Sennheiser HD 800 Reviews

5.0/5.0 based on 7 customer reviews

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Customer Reviews

harmonikelektronik
from Los Angeles
January 6, 2013Music Background:
DJ/Producer

SWEEEET

These headphones are great. I just got them and am still breaking them in. That is a must with these bad boys. They are literally like wearing a 5 in woofer on yoour ear with all the sonic capabilities of a full surround system. I noticed that at first they dont sound as good as they will when they have had some sound pushed through them for awhile. They sound like they are held back a bit. A solid pre amp is a MUST for these to get the full sound .. ALL in ALL i recommend

Frank
from Pa
September 6, 2012Music Background:
Audio

HD800

I am really happy with my new HD800 phones, they sound great with the right amp. The service was outstanding and with the 3 easy payment plan I was able to get them much sooner. A++ all around

CD
from Trondheim
July 23, 2012

King of the hill

I tested HD800 via the headphone out on an Avid Omni, mainly against Beyedynamic T1, but also Beyerdynamic DT770pro and AKG 271 MK II.

It did not take many seconds to hear HD800 is head and sholders way above the competition.

After finding the least expensive dealer in Norway i bought them straight away. I have had them for about 4-5 months now and they sound fabulous.

Its easy to place sounds in the stereo field. Its also easy to set levels for eq, reverb, delay, compressor, etc.

They are wonderfully clear sounding and also very detailed. I read somebody wrote they really make you focus on details, wich is very true and good when mixing music.

I highly reccomend them!

from
May 18, 2012

Excellent headphones

These are everything that they are hyped to be. In addition to being awesome headphones for general listening, these have been like a microscope for me when making EQ decisions. I went from barely detecting .5 dB changes with my old setup to clearly hearing .25dB changes with careful listening. If your mix sounds good on your main monitors, translates to mono, and sounds good on these, then you can be pretty sure it is a great mix. Put simply, if you are running through a good clean amp and quality DAC, these will always tell you the truth.

from
March 30, 2012Music Background:
Mixing and Mastering.

Just don't hesitate and buy them now.

This is unbiased and unsolicited by Sweetwater. These cans are a whole other level of experience. You can hear whether a fade was not ideally drawn, or whether you selected the ideal dither type, or whether you used too much compression, etc. These cans are painfully honest and relentlessly unflattering...except...if you feed them good audio. The masterpieces of audio sound sublime and the lemons of audio only teach you what went wrong in the process. I can also hear the limitations of my Apogee Duet 2 converters and amplification. These beauties beg for an excellent DAC+Headphone amp. The Violectric V181 and V800 DAC are a synergy made in heaven with these headphones, running fully balanced.

I must note that it is critical to break them in with pink noise or via the old fashioned way: time. They sound a tad stiff and strident at first listen. But after about 50 hours of pink noise at a moderate level, they sound lovely and open and the sounstage is 360 degrees. Put on something like Thriller or The Nightfly and they will not come off your head no matter how hard you try.

A good amp to pair with these is either a QES Labs HPBA-2 balanced (with balanced aftermarket cable), Grace M903, or a Violectric V100, V200, or V181 balanced amp. It's a shame Sweetwater does not carry the Violectric line of headphone amps and their Weiss-esque V800 DAC. Simply amazing quality for a great price.

Marvin Querido
from Metro Manila, Philippines
January 29, 2011Music Background:
Musical director, Record producer, Session keyboardist.

OMG! What a sound!

The price tag surely made me think twice (much more than twice, in fact), but I finally got it, and I wasn't prepared for the level of detail I heard. I'm looking forward to listen to this on a better headphone amp like the Grace m903 pretty soon. :-)

Russ
from Livonia, Mi
January 6, 2011Music Background:
Audio enthusiast

Far better than expected

My son and I drove from southeast Michigan for the rare opportunity to audition a Sennheiser HD 800, HD 650 and HD 595 (Sennheiser is no longer shipping HD 800's to standard brick and mortar stores, so Sweetwater is the only place that we could find to do this).
I expected to find that the difference between the 800's and the 650's would be minimal, that it would take hours of critical listening to find some minor difference in sound quality. I was also concerned that none of these dynamic headphones would provide the accuracy and clarity in mid-range and higher frequencies that my Stax SR30 electrostatic headphones have given me for 25 years.
I was completely wrong. After thirty seconds of listening I was convinced that I should buy the 800's. Compared to the 650's, the sound was lighter and clearer. The 650's have a slight over-emphasis of the the lower mid-range, giving them a somewhat dark sound. The difference is not subtle or fleeting, it was apparent in every selection I played. The 800's give up nothing to my Stax, and provide stronger bass.
I also would like to comment about the professionalism of the sales engineer who assisted us, Greg Baum. He ensured that we had a suitable listening environment and provided insightful information, but never pushed one product over another. It was not until I announced my decision and the reasons behind it that he expressed any of his own observations and opinions.