Sennheiser HD 800 Review - One of the World's Most Capable Dynamic Headphones 

kicyro I appreciate it. I do try to describe in great detail what the headphones sound like because somehow other reviews don't seem to realize that that is what people really want to know in the end.

+Aron Gatt it's a dream for me to review an electrostatic headphone and I am always looking for people to send a pair of those to me

Thanks let me know if you have any further questions

+metal571 actually i do have questions regarding recommendations for a reference quality headphone i am researching these days. For composing, getting reverbs right if not accurate as compared to what i can do with speakers. I mean, as an intern i may have to compose scores for motion pictures, television etc but on a move or not in my studio facility. I do not want to hear my compositions later and find too much to correct on studio monitors since it was done on a headphone and has bases incorrect, or too accentuated, volumes perceived wrongly etc. I am not expecting headphones to do what studio monitors can do but some decent cans which can enable me to compose trusting headphones and to get a decent sound stage, fair neutrality, and which enables me to work on below 500 hz stuff till the lower end of say 35 hz. The issue is of demo. There aren't any proper demo facilities in my country hence i have to entirely rely on reviews and youtube demos. There is one more thing however, I perhaps have to let go of eq'ing stuff on headphones, perhaps leaving that for studio monitors. I would like to have your opinion(s) and suggestions. I find that you have deep knowledge on this topic and have personally used a lot of high end headphones. I may have to trust reviews and suggestions for the same. Currently i do not own any decent headphones which are reference quality. thanks.

The problem is that to have a more accurate sense of space, you'll need open headphones. However open dynamic headphones tend to roll off on the bass. Getting accurate bass on a headphone will require either an expensive planar magnetic model such as the Hifiman HE-560 or equalizing an existing dynamic headphone, but even then the lowest notes are unlikely to be as clean due to harmonic distortion. I always recommend, and use, the HD 600, as a reference, but not without EQ. However it requires the least EQ to sound right to me in terms of neutrality of any open headphones in its price range, which is why I stick with it. Take that for what it is.

+metal571 thanks for this prompt reply. I see your point about bass roll off on open headphones. Have to figure out a way. I am also inclining towards HD600. Regarding EQ - there is an interesting headphone calibration software, you can check out its trial. They have preset for HD600 - sonarworks.com/headphones/overview/ Also if there is any specific recommendation for a suitable Amp for HD600? thanks

Most anything with some power and a very low output impedance will do, like the Modi 1 and Magni 2 that I use. My EQ pulls the sub bass up a little, reduces 3.5k by about 4 dB, and pulls up the energy above 10k a little, which is just personal preference in my case. I use EqualizerAPO to do it along with Peace GUI. Both are open source and it is a system wide EQ for Windows.

+MsBachram all 3 have treble peaks. The HD 800's annoyed me the least

+JioFreedOfOphan 800 transients are amazing. I equalize my pair heavily and the result is overall significantly improved over the 650/600. You can find my presets at peace GUI's website under the Files section

Name of the dsp?

+Charles Jacques was the first expensive headphone I heard so it's a pretty hyped review. My review part 2 I made just recently is the update

A lot of people have said that, but I've decided on the HD600 being endgame for now. It's arriving this week.

metal571 Cool cool, personally haven't heard HD600 (Yup, I'm serious). One thing should be noted however, for some reason I couldn't quite figure out the HE-560 bass sounds noticeably less deep out of the magni 2 compared to schiit mjolnir.

That's weird. I have an HE-500 that belongs to another r/headphones member that I'll be reviewing soon as well. Spoiler: definitely more liked in terms of sound sig than the 800.

metal571 I mean it was deeper than any other bass I had heard (not tried any audeze headphones) but it still were nowhere near what I expected after reading reviews until I tried it with another amplifier. If it makes any difference I performed a blind test with a friend swapping the amps and it was super easy to pick them apart. I've googled around on this and people claim both are very flat frequency response-wise.

metal571 Also your spoilers suck dude! I already knew that after reading the /r/headphone meet post where you wrote about your impressions. I'm disappointed. :(

Yeah they aren't sold through the same avenue as other Sennheiser products even.

