Headphones
Sennheiser HD 800
From amongst the finest of audio manufacturers comes the "World's Best Headphones" the Sennheiser HD800. Possibly praise too high, but the easy clarity, coherent bounce, tonal perfection, precise dynamics and deeply spacious imaging prevent us from saying anything but the HD800 wear the crown. In addition to exquisite world-class sound, the stringent quality of engineering, design, materials and workmanship will have you joyfully searching for every opportunity to listen to these amazing headphones with your reference audiophile rig.
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Product Features:
- The Gold Standard of excellence in the headphone listening experience.
- Toroidal angled driver for distortion-free performance and natural imaging.
- Excellent cable quality; optionally modifiable for balanced operation.
- Outstanding comfort, adjustable fit, and contemporary styling.
- 2-Year Warranty
What's In The Box:
- Storage Box
Applications:
How would you describe sonic perfection? How to describe something that simply disappears and evaporates? Neutral? Transparent? Just you and the night and the music? We listened agape ... astonished ... enthralled. Simply put, these are the best audio-engineered, most precisely neutral, and the best-sounding pair of open-back headphones we've encountered during our 20+ years in the industry. Every hard-core audiophile and audio professional should own a pair if possible.
Wrap your head in a pair of Sennheiser HD800s and the first thing you'll notice is the extraordinary transient response. The natural snap of the leading edge of pianos, strings and voices is beautifully coherent without being overly sharp. Within each xylophone strike one hears both the instantaneously loud bell-like tone and the metallic 'ting' as the mallet strikes the bar. Trumpets and trombones cease to blare and become the the vibrant urging of tightly pressed fleshy lips. What was a crash & wash of cymbals and drums are now discreet musical instruments each with a timbre and body of its own. The previously bland notes from an upright bass or hand-bongo become fingerprints on gut and skin. What can we say, simply the most astonishingly coherent, well-extended, articulate headphone we've ever heard.
So, how did they do it? At the heart of the HD800 is a patented ring radiating transducer whose special property is that it can radiate a very large, and a very coherent wavefront. Sennheiser has placed this driver slightly in front of, and pointing slightly rearward at the ear so as to mimic the more planar wavefront the ear hears in normal spatial (speaker) listening. As much or more than any headphone we've heard before, the HD800 produces an exquisitely natural and stable audio image. This ring-radiator is structured to be both very large and very fast, allowing clear highs without cone breakup, and naturally textured lows with it's ability to move lots of air.
The goodness doesn't stop with the driver either. Special Leona ultra-high rigidity plastics, stainless steel mesh ear cups, metal sandwich headband construction, and super cushy earpads provide an engineered acoustic system and a display-worthy look and feel. A surprisingly excellent cable also comes with the headphone. It's fully detachable at the ear pieces with custom metal connectors and terminated with a sweet and beefy 1/4" inch headphone plug. All HD800 headphones are precisely hand-assembled and serial numbered at Sennheiser's headquarters facility in Germany. An extremely sweet piece of gear, indeed!
HD800's with Balanced Termination:
If you're looking for fully balanced/XLR Sennheiser HD800 headphones, HeadRoom has got you covered with our own in-house HD800 balanced recabling job: Balanced Sennheiser HD800 Headphones.
Specifications:
- Warranty: 2 Years
- Microphone: No
- Detachable Cable: Yes
- Cord Length: 10 ft. (3 m)
- Weight: 330g. w/o cable
- Driver Type: Dynamic
- Connector Type: 1/4"
- Ear Coupler Type: Full-Size
- Impedance @ 1kHz: 300
- Cord Type: Straight Y
- Coupler Size: Large
- Manufacturer Warranty: 2 years
- Headphone Type: Full Size
- Wireless: No
- Noise Cancelling: No
- Acoustic Seal: Open
Additional Resources:
- Manufacturer's Website
- Sennheiser USA
- Product Info
- Sennheiser Press Info
- HD800 Brochure PDF
- Product Reviews
- Right Between Your Ears
- Playback Magazine, Tom Martin
- AV Guide, Gadgetman
- Crave, Nate Lanxon
- Wired, Eliot Van Buskirk
- Gizmodo, Sean Fallon
- Cnet Australia, Ty Pendlebury
- GQ Magazine
- TMCnet.com
- Home Theater Hi Fi
- Audio Video Revolution
- HomeTheaterMagazine
- Digital Trends, Caleb Denison
Average Rating
Posted by Bubu1 from Dayton, OH on 2010-02-05
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Comfort, Sublime sound
Cons: Price
When I first put them on, I was a little underwhelmed. I thought that the headphones were good but nothing special. That was before I went back to my AKG 702's for comparison. It was then that I realized how special the HD800's really are (this does not in any way imply that the AKG's are not good headphones!). As many have said before, the sound staging abilities of this headphone are nothing short of amazing. Sometimes late at night when I close my eyes and listen to my favorite recordings, I feel that I am transported to the venue where the performance was recorded.
As a classically trained violinist and classical music lover, what I find most amazing about these headphones is the incredible detail retrieval that in my opinion allows the nuances in the performance by the artist(s) to really come through. Things such as the sound of the bow moving across the strings of the violin can be heard in addition to the actual sound coming from the instrument. While this amount of detail has the potential to come across as sounding analytical in nature, it amazingly does not.
As a test of the tonal accuracy of the headphones, I have played my violin while listening to these headphones. What surprised me is that the headphone portrays music so well that the intonation on the recording matches that of my own violin. What I mean by this is that an A440 on the recording sounds the same as an A440 on my violin. I find this truly amazing and a testament to the accuracy of the headphones. In my opinion the HD800's are true to the performance and the artist. If it is on the recording, you will hear it! Likewise if the recording is of low quality, you will hear that too!
