sub.
Most of the time I have something quietly playing through the speakers when I'm working at my desk. Once in a while I crank it up - I'm sure my neighbors love my 12" SVS sub.
Not to the same level as many do, but I made an effort to upgrade the lame audio of my Dell XPS last year, disabling the anemic onboard sound and replacing it with a good yet inexpensive USB DAC and some good earbuds. Huge improvement.
I'm no audiophile per se, but life's too short for crap PC sound.
I'm no audiophile per se, but life's too short for crap PC sound.
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For the HD800, a single-band parametric works nicely: -6 dB @ 6 kHz, Q=2.0. The HD600 and 650 don't need this.
Optionally, you can also raise the attenuated bass with a gentle low shelf starting at 100 Hz and rising +4 dB by 20 Hz. All the models (800, 600, 650) benefit from this.
They attenuate bass more than that, but if you boost it any more it only gets soft & distorted.
Just a guideline... YMMV.
I tried Oratory1990's fix-band but now I'm at
Now I'm at
Q=2
1: 31hz 3.3dB
2: 62hz 1.7dB
3: 125hz 0.9
4: 250hz 1.2
5: 500hz 2.7
6: 1000hz 2.6
7: 2000hz 0.2
8: 4000hz -2.7
9: 8000hz -2.5
10: 16k hz -0.9
I've never really messed around with EQs before so I'm taking some time dialing it in.
Oratory1990 has detailed well researched EQ profiles. They're valuable for research/educational purposes, yet I find complex EQ with overlapping bands can make the cure worse than the disease. I don't chase every nitnoid wiggle in the response, but apply simple EQ to correct the major deviations as gently as possible. Also, with headphones the target curve makes a huge difference. The Harman curve is well researched, but it's based on population preferences which are subjective. With headphones everyone hears differently, both subjectively and objectively (HRTF). For me, the Harman curve has too much bass & treble, sounds like what a teenager would do to the tone controls. Preferences vary, YMMV.
Thus my simple HD800 correction of -6 dB @ 6 kHz Q=2.0. It's an obvious fit if you look at its frequency response and it fixes that headphone's most obvious flaw of excessive brightness. The rest is pretty good, more or less, and if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Thus my simple HD800 correction of -6 dB @ 6 kHz Q=2.0. It's an obvious fit if you look at its frequency response and it fixes that headphone's most obvious flaw of excessive brightness. The rest is pretty good, more or less, and if it ain't broke don't fix it.
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Yea right now I have it set at
Pre-Amp +2
31hz +3.5
62hz +2.1
4k and 8hz at -3.2
I like this for games so far a lot. The soundstage is huge, noticeably bigger than the 598se, not that those were bad at all. I think I can love these for everything on my PC but now I really want to try Planar magnetic headphones.
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So I took the entire night trying to EQ the headphones and eventually kept it on Oratory1990's fixed EQ. I reactivated my Tidal subscription to see if there was a difference compared to YouTube Music's quality and there was! Now I have to see if Tidal's music selection has grown over the past couple years.
I can definitely understand when people say these headphones are very analytical and great for mixing and the studio. It's almost so analytical that it's annoying hearing everything. These are awesome for games though. I'm very tempted to try some HiFiman, Audeze, or DCAs for music (the hole gets deeper!)
I can definitely understand when people say these headphones are very analytical and great for mixing and the studio. It's almost so analytical that it's annoying hearing everything. These are awesome for games though. I'm very tempted to try some HiFiman, Audeze, or DCAs for music (the hole gets deeper!)
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I have dozens of headphones though I draw the line at around $300 and bought most of them used because depreciation. I consider the HD598 a fun headphone with its wide soundstage but don't think it sounds like a hi-fi headphone. And it has oval earcups so it fits weird like it's made for Vulcans not humans.
My old HD580 are great for vocals of course, they might be my #1 if I listened to audio books or similar, but they get boring for other things. Find the "legendary" HD650 even more boring than the HD580. ha.
Lately been using Audio-Technica AD900x for something different. Comfortable, airy, A step up from the AD700x but 75% of people probably wouldn't notice the difference. Sometimes my modded DT990 sounds like the perfect headphone, and then other times that treble spike is still there stabbing me in the ear.
Got an ancient AKG K701, sounds great with bass mod, a couple Q701 and a few AKG K7xx. This old K701 sounds better than Q701 and K7xx I think from being worn in more and sounds meatier. Problem on these is the soundstage is so big everything sounds far away, and you have to crank up the volume to really enjoy them.
Not a fan of Hifiman HE400i. But the HE400S is quite nice. Always wanted to get a Sundara or HE560 but can't justify paying even their sale prices for Hifiman lack of quality control.
My old HD580 are great for vocals of course, they might be my #1 if I listened to audio books or similar, but they get boring for other things. Find the "legendary" HD650 even more boring than the HD580. ha.
Lately been using Audio-Technica AD900x for something different. Comfortable, airy, A step up from the AD700x but 75% of people probably wouldn't notice the difference. Sometimes my modded DT990 sounds like the perfect headphone, and then other times that treble spike is still there stabbing me in the ear.
Got an ancient AKG K701, sounds great with bass mod, a couple Q701 and a few AKG K7xx. This old K701 sounds better than Q701 and K7xx I think from being worn in more and sounds meatier. Problem on these is the soundstage is so big everything sounds far away, and you have to crank up the volume to really enjoy them.
Not a fan of Hifiman HE400i. But the HE400S is quite nice. Always wanted to get a Sundara or HE560 but can't justify paying even their sale prices for Hifiman lack of quality control.
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I used to EQ a lot but then realized using Windows any EQing sends the sound through the Windows audio software and hurts the clarity. Obviously not a problem if you don't play your audio from a Windows computer.
Not if you use WASAPI or ASIO to send data to your DAC.
It's been a while... now I remember. I was using EqualizerAPO with Windows. But that uses Windows DirectSound. Then started using MusicBee with its eq and WASAPI Exclusive for just listening to music.
"Problem " of the hd800 is that it is standard dynamic driver. In that price range you have many planar options. IMHO above 500€ it has to be something exotic, at least for me. Focal AFAIK makes expensive dynamic headphones, not interested at all.
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Definitely nothing that exotic here. I have a set of B&W PX5's and my son has the PX7's, which are about 1/3rd the price of the HD800's, lol:
www.bowerswilkins.com
Px7 S2 Over-ear noise cancelling headphones | Bowers & Wilkins
www.bowerswilkins.com