+JTCPingas yeah it's a lot less severe than headphones like the T1. Right now the 800 is back on my shopping list since I use EQ nowadays

+CABdosdos a smoother version of this headphone without EQ would be the Audeze LCD2. Not quite the same soundstage width though either. Check my newer review as well, Take Two, for more info

That was its original purpose

+Dennis Ho LOL, you will not find better for the price, even Headphones worth twice that cant compete with the HD800.

I am no longer opposed to EQ myself now which is a change since this video. If I got the 800 I'd EQ them down at 6k and go along my merry way, but Sennheiser did not intend to put that peak there, as evidenced by coming out with the 800S now. The 600 and 650 just don't have a fantastic soundstage, which isn't necessarily linked to their sound signature at all; regardless of how you EQ the 800 it still has a much more expansive soundstage. Thanks for dropping by and watching my review, and the 800 remains so far the best overall headphone I've heard yet.

I didn't mean that you were opposed to eq. I was generalizing. Nor did I think that Senn added a upper mid/lower high bump. Though, I absolutely believe that they had to do something about the soft 6*0s. I mean, if you're going to sell an output device a reference monitor/HP then highs need to be there for mult reasons. One of which is localization. Virtually all of your localization cues are coming from upper frequencies. The lower you go the less localization information is present. Hence the single sub woofer.. That's obviously an extreme example. But, think about what headphones have ledgendary soundstages. AkG70*s, HD800, etc.. But hey, I'm sure there room in there for argument. But, in general, localizing is done through higher freq. Looking forward to a review of the HP800s & some of the new planars coming out..

Yeah the HE400S is on my list. Treble does help with imaging, yes, but so does the special and unique ring radiator design of the 800 drivers, that's what I was referring to. AKGs sound thin to me and the mids of the x7xx series have a prominent and awkward hump at 2.5k which throws off the timbre so I ended up getting rid of my open back AKGs.

+metal571 I'd be curious to see what you think of the 400s.. But, ya, the ring radiator.. Though I haven't broken out a scope in years, I've heard that HD800 is fast enough to reproduced a pretty spiffy looking square wave. No easy task.. No doubt, a big part of it's ability to produce a smoking sound stage.. I should also note that, after 40yr of making, recording, or producing mostly Main Stream Rock & R&B. Most involving close proximity to Dr Loud's (Marshall) Stacks. At least until Berklee began providing interns.. In any case, my ears need all the high freq help they can get;-)

Yeah that's understandable lol. Maybe you would like the DT880 as well

HD 800 is wider and more spacious and has a more transparent stage with excellent imaging whereas the T1 presents everything more intimately but with excellent directionality

Mic is an AKG P220, I'd buy the AT2035 though instead. It's running through a Focusrite Scarlett Solo. Nowadays I use the Rode NT1. Webcam is a C920.

They have not. It is still there blatantly in the measurements. More like, slightly reduced it and then also added harmonic distortion to the bass

metal571 You need to review it tho.I haven't heard any flaws related to hd 800S' treble.

HAHA are we going to be using these in our final headphone test playlist?

Yeah these are better. They have the best soundstage of any headphone ever made to date as far as I know

Thanks very much

metal571 So can schiit Valhalla 2 bring the soundstage of hd 800 to it's fullest?

+HydraulicTater moving coil dynamic I guess is what I should call it then. Thanks for this, the details always matter to me

Eh I haven't heard that it is significantly improved but I'm working with Beyer right now with review units so I can ask

+Bob Fergisoon Yeah I wish. Just can't pull that kind of money out of nowhere lol

metal571 I'm sure someone will be kind enough to lend it to you, maybe someone at Headfi forums.

Bob Fergisoon Head-Fi lol I despise that place. Jude is the biggest piece of crap in the entire world of audio.

metal571 You heard about ZMF's new headphone though? You seem to like his past T50rp mods, maybe he'll lend you his new Atticus or Eikon for a review.

