Drop + Sennheiser HD 8XX Headphones Discussions | Drop

Sep 27, 2021

Just got mine. Haven’t spent enough time with them to do a full review yet. My initial thoughts while running 320 mp3s through monoprice combo dac/thx amp with stock se cable: Detail and soundstage are there, but tuning is…boring. Maybe that’s by design, I don’t know and I don’t have any experience with any of the 800 series. A little eq helps quite a bit. But it just sounded compressed to me. They seem to do better with less going on. That is, if I’m just listening to Amos Lee’s laid back vocals w/guitar, it sounds great. Busy rock track with a lot going on? Not so great. Not exactly muddy, just not that dynamic. Again, eq helps. But it’s strange because it clearly presents all frequencies well (bass not so much) separately, but put a few together and…didn’t sound great to me. And to be clear, it’s still not “bad” just not what I’d expect for $1k+. Build and comfort are great. I’ll update after I’ve spent more time with them.

(Edited)

Sep 27, 2021

MemphisJeffNo experience with previous 800/800s's either. I do have a pair of Aryas, Clears and K7XX's for open cans and I have to say that for the tracks that I have listened to with these , I prefer the 8XX's over all of the others. The soundstage is the best, the detail is right up there. It's not fatiguing like the Clears, and seem to have more clarity/detail vs. the aryas. Bass is still missing, but you can't have it all right. I'm listening to a lot of vocal / acoustic / jazz tracks now. I'm running these through a SMSL M500 amp/dac combo. I have a TR-30 tube amp coming soon so we'll how plays with these cans.

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GCE1701D

Sep 27, 2021

MemphisJeffIf you have access to a Flac or uncompressed music track or two try those and see if it's still that way on busier tracks. Higher end headphones tend to accentuate the flaws in compressed music and expose every lost or mushed detail you didn't realize was there before. While 320kbps is better than not, there's a marked difference between a 320mp3 and a low compression flac or better.

LIBY555

192

Sep 27, 2021

MemphisJeffThey were never designed for heavy rock/metal or busy tracks. They shine with classical music or slow rock like Dire Straits/Pink Floyd etc. For fast rock and busy tracks, planars work best.

FrostyBud

Sep 28, 2021

LIBY555Now that is an interesting insight. -thumbs up-

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Sep 28, 2021

LIBY555Yeah I knew it wasn’t going to be a “fun” set like my he6se or thx00 and would be best on less busy tracks…but still… So tonight I decided not to analyze them so much as just try to enjoy them. I went ahead and left the eq on, and fed it what it wanted to eat, trading Chris Cornell for Neil young, Peter Gabriel, etc. and I did enjoy them quite a bit. AIC even sounded good tonight…unplugged at least. But I was thinking…this is what my 6xxs are for…so went and plugged them in as a compare. First thought was that the 6xx felt positively claustrophobic…not for sound but for my actual physical ears themselves. After a while I thought “I’m enjoying these 8xxs” only to realize it was the 6xx I was listening to. Yes the 8xx sounds better, like a cooler 6xx with the veil removed. Quite a premium to pay for that, but that’s how this hobby works. Two final observations: they clearly aren’t the bad cans that a few pre-release reviewers suggested. But frankly that never made sense. They aren’t a drop product…they are a sennheiser product and Senn would not release total garbage just because drop asked them to (and to be clear they didn’t). Second, I have to admit I’m underwhelmed at the massive soundstage. I think this is a case of so much hype that they could never live up to (for me at least). Yes it’s very good but hardly mind blowing. Given the whole world raves about the 800s soundstage, take my views with a grain of salt.

SchwizzelKick66

Sep 28, 2021

MemphisJeffJust to touch on your soundstage point- from my journey through all of the different headphones I've tried, I think soundstage is one of the more overrated, and least important aspects of performance. Super wide soundstage is a neat trick, but your brain adjusts to it fairly quickly so it becomes less impressive the more you listen. Wide soundstage can also have a negative effect on things like imaging and overall realism of the sound. In short, abnormally wide soundstage can make things sound fake. In my experience, soundstage just needs to be "wide enough" to give decent separation. I think something like the 6xx is wide enough, and gives a way more realistic sense of staging vs something super wide like the Fidelio X2HR for example.

