i wonder what the future direction Sennheiser has for their high end headphones. tbh none of the reviewers ive seen have said entirely positive things especially for the price. are they going to go beryllium for the drivers? or maybe what everyone wants, bring back electrostatics? or go into the unknown with ultra-thin, ultra light planar magnetic. although i could be totally off, wonder what people think.
I'd love to see a Sennheiser planar magnetic headphone. I doubt it will happen because I don't think they're set up to make those, but I'd love to see it one day.
@@TheHEADPHONEShow seems like a cool concept seeing a planar with a hd650 sound to it but with the quickness and detail that a planar has. personally i really want to see more competition in the estat market.
Great review! I really enjoyed that you went into your EQ profile and showed the before and after measurements. I wish more reviewers would do that. Well done, sir!
@@metal571 i can confirm, they do have that clarity in the mids and non shrill treble of the hd 650. never really liked the weight, that was really the main deal breaker tbh. EDIT: its also the main reason i refuse to own anything from Audeze other than their in ear headphones.
Probably that 800 design just doesn't work closed off - the whole concept is based around an open design. Maybe they got stubborn and HAD to make it work, somehow. Just to have a closed successor to the heralded series. Just my guess.
Hi, Thank you for the video, very well explained. Out of curiosity, have you listened to it with the HDV820 DAC, I find some of the shortcomings of the HD820 improved. Can I have your opinion on this?
I'm wondering if these went on a 40-45% sale how that would change your conclusion, if at all? But in saying that the ones you said were arguably better have gone on special and had a huge price reduction (the Focal Elegia) so maybe it doesn't change your conclusion at all lol
I feel like the 820 is just like the 800s but worse in every aspect and more expensive. Like why would you make the most open sounding headphone closed? The beauty of the hd800s is its soundstage so why would you take that away?
I was hoping that the HD 820 would bring realistic bass that the 800’s are so lacking, but it seems they messed up a lot of other things along the way.
But … but … They look so cool! 😎😋 Who doesn’t want to look like a TIE Fighter pilot, when they have their headphones around their neck … ?!! 😉 … … … Yeah: they look a lot better than they sound, unfortunately … 😏
Really question sennheiser's tuning for their higher end product? Tuning is definitely not for everyone. Where other competitor is just sounding more agreeable? At that price people are going to be very picky, where brand loyalist don't really apply. Thank you for the review and the effort in going into eq. But really a product at that price range shouldn't need us to be eq that much!
I actually like the LEMO connectors. Its one less of a failure point for the headphones. There's a reason why a lot of medical devices use LEMO connectors. The Campfire Cascade also uses the same type as the 800 series. Thoroughly enjoyed the review I hope to pick up set of 820's myself to complete my 800 lineup.
Yes, LEMO connectors are good quality. Not sure it needs to be as difficult to remove though. The Utopia also uses LEMO connectors and it's much easier on that.
In my opinion the Sennheiser HD 800 series are very meh. Their amplifiers are worse in my opinion. I never got the chance to try the HD 820 at a hifi show. But I also would rather try other headphones. Only the HD 660s on a tube grabbed my attention. Within seconds I was like "yeah the midrange is fantastic". I would only buy the HD 800 and pair it with my tube amplifier. This setup would really give me a out of head experience, without losing to much in the high frequencies. At hindsight...I should have bought the 800 from that guy I bought his Musical Fidelity M1HPA. And the Focals do not hit as hard as the Denon headphones. The Denons hit hard, fast, precise, very deep, and the dynamic resolution in the low end is very high. I demoed the Elear and Clear and didn't bother to put more time into the expensive Utopia. With the Focals I can hear a metallic ringing edge in the music. Not always but it is there.
I've been using this EQ profile for 6 months on my HD820: Preamp: -8 dB Filter: ON PK Fc 140 Hz Gain -5.5 dB Q 2 Filter: ON PK Fc 285 Hz Gain 8 dB Q 3.5 Filter: ON PK Fc 4000 Hz Gain 5.5 dB Q 4.5 Since FR can be seen as the relative output of frequencies, this does almost the same thing as yours on the bass-mids, but with a slightly warmer than HD650 tilt (-0.5dB per octave). My goal was to develop a EQ profile with a small 'footprint' that can be reproduced on multiple platforms as some platforms (e.g. mobile phones / DAP) requires more effort to carry out elaborate EQ. Edit: Thanks for reading my comment, I was busy fixing my grammar when you did that.
Thanks for the thorough review including EQ details. I find the HD820 to be similar to high end speakers where they are extremely sensitive to upstream equipment, cables and file formats. Here is a review that I posted if you're interested: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XoQMjFvJziQ.html