+Bob Fergisoon yeah I'm friends with Zach so I'll see if I can get his new stuff in for review

+Jacob Lussier At the end of the day, this one. But you have to add some EQ to pull down that spike or modify the enclosure via Anax mod.

+metal571 Thanks for the speedy reply! love your reviews as i think they are easily the best on youtube! keep up the good work.

Jacob Lussier Thanks much appreciated

What is Anaxilus mod??

Google it, first result is InnerFidelity which explains it

+Fotis Gimian unfortunately at this time I wasn't using any EQ so I couldn't tell you for sure

No worries, thanks so much for the reply. I'm going to give them an audition today at the store and have a parametric EQ handy so I'll let you know how it goes :)

+Fotis Gimian 6k is where the main spike is so try a narrow (maybe a Q of 3.0 or so) reduction right at that frequency

Alrighty. I spent around 2 hours with the HD 800 and Audeze LCD-3 running out of my Chord Mojo. Firstly, let me say that the soundstage and comfort of the HD 800 are insanely good, like, the BEST I have seen and heard. Out of the box, the crazy treble makes them almost unlistenable and terribly harsh. Further to this, in comparison to the LCD-3, the HD 800 doesn't feel all that fast at all, but they are definitely the fastest dynamic driver I have heard. But they are probably 70% as fast as planars. I ended up EQing down 6 kHz around -6db with a moderate Q (I use EQuilibrium by DMG Audio via Audio Hijack on my Mac) and found that this really worked great. However, it revealed that the rest of the treble isn't perfect either. There's still a little sibilance at 10 kHz and the headphones lack air in the very top octave. After more EQing, I realised that I wasn't going to change them. The LCD-3s just "have it right" when it comes to treble and frequency response in general, no EQ necessary. No amount of EQ on the HD 800 seems to bring them to a similar quality because they also lack speed by comparison. In summary: Comfort: HD 800 Soundstage: HD 800 Bass: LCD-3 Mids: LCD-3 Treble: LCD-3 Speed: LCD-3 I'm hoping that Audeze can really improve on these aspects. In other news, the Audeze SINE on-ear are pretty damn incredible (but as usual with on-ears, uncomfortable ...) Cheers Fotis

+Fotis Gimian just make sure you read up on the build quality with the LCD3. You might be able to enjoy that $2000 for about a month at a time until you have to RMA unit after unit. I have only heard the 2 and it was a joke. Very even sounding but dead top octave and the soundstage just sucked for something that expensive.

SDR mod and liner pretty much fixes that

+Vanheim I would cut 6k generously with a narrow eq spot. That should dramatically reduce the sibilance. I wasn't using eq at the time of this review.

Thanks! I'm stuck between the HD800 and the Omni. I love the tonality of Omni but I want the detail retrieval and soundstage of the HD800 :(

+Vanheim honestly I'd personally rather have the 800 with eq. The Omni is pretty awesome but it's still mostly closed back and does not have the lightning fast transients of the 800

I'm assuming you already know about the superdupont mod. If you get the 800's, do that and a very slight bass eq boost. I don't have a reason to want to buy another headphone. I tried slightly cutting eq anywhere from 4-6k and never got quite as good of a response as what the sd mod provides.

Jeff Cook I have already placed my order on a B-stock cherry Omni. I think it will suit my needs and preferences best. Glad to know you are enjoying your hd800!

Because the treble sucked lol

metal571 Well... for the price... yeah. But, to be honest, I haven't had any pair of cans that can give me as much satisfaction as the HD800s in terms of my need for a pair of headphones that'd give me the most faithful reproduction of a FLAC or even mp3 file. And also, I have to ask, whats your recommendation on a pair of closed-back headphones aside from the AKG550/1/2/3? Kind of annoying in my case to live in a noisy neighborhood. Now I'm looking for a pair of closed cans that can give as neutrality to the songs I listen.