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rastus

1391

Sep 28, 2021

MemphisJeffMove up from mp3, regardless, and what amp? I have only heard 800’s once, but that does not describe them.

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Sep 28, 2021

SchwizzelKick66I disagree with the soundstage comment. Maybe my expectations were just a little off, but I dont think having a lot of soundstage is bad at all. I have multiple sets of open cans (Arya, Clears, K7XX) in addition to the 8XX and none of them have have "enough" soundstage. But my reference is my KEF LS50 wireless II's on my desktop, which have amazing soundstage, which is a whole nother beast all together. That said, for headphones, I have tried IEMs, and closed CANs, and for ME, I don't like having the sound feel like it's "inside" my head. I suppose how I would describe it is I want the singer to sing "to" me, and not "in" me, if that makes any sense. To MemphisJeff's point, I think that I also was anticipating a grand canyon wide soundstage, which is not the case. I was hoping it would be similar to my desktop speakers, but in headphone form. Perhaps that is not possible. All that said, I'm still quite happy with the 8XXs. they are not magic, but for what I'm listening to currently (vocals, acoustic, pop), it shines. will I keep it, yes.

FlyingDutchMan

Sep 28, 2021

ilumoI totally agree with your observation. Based on many reviews from the 800s I expected a bit of in front of your head sound stage. Maybe even a few inches. However running balanced on a monolith liquid gold it still sounds in my head, no matter how I position the ear cups. For the rest they do sound good. Great clarity, don’t feel voices recessed so far and separation is great. Switching to balanced increased the dynamic range quite a bit. But my main reason for getting them was out of your head sound stage which didn’t happen. Not sure the other attributes are going to be enough for me to keep them. Anyone has any tips to achieve this out of your head sound stage?

Sep 29, 2021

LIBY555What would an example of fast rock busy track be for you? I admit, I don’t have a lot of songs that come to mind immediately that I classify as that, so I’d like some examples. I’m wondering which DAC/amp all in one MemphisJeff has. I haven’t heard the Monoprice products; I would hope they are good, but I’ve definitely learned that one of the things that improves with higher quality source gear is separation, soundstage depth, and decompressing that lo-fi “wall of sound” that crunches up sounds together. The DAC design and the quality of the amp matter more in this characteristic than having something better than 320 mpbs MP3 (the effect of the latter is usually a less strained, more confident and organic sound). I don’t have an HD 8XX, but I’ve got one on the way. It’s a meme, but I could give “Through the Fire and Flames” a listen once it arrives 😂 On my HD 800, I’ve always felt detail retrieval and separation were the headphone’s specialty, for example the very fine Saran-wrap like static in “The Only Hand to Hold” by Prefuse 73 has a great texture because of this. The HD 800 (and HD 8XX) won’t fix the high noise floor and bad artifacts in songs like “Demons” by Imagine Dragons, but it can absolutely keep pace with blisteringly fast performances like “Mediterranean Sundance” by Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin, and Paco de Lucia.

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Sep 29, 2021

ilumoUnfortunately, soundstage is being morphed into a broad catch-all term, and people use it differently. Since Imaging is used to refer to directionality (and poor imaging would seem to be diffuse), I would say soundstage refers to the sense of depth and ability to portray distance. An “out of your head” or In Front Localization (IFL) is a different and difficult thing to achieve. Soundstage, imaging, separation, and transparency all need to be good to achieve IFL, but even so the out of your head sensation is fleeting. I feel the HD 800 series, AKG flagships (with angled pads like K701, Q701, and a K712 Pro with angled pads added instead of stock, and of course the K1000), Audio Technica AIR series (like AD 700 and AD 900), Sony MDR MA 900, and Sennheiser HD 598, HD 560S, and HD 700 all are capable candidates for this. However, I think the recording techniques play a big role in this. Minimally mic’d recordings and on location/field recordings can sometimes bring this impression when the environmental cues are preserved and mix well with your real surroundings in your listening room. The best “out of your head” sensation comes from tracks recorded with HRTF techniques, such as a binaural dummy head with realistic anatomy and in-ear microphones, or with spatial audio DSP. These “mastered for headphones” tracks were once rare and not that easy to find without extensive research, but a fair number of tracks are being remastered with Dolby Atmos for headphones, amd Apple Music has a whole section of their catalog dedicated to headphone spatial audio. These tracks that were mastered for headphones instead of 2-channel speakers do a better job, and for about 70% of listeners they can provide a convincing out of head experience. I also invested in the somewhat crazy Smyth Realiser A16… which has been slow to produce and is priced at a level unrealistic for most to access, but because it records and measures your own personalized HRTF, it offers perhaps the most realistic out of your head experience available with headphones, and works excellent with the HD 800 series. Quite a bit more accessible, I had brief but promising demos with the Redscape Audio software, which optionally can add hardware for headtracking (might seem like a gimmick at first, but minute shifts in position help our brains “recalibrate” that out of head sensation as we listen, triangulating position). If people are listening for an “out of head” experience, or coming from using speakers, I highly recommend trying out headphone mastered Spatial Audio tracks, or better yet Redscape Audio software (if you’re on PC).

