The early reviews are scary and that is from Sennheiser fans. As I said Good Luck and I am curious to hear your thoughts.
And no, I am not a Senn fan.
When I could first hear the difference demonstratively passively listening through a phone, I knew it was significant.
I think history will look back on this and suggest that the criticism was based in āwhat could have beenā and that it was ultimately a tuning mistake for most in the target audience. That said, theyāre offering an HD8__ for less than any other opportunity at present. When this first launched, I thought that number would be more inline with 6xx/58x where you might get this forā¦ $800? Thatās when I was excited.
If you are willing/able to EQ the 8xx, I can see people being very happy. Nobody that already owns an 8__ will consider them, and the vitriol of the audio intelligentsia will wear-off from this one. Enjoy your cans.
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looked at all the reviews finally, all I can say isā¦ oof
Holy crap yāall. I have NOT been keeping up with the news and went. HOLY SHIT when these came today. I was shocked and amazed. I had no idea whatsoever that they would be here this early!!! About to listen right now!
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Current set up. I donāt have a cable for this headphone or something to connect it to. Iām listening on m15 with a damn adapter. No balanced. Not getting enough power for sure. Lots of issues in this set up andā¦
This is a damn good headphone. Havenāt seen any of the negative reviews yet but I gotta say this thing is intense and I canāt wait to try pad swapping and using a legit cable. Very impressed after a bit of brain burn in. Nowhere to go but up from here and itās already a banger and it seems that they dropped the ugly blue ring so itās a good looking headphone too.
Tldr: 
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After watching the reviews and playing with eq Iām actually concerned that getting a new cable or pads wonāt do as much as EQ
Tldr again as a current owner: Drop messed up the tuning, and if you use a set up that has a master EQ then you can save money over the 800S and get the cool soundstage and comfortable light headphones.
I have mixed feelings about these. Iām no audio engineer, but after messing with the EQ it really seems like all these ever may have needed was a bass boost so idk whatās up with the scooped midsā¦ It makes me wonder if a certain someone who really likes v shaped sound screamed too loudly during the preliminary tuning sessionsā¦ Cough z cough
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Yeah I hate to say it but vocals are weird.
Itās like thereās dampening ON the vocals
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after being advised to continue on with my posts on this thread i think it would be more appropriate to post here, so here is my quick take after a couple of hours with the 8xx
first off, if anyone are good with EQ and can prescrive and antidote based on the measurments for me that targets the gutted midrange that would be awesome
first off, for the first time it started making sense to me why they advertise and sell both the 800s and the 8xx because now customers have something to fall back on if they happen to make a return, if thats even a thing. anyhow!!
so listening to this i instantly realised that the 8xx is trying to be something it is not, what Drop has clearly done is to make a COMPLETELY new headphone outside the realm of the 800s. I think that when you actually go ahead with such an aggressive tuning revamp like what this has that you soon realise why it was originally tuned like this with the chassie and materials that it had, refering to the 800s, because you have to work with the chassie and the materials that you have, with the 8xx this aspect seem to have been disregarded completely
actuall impressions
- the midrange is completely drowned out, vocals sound insanely muffled to the point where it doesnt sound like a headphone of the priceclass itās being sold at at all! however i was able to remedy this somewhat with a simple and straighforward EQ adjustment directly targeting the 2k peak, i put an 11db bump in the vocals because thats as far as my limited knowledge could take me, but it did do something
iād be more than happy answering any questions you may have. i think that it would be interesting to hear others viewpoints on this wheter you own the 8xx or not.
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my thoughts exactly. i was able to remedy this somewhat with an EQ adjustment directly aimed at the 2k dip, it did help some
here is my current adjustment
if i did not EQ my mind would already have been set on doing everything i can to somehow get these back. ill try to get back once iāve familiarised myself with the new sound, because thats what it feels like right now after half an hour or so listening with the new adjustments
i think that if you are happy with the default sound of the 8xx that that is awesome, if youāre happy, keep them and keep enjoying them.
for me, i couldnt tell if the bass drowned out the vocals or it just being the vocals that are dipped. if i hadnāt seen the measurments id probably say its because of the bass because to me the default sound just made it sound like the bass was drowning out everything. EQ helped alleviating the clarity of the vocals A LOT
thats awesome man! glad you enjoy it!
i received a unit with the advertised blue ring, i wonder if there are different tunings for the same batch as there is headphones with different aesthetics in the same batchā¦
well at least to my ears the result is different. have you had some time with it? what are your findings?
these are my measurments. do you mind sharing yours with the Snipping Tool? iād love to try out your adjustments!
lol i think im hearing the volume fluctuate every other second, not sure if thats because of the EQ adjustments ive made but just sounds crazy.
could something like that be a gain adjustment thing?
could be, i tend to think its more a combination of both the foam and the pads but i suppose we could guess until we are blue in the face
Donāt have 'em.
Iāll say that Iām less aggressive with EQ than a lot of folks I see on here.
I donāt really like to make any software EQ shifts more than +/-5db.
I think retracting a bass shelf the way that you have is counteractive to the main positive intention this tuning went for. Iād be more interested in giving a small adjustment up to flatten that bass dip I see consistently measured around 55hz (+1), and then maybe softening some mid-bass bloat/bleed.
I feel like with this curve youāre maintaining that upper-bass/low-mid warmth but rolling off bass frequencies significantly.
Would like to see what that curve looks like. Youāre giving +3 bumps at 1500 and 2500 along with a huge +9 spike at 2k. I believe that gives you a peak adjustment centered at 2k of nearly +13db.
I would be seeking to get this number just towards the 800/800s tuning which is maybe 6db shy in that range?
Thatās on-paper, but from there, definitely use your ears and fine-tune to your likes.
100 percent agree. just wanted to go agressive to start with
i actually didnt know there was a bass dip there, but ill take your word for it and analyze it more closely later
could you elaborate real quick or rather specify exactly where and what value i would adjust to correct that? i had no idea it would equate to a 13 db boost, i was going for 9 but my intention was to smooth it out on the sides
Itās the fact that because the equalization has a curve or slope to the boosted frequencies and the specified frequencies are nearer to one another, they bleed into eachother and go BEYOND your adjustment for that particular frequency. That was poorly worded, but hopefully you understand. In Peace, click on the curve tool to give you an actual visualization of the effect.
Iād be trying starting here and tweaking by ear from there. Not addressing anything in the treble here, which I wonāt delve into as Iām doing too much for cans I donāt own already.
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haha yeah. well i really really appreciate you taking out your own time for that. will try it out right away! thanks for writing, wish you a good day!