Tumble Butt that would still be the one. I don't think the 800 is flat at all, that 6k spike is dry and inaccurate. It's a resonance of the housing design and seems to be an actual flaw. The HD 600 is what I'd call flat. Very accurate and only the slightest bit warm tilted, with no low treble problems.

metal571 Well, my problem with the AKG 550/1/2/3 is the earpads. I feel like my earlobes are touching the drivers. Do you know any AKG or 3rd party earpads that could replace it?

Tumble Butt supposedly the HM5 pads work on it

HD 800 too bright, 800S too bright, T1 much too bright. You are looking more for an LCD2

Wow thanks for the response, let alone it being so quick! Between the LCD-2 and LCD-x which would you recommend? Have you heard the el-8 or he-560?

LCD-X has a ton of variation. LCD-2 2016s are supposedly the best. EL-8 closed amazed me but I didn't get enough head time to know for sure. Haven't heard the 560 but the 500 is excellent.

Excellent for neutrality? Thanks again, really appreciate the response.

Yes, at least in my definition. I'm a fan of the Harman preference curve

***** Save up just a bit more, and get yourself a Superlux HD668B. It's open though, so home use only. Awesome bass quality and crisp highs. I honestly didn't find these headphones to live up to their price. Just bought an HD 600 and I'm in love, and it costed far, far less.

metal571 What about some that are closed back? I like listening loudly and I don't really want people to hear my music

***** The Monoprice 8323 is a pretty common recommendation in that price range. Just don't expect it to be the best thing you ever hear, but it has incredibly good treble for being so cheap, and a bit of a kick in the bass, but never an overpowering amount.

I bought one not too long ago and it's definitely the tweaker's headphone. The drivers are extremely capable but you need heavy EQ and/or mods and/or amp selection to be on point to get the most out of them. I spent hours creating an EQ profile that gets them most of the way towards sounding more like a 600 but with cleaner and more bass extension, a wider soundstage, and more overall detail. Now I enjoy them and they don't fatigue. But life would be easier if the LCD-3 was cheaper and more reliable.

I don't like the idea of tweaking the hell out of a headphone or another piece of audio gear to make it sound better, unless it already sounds great and satisfying to begin with, so that, you know, you can do that "squeeze those last 5% out of it" sort of thing. lol Unfortunately, stock HD800 doesn't sound that great with most of my music, even well recorded instrumental and jazz.... I think that's a lot to fix and I would much rather try to find a headphone that's less flawed. The headphone market has really grown in the past few years and there are lots of great headphones out there these days. The Focal Elear and Ether Flow seem promising. I am also interested in HD800S and have faith in Stax as well. lol For now, I'm sticking with my HD600, r70x and DT150. I also have a pair of Neumann KH120 studio monitors which put any headphone to shame in terms of soundstage, imaging and tonal balance. Too bad my room is not treated so the bass and low mids on the Neumanns are somewhat messed up because of this. lol

Yeah EQ is something I've started using religiously recently and I imagine shaving off a couple dB at 6k would essentially leave these headphones colorless. That's why I'm considering a pair in the future for myself now.

+metal571 You might want to try out the new HD800S coming from Sennheiser. According to them they have made some corrections based on the feedback received from others one being the 6k region I believe.

+metal571 You might want to try out the new HD800S coming from Sennheiser. According to them they have made some corrections based on the feedback received from others one being the 6k region I believe.

Zeke Adebayo I know about that. But the inflated price doesn't justify it when I could just get the original and EQ it.

+metal571 I hope the price of the original will decrease to sub $1k.

+Isaac depends on what you are listening to as well. Crappy recordings and honestly most modern popular music recordings are horrible through these. See also my second video on these called an owner's perspective to see how I feel about them now

do you know any song i could test?