Sep 29, 2021

FlyingDutchManTry this track: https://song.link/i/283982161 Link leads to a page with this song on various streaming services

(Edited)

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LIBY555

192

Sep 29, 2021

EvshrugHeavy metal and electronic music usually. Not a fan of this type of music, but it sounds pretty awful on the HD800s regardless. A decent DAC will be more than enough. Amp on the other hand is a bit more tricky as they need to have good synergy, doesn't have to be super expensive tho, something with a bit of warmth usually works fine. Don't know about 320Mbps files; don't know anyone that's as deep in the hubby that uses anything less than FLAC or hi-res streaming.

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Sep 30, 2021

LIBY555I was hoping for a specific track 😅 I’ve got my HD 8XX arriving next week, you see.

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LIBY555

192

Oct 1, 2021

EvshrugMmm don't remember any specific tracks since I don't listen to this kind of music usually, but ANY track in this genre with the HD800s will feel like knives in your ears :) Don't get me wrong, for many other genres the hd800s when pair with a warm solid state or a tube amp is quite the experience. If this is your first experience with them and you have a decent way of driving them you'd be blown away for sure.

(Edited)

Oct 1, 2021

EvshrugGood info. I'm a discerning enthusiast that probably knows enough to be dangerous in this game, but it's great to understand some of the technical details. I'm a little spoiled by the "IFL" of my speaker setup, so I am probably a little unrealistic trying to mimic that over the ear. That said, the spatial audio is pretty interesting. However, with the KEFs, I notice that it makes normal tracks incredibly "3D" ie. the speaker setup is to the right and left of you, but the vocals are coming from straight in front, even though there is no physical speaker there. I got to play around with a tube setup a little bit today, and I have to say I dont enjoy it as much as my solid state so far. I feel like the vocals are less clear - warmer yes - but almost a little muddied up. perhaps I need to change out the stock tubes, but so far I like the M500 more for my music.

Oct 1, 2021

ilumoThe quality of tubes vary greatly, unfortunately. There are some super excellent tubes that don’t add extra mud or midbass, and sound incredibly clear, and it’s kind of cool how much a tube upgrade can improve the sound from an amp. Did I say it here, to you? I also know enough to get into trouble, but there’s always more to learn. Helping others is tricky, because I can be mostly sure I’m giving good info, but a few years later I might think back and consider “I probably could have explained that better.” 😂 Stereo speakers are cool… but to get the best sound, you have to carefully place them in your room, and ideally treat the room to control reverb and reduce it in some spots. With headphones, you mostly don’t have to worry about your room (unless you’ve got background noise), however you lose some of that “Head Filter” effect that helps things sound so 3D. No free lunches, right??? What is cool about two speakers directly positioned at your ears (headphones) vs speakers in front of you in a room, though, is that while desktop/floor standing speakers can create a stage where sounds seem to pan freely between the two speakers, headphone surround can create a stage where sounds come from in front of you, behind you, and even above and below you, any arbitrary direction at all! For your two ears to hear you snap your fingers from any direction relative to you, a DSP adds the time delay and occlusion from one ear being closer and your head/ears being in the way, that’s “all.” That’s difficult, but not impossible. Most processing techniques that try to add back in those head effects, such as Dolby Atmos Headphone, Creative Labs’ SBX, and even Sennheiser’s Binaural Engine, they pretty much are all generic profiles that work pretty well at creating a spatial sense of 3D or 2D for like 70% of people. My head is a different width than yours though, and my ear canals are narrower in diameter than most, and all these things affect how we hear directions and distance. So, the best DSPs allow personalization by giving different filter options or some configuration, such as Creative Labs Super X-Fi which configures itself after a few pictures of your ears and head, Redscape Audio and NX Waves allowing you to type the width of your head, and the crazy Smyth Realiser which includes two in-ear microphones (they’re like tiny earplugs) that literally compare and measure the difference between a sound file and what happens when that file is played back through your desktop/floor standing speakers (or anywhere, like a movie theater or high end music recording studio). As someone who owns a Smyth Realiser A16, your headphones can sound totally out of your head and just like your speaker setup (or someone else’s speaker setup that is nicer and in a bigger room than yours… it was great while I lived in an apartment!).

