Test headphones Sennheiser HD 800

The familiar Sennheiser HD 650 has long been the top model of full-size headphones in the company’s lineup. Their reputation in the circles of lovers of quality sound was almost irreproachable, especially taking into account their low, in comparison with “tops” from other manufacturers, price. However, owners and fans of the HD 650, and many publications that have written about them, have noted that their sound, while generally very pleasing, is not without some flaws.

Sennheiser, like any other reputable company, strives for perfection in its products. Therefore, trying to overcome the weaknesses of the HD 650, the engineers of Sennheiser, in fact from scratch created a new model of headphones, providing a sound of a higher class, which name – Sennheiser HD 800.

Ergonomics

The ergonomics of the Sennheiser HD 800 is very peculiar. On the one hand, the headphones do not weigh much, they sit comfortably and do not exert much pressure. Their cups are so large and deep that the earshells inside them are not in contact with anything, and they feel almost as comfortable and unrestricted as they do without the headphones.

On the other hand, the sound of Sennheiser HD 800 depends too much on the position of the headphones on the head – if the headphones are too much pushed forward the sound looses a lot in the high frequencies.

Sound

In contrast to the once “top” HD 650, Sennheiser HD 800 have a much more even tonal balance, although the slight bias towards the low frequencies in their sound is still present. Or rather, it’s not even a slope towards the “bass”, but rather a slight muffling of the “tops” and the upper middle.

The result of such muted packing is comfortable, completely devoid of any annoying and tiresome moments, quite natural sound with well-defined volume.

As in the case with Sennheiser HD 650 and IE 80, such sound does not want to be analyzed, analyzed and parsed, you just want to enjoy it, or rather not the sound itself, but the music, of course. Apparently this is what the company’s engineers are trying to achieve when they create the “top” models of headphones.

Remembering the history of Sennheiser’s full-size tops – the consecutive HD 580, HD 600 and HD 650 – we can’t help but notice that the resolution of these three models remained approximately equal.

The Sennheiser HD 800, in this respect, made a great leap forward – in comparison with their predecessors they showed greatly increased legibility, clearer reproduction of fine details of phonograms.

Against the background of the participating in our testing “headphone opponents” Sennheiser HD 800 can not boast a record resolution, but definitely hold a good level. The Achilles’ heel of these headphones is the low frequencies area. The bass in them is softened, not so sharp, fast and nimble as in HiFiMAN HE-500 and Alessandro Music Series Pro, because of what the low-frequency drum parts in heavy, extremely fast songs are reproduced not so clear and legible as one would want them to be.

However, when playing “lighter” music, there are no problems with the intelligibility of the bass frequencies. So the Sennheiser HD 800 can be called almost universal headphones.