Isaac gucci man- stealing

Both the K812 and T1 are *very* high on my list of cans to hear, but unfortunately I haven't heard them yet. People say the 800 changes a lot depending on amplification, but no headphone changes a LOT from amps. If it doesn't sound good out of my Magni 2, or at least I don't like the sound signature, there's no point in me buying it, especially when the HD 600 is almost as good in sound quality, and much better in neutrality. Another note about the T1: it is *exceedingly* poorly damped, and has almost no damping material inside the cups, leading to severe ringing problems; see Changstar for details. The K812 also has serious issues with distortion in the midrange and multiple ringing ridges in the treble. Don't believe the hype behind these supposed TOTL cans. So far, I'm not impressed and would actually prefer the mid-fi brethren - HD 600, DT880 Premium 600, and K712. Those three are the most technically capable headphones available at their price points. Only the HD 800 actually measures better in terms of the time domain than any other dynamic headphone in history - but its sound signature isn't particularly natural. The T1 and K812 both actually measure *worse* than the mid-fi offerings by those two companies.

P.S. Take a listen to Sonic Sense's SoundCloud if you want to get an idea about the T1 and 812. From what I hear there, it is pretty obvious that the T1 has a sharp sheen over the mid-treble and the 812 is very grainy in the treble, even somewhat rolled off sounding up top too. Also, the HD 800 sounds exactly like it does in person as it sounds on Sonic Sense's demo of it - if you listen to it through an HD 600.

metal571 Damn...thats how accurate the hd600 are, huh? Makes me want them even more. Never heard of the k712. Will look into those. Also, even though they are expensive as hell, the top shure headphones are on my list to check out. Top ones being the shure srh1840 (open back), shure srh1540 (closed back more for enjoyment than precision), and the shure srh940 (closed back but made to be flat sounding). I heard awesome reviews for all of them

Amir Grant from what I've read the 1840 is bass light and has a lot of bass distortion as well as forward upper mids. 1540 is prominently v shaped, and the 940 is highly detailed but a little bass shy. The 940 interests me the most as well. I've started thinking of collecting AKGs though. Just re purchased the 271 MK II and will have it tomorrow. K501 is up there on my list now as well.

metal571 Honestly, I question the 1840 the most out of the three. I am pretty shure i'd like the other two. But the 1840...ok, first of all, the shure srh940 is easier to get a better price for. The other two are very very hard to get for lower than their regular price of $500. And the 1840 look nice and all...but if they sound worse than my akg q701, I wouldn't see any freakin point in keeping them. Thanks for pointing me to that sonic sense site

Indeed. I still have my DF, and the bass is extremely underwhelming (at least on low impedance solid state stuff), but the 800 reminded me of their midrange and treble signature and speed.

+metal571 I admit, the HD800's are better than the DF's, they're 10 X the price.. But they are not 10 times better. They are still my "go-to" cans for critical listening. The bass is there.. It's just not "in-you-face".. However, I've never heard them being given their proper juice.. Volts RMS required to reach 90dB SPL: 0.792 Vrms Impedance @ 1kHz: 613 Ohms Power Needed for 90d BSPL 1.02 mW Even the best SCHiiT or Woo can't properly drive them.. I guess they were meant to plug into some high voltage board at a radio station in Germany.. Let me know when you find and review one of those. lol

***** yeah my Magni 2 has real issues driving the DF and I normally don't have problems except with very hard to drive cans. They're a real pain. It's possible they work much better with a standard 120 ohm output impedance and a classic, much higher power mixing board output

+Brendan Temme is this a joke?

Dr Dre gets Beat-en up by Germans. Thats how good it is.

I work full time. There is no need to directly involve myself with the companies, which also could lead to an incentive to be less than fully honest in these reviews. And I get some units such as this one, as loaners from the community. Lastly it started out as glowing because having the best technical measurements does not equate to the most enjoyment all the time.

Super old video. I've owned the 660S, 600, 650, 6XX, and heard and reviewed the 58X and 580 Precision. I did another HD 800 video called owners perspective much later. But I ended up switching to the famous LCD2 in the end, and I'm finally selling this thing soon after owning the HD 800 for 3 years now.

@@metal571 Haha aniway you know what you are talking about.