Oct 1, 2021

ilumoOne more “out of your head” headphone surround example… try this with your HD 800S! https://youtu.be/MRDv00MTXBA (I have no affiliation with Creative Labs, I just like the tech)

Oct 2, 2021

EvshrugHi Ev…sorry for the late response… I’m a corporate finance beancounter and the end of the quarter we spend a lot of time counting all the beans (or trying to figure out what the hell happened to the beans) :) So the amp I’m using mostly is the Monolith dac/amp combo. Don’t think it really has a name. It’s 499 bucks and I have enjoyed it greatly. As for another commenter mentioning flac/lossless…I have tried blind tests and couldn’t tell the difference, so opted for the convenience/compatibility of mp3s. As for tracks that I found to be boring (without eq)…I don’t recall what exactly I was listening to as I was just going through a bunch of songs/artists and generally felt underwhelmed. Here are some close enough examples: Soundgarden- 4th of July and superunknown,… Pearl Jam- Porch and Garden…I mean if you listen to Garden (and some of the others) you can hear certain instruments and know that they should sound more full…that the track should be more dynamic. And when I add eq, yup, it comes out. I am enjoying the 8xx now. I think my expectations were initially too high, and my initial listening session was largely without eq. So I was disappointed. But I purposely didn’t run to leave a starred review as I think an actual review demands a bit more time with the product to be fair. One other big point: I always listen with eq…so to go listening critically to something without eq…it was almost bound to be boring. That all said, I’ll stand by my initial thought that without eq they are boring :) But with eq I’ve found I can listen to almost anything and they sound very good. I’m also not blown away with soundstage, though it’s quite good. The soundstage also seems better on brighter top 40 pop than grunge…so part of that has to do with how the song is mastered I think…if the song is produced to have more of a 3D sound then the 800/xx will act like a multiplier (and for grunge 2x zero is still zero). So in the end I find them very good, but they have a similar signature as the 650/6xx…but they aren’t head and shoulders better than the 650/6xx (to me). So it’s really a question of value, and that’s a pretty tough one to answer because once you get past “really good” there is quite a premium to get that next 10-20% “better.” I should note that the detail retrieval is exceptional and lives up to the promise, though that can be a liability with the wrong music.

Oct 2, 2021

MemphisJeffYeah, I’ve read that at least one of Modest Mouse’s albums was recorded on a telephone answering machine… that kind of recording will never have good soundstage 😂 MP3’s and MP4’s (also known as AAC, which isn’t exclusive to Apple) definitely are convenient because they don’t take up much space, and they also have the added benefit of being easier on your processor and battery life during playback. I don’t bother with HiRes most of the time for the same reasons… but I do like CD-quality FLAC and ALAC files 😁 If you have an HD 6XX, I bet you’ll go back to it and think “Oh, yeah this is pretty good too, maybe not quite as good but I’m pretty happy with this.” Sticking with the HD 6XX gets easier the longer you listen to it and your brain acclimatizes, too. I actually went back and forth between my HD 800 and HD 650, because the HD 650 had just enough bass that they covered different strengths and complimented eachother well. The HD 650 was my relax and chill headphone. But, every time I went back to the HD 800, I was always thinking “Dang, this is so clear,” and it really is special when I want to hear what the recording engineer put into it. I’ll look up some Pearl Jam and Soundgarden when I can :)