After listening for the last few months, I am still amazed at how good these headphones reproduce music! I listen to them through my Headroom ultra micro amp (an excellent amp which has sadly now been discontinued) connected to the Ultra Desktop DAC that is being fed by my Macbook. I wear a silly ear to ear grin the entire time the headphones are on my head. These headphones have exceeded all of my expectations.
31 out of 34 people found this review helpful. Did you?
Posted by DavidMahler from New York City, NY on 2010-01-31
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Most neutral headphone I have ever heard, Most comfortable headphone I have ever worn, Very durable
Cons: They do not isolate, nor are they efficient enough to sound great directly out of a portable player
The most difficult thing to do in a review such as this is to describe the sound. I could call the headphones' sound bordering on perfectly neutral, but unless you hear them this is meaningless. What you should expect with this headphone is that you will hear the music with the least amount of interference from color (headphones' inherent interpretive qualities which are not always accurate) that you've ever heard from a headphone. This means if a recording has deep bass you will feel this extended to the lowest note and it will be quite prominent. If a recording is not bassy, you will not feel this bass weight nearly as much. If a recording is mastered for the traditional muffled car stereo you may become aware of the recording's unnatural brightness. If a recording is beautifully recorded and you amp the headphone properly, you will feel nearly as close to the music as a musician does when they perform it. I know this because I am a musician and I am also an audio technician; the realness which these headphones are capable of producing is just jaw-dropping.
I own numerous headphones, some more expensive than these such as the Sony MDR R10, which for years has been touted as the greatest headphone ever made, but is extremely rare and no longer in production. I can assure you that these are just as special, if not better!
Have you ever listened to a piece of piano music on a headphone and felt that the lower register of the piano was unnatural sounding, as if there was a bass boost on the piano? This would cause the sound to appear muddled. You will NOT experience this with the HD800. Have you ever listened to an intense orchestral passage to suddenly hear the instruments have blurred into one opaque wall of sound? Well unless you're listening to a Phil Spector recording, this kind of blurring is not preferred and detracts from the overall listening experience. This will most certainly not occur while using the HD800. These are just two examples of very unique qualities which I have found in the HD800
It has been expressed by many that midrange on these headphones is unparalleled and glorious. But I think it is all too simple to isolate something which by the nature of sound cannot truly be isolated. For a midrange to sound good, the bass can not be overwhelming, but the bass absolutely needs to be present and full of weight. A Headphone is literally a device which is an architect of sound. For one part of a building to be sturdy and remarkable it must be supported by the foundation and protected by the roof. The treble region of the HD800 are fully detailed and present without being invasive. The midrange is remarkable on these headphones because the liquid-like transient response is not isolated merely to the treble region (a feature of many headphones which are considered fast and analytical rather than musical). What transient response is, is the speed and accuracy at which an transducer is able to create the sound wave. Whereas some very fast headphones have a very brief and unnatural decay (how long the sound wave resonates) the HD800 have a very natural-feeling decay which prompts me to use the word liquid-like. In other words, the sound envelope is produced very fastly by the transducer but the wave does not die out prematurely. Usually, audiophiles search for tube amplifiers to create a similar effect.
A word on the asthetics and comfort. The headphones are the most weightless I've ever worn, despite being heavier than other pairs. When you put them on you will notice that your ears will not be touch the interior of the ear cup because there is ample amount of "ear room". The pads do not over heat and the headband is cushioned nicely. Yes, these are made of plastic and some have expressed a lack of enthusiasm regarding this. But I firmly believe that the choice of plastic was intentional. For one it doesn't effect resonance nearly as much as metal or wood. Secondly, it's light! Thirdly, it is not sensitive to weather change. And most importantly because it is plastic, it is highly replaceable and durable...Right away you'll notice that the cable is user replaceable too.
To sum everything up, if you are willing to spend the money to amp these correctly (many of Headroom's amps, as well as other companies, would do a stunning job) and use a quality source (Digital to Analog Converter / Stand alone CD Player / Vynil Rig) then you will likely be hearing the finest audio device attainable. It is unknown to me how long these headphones will remain in production, I assume awhile, but it surely has a limit. Don't expect better necessarily in the future. History has shown time and again that better technology does not always produce the best audiophile related products, but the HD800 is a very unique and wonderful case where technology was in the favor of those with sentive ears.
-Dave
51 out of 53 people found this review helpful. Did you?
Posted by Howard from Arlington, TX on 2010-01-28
Recommend Product: Yes
Pros: Extremely comfortable, accurate sounds, super spacious soundstage, good bass (for me), cool looking
Cons: On the expensive side
The sounds coming out of the HD800s are very clean and accurate. Few people complained about the bass being lacking, but it's perfect for me. I prefer the bass on the HD800s over the HD650s because the bass on the 650s are too heavy for me and hurts my ears after long sessions.
And the thing I most like about the HD800 is its massive soundstage. It almost felt like sticking two monitors on your ears which in fact you were listening with headphones. You feel like you are in the room where the music is being played. I really like the feeling of the spacious soundstage and I believe that's what Sennheiser pioneered to do in these headphones with the development of the new sound elements that circles listener's ears. It brings some form of surround sound to the listener's ears.
And lastly, it's simply a very cool and futuristic looking headphone and the design of it is just terrific.
I believe even though the HD800 is on the expensive side, I will still recommend it to others because I believe that what you pay is what you get and HD800 is certainly like no other headphones. You pay a price to listen to the latest from Sennheiser and the HD800 is the latest in headphone technology that feature the big round sound elements that bring listeners surround sound feel with their favorite music.
9 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you?