Lol no it isn't. You can't tame an 8 dB 6k spike with just an an amplifier.

metal571 im not saying an amp will tame the peak.. I am saying that your current amps are exaggerating the peak. (and its not exactly 8db Overload, you can call it that way, but it's actually a wave that doesn't decompose quickly).

The Magni 1 has been known to be bright but not so much on the 2. Maybe. But it would be minor. Now that I own these I have no issue with them at all. Just needs mods and/or heavy EQ to fix them to the way I like.

metal571 I don't own one (only hd598, but I'm kinda quite researchy about my stuff).. But the thing is schiit stuff and even their dacs are known to have glare issues. (I'm not saying hd800 doesn't have a peak.. Just saying that Amping them wrong would make them far worser than they are.) do you use a normal equalizer or some dsp stuff. Bcoz a normal equalizer will introduce some other problems afaik (and it doesn't change an energy accumulated due to reflections... Even if you manage to tame it, you would have removed something else also in the process. ). And this energy also explains why you think it is 8db Overload.. Bcoz you need to drop it down to 8db feel as if reflections are stopped, even though it's probably excited by only about 3-4db. If you can, audition them with something more powerful, like audio gd nfb 11 or some GOOD tubes (don't knock tubes.. Even for a 32ohm headphone a tube amp only gives like 0.8db of boost in its primary resonance, which is barely audible.. Everything about a good tube screams power and fast voltage swing, pretty much the same thing in case of balanced outputs as well which will definitely benefit a fast headphone like hd800.) And BTW, you gonna review the Eikon anytime soon? (not interested in the focal hype)

Manuel Jenkin EqualizerAPO and Peace GUI. I don't notice any artifacts despite it being a hardware approach. I've heard the 800 on some different setups recently at a headphone meet and it's still horrible in the treble. The S model isn't even significantly better. Not sold on spending hundreds more on amps when the result after EQ is still breathtaking. I wouldn't review the Eikon, already heard it at the meet I mentioned earlier and the upper mids are definitely too much for my liking. Don't understand the hype.

+Jake Harkins XLR condenser microphone proximity effect. I've moved the stand further away in newer videos.

Interesting. Great review by the way! Should have maybe lead with that haha.

Remember, no Russian

metal571 I'm just told that HD 800 awesome headphones! But i haven't money for this :( Sorry.

PN Greshnik Nah, I prefer the HD 600.

metal571 is this because the HD650 sounds a bit too warm or non-neutral? been trying to decide between the two and whether I should get a cheap tube amp with it.

thoyo yeah the 650 is too warm IMO. Drops a lot of air in the treble above 10k.

+Raffie Quler nah these are simply bright for me. After equalization they are still incredibly revealing and mp3s at low bitrate do still sound like crap

Zero, this one was borrowed from a community member. Now, I am the proud owner of my own HD 800, and love it to bits. Sorry for liking one of the finest dynamic transducers produced by humankind, with the largest soundstage of any headphone on the entire market?

Apparently some like their ears to bleed and hate bass when listening to music. Well, head-fi is a personal choice. Each to his/her own.

Well, I did mention clearly in this review that in the end I much prefer the HD 600 and 650 tonality, as there is a large 6k peak in these that is really annoying. I did an updated review "an owner's perspective" that goes into detail how I tried the SDR mod but in the end just ended up equalizing them to my preference and now I have them sounding like a 650 but with more bass extension, all while retaining the detail retrieval and their amazing soundstage. That is kind of the key with these. I know, I agree that that should not be necessary to get the most out of a $1000 headphone, but in the end that ends up being the case with a lot of summit-fi stuff nowadays. And for the record, I hate Head-Fi.

+metal571 Never got that far in the vid. Still have my trusty HD650. They don't get much ear time these days but I can still make them rock with audiophile gear. I'm not partial to the site myself but I purposely used lower case letters to make my point.

+Mark Roberts yep, I keep my HD 600 around also to use as a reference I compare everything else to in the

Justice League respectfully I disagree. It’s very well known these headphone must be driven by a good amp. It was never implied that that was not the case.