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PrimeDefendr

Oct 3, 2021

LIBY555Or ZMFs. They work great with rock/metal and other busy tracks ⭐

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GCE1701D

Oct 3, 2021

EvshrugI'm still trying to tinker with EQ and how to figure out the best head placement for the 8XX's, but you're pretty much spot on with how I felt when I spent the better part of 8 hours listening to random things trying to tune in an EQ that complimented the 8XX's with my usual moderate EQ tastes. But after so long in one sitting I was like "These maybe don't sound as stellar as foretold? maybe my 6XX's were fine? I recall them being clear and fine" Went to put them back on to do a sanity check and was like "Well... the vocals and highs sound so veiled and muddy now on these 6XXs!" lol. But I think I still need to figure out out how to 'wear' the 8XX's right, because some moments they sounded better than the 6XXs or any other headphone, and then I'd have to get water or something that made me take them off and put them back on and be like "wait... now the bass and stuff doesn't sound as good..." But even if I've not figure out how to wear them right yet, sound stage aside, there's a clarity even in vocals that just wasn't there in other headphones I've had or been able to listen to. I think it was you who said the 8XX's EQ fantastically well, and they really do.

Oct 4, 2021

Thanks! I'm going to be testing the 8XX against my other cans soon. Just got a chance to swap out my tubes. so I'll see how this sounds against some other great open headphones.

(Edited)

Oct 4, 2021

ilumoQuite the quiver there! @GCE1701D Well, I probably shouldn’t take credit for EQ… in my video, I did mention that I tried adding a bass shelf, and it worked fine/fun, but it wasn’t the focus of my overview :) Have fun guys!

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darwin

Oct 17, 2021

MemphisJeffWhat a shock that 320 mp3 sounds compressed. It’s an old shitty codec by now.

Oct 17, 2021

darwinOld shitty codec. Lol. I’m in my 50s and can’t tell a difference compared to lossless, ive tried. I guess I could re-rip my 1000 cds so that I could be cool enough to tell everybody how shitty 320mp3s sound. To be clear, the files sounded more dynamic and less compressed on other cans. So the variable that changed was headphones…nothing to do with the files or playback devices.

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Oct 17, 2021

MemphisJeffAw, don’t bang on yourself for making it to your 50’s, instead think of it as you have over 50 years experience listening to all sorts of music recordings ;) I only have like 30-40 CDs, but even so the thought of re-ripping all of them is daunting! I’m even less motivated now, because Apple Music just upgraded their $9.99/month service this year to add CD-quality lossless and HiRes lossless for no additional cost, and that service has all my albums and many more besides. I am (un?)fortunate enough to hear a difference to 320 kbps MP3… most of “it” is in the MP3s, but there is a tiny bit of hardness and restrictive quality to MP3s that make them sound just a bit more forced and fatiguing, to me. However, it is indeed a small difference. What I’m starting to explore now is Vinyl. I like the idea of settling down my ADHD mind, committing to one album, and having a listen without any Digital to Analog conversion stages in my setup. I bought two albums I love, and my wife had a Dirty Dancing LP that she never listened to before, but I simply can’t get the sound right. Both the left and right channels sound half garbled and fuzzy, like a manually tuned FM radio station that isn’t on the frequency sweet spot yet. This is significantly worse sounding than my mom’s old record player that I listened to on her basement shelf, which probably wasn’t even sitting completely level on a shelf, but after an hour of troubleshooting I think I’m going to need to find some help 🤷‍♂️

rastus

1391

Oct 18, 2021

EvshrugLP’s were no different than CD’s, at the end of the life for either, stamper or molding die, they became crap, but the $ said keep producing. CD’s have the benefit of Reed-Solomon code masking/fix’n up things for the bad bits, try another LP.

Oct 20, 2021

rastusIt sounded bad with all my records… but it turns out, the “phono” setting on the turntable doesn’t mean the phono amp is active, it means you should select the “phono” setting if you’re connecting to an external phono amp and “line” if you’re connecting to a regular unbalanced amp input. I was double-phono-amping, and overdriving it! Sounds great now, especially Wilco.

Oct 20, 2021

EvshrugI like the way you think…more experienced, not just old :) Saw your post on vinyl. I think that would be fun, but I can’t bring myself to rebuy any of this stuff again. I do think it’s funny that we can talk about the superiority of lossless vs 320mp3…but then going with vinyl. I wonder if lossless will be the standard down the road one day…and maybe people will buy old MP3 players to listen to the “classic sound” of mp3s :)