Sennheiser HD 800 Enthusiast Audiophile Headphones Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,143 words · ~5 min read
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boxing video that I was not really expecting to be doing at any time
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although I really wanted to do it this is the Sennheiser
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hd800 and I believe when they say crafted for Perfection that is actually
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what they were going for this is the topof the range senheiser
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headphone enjoyment system however they
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did produce one that was higher end that came with its own tube amp and whatnot
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but this is an actual mass production model so to speak I mean I'm sure they
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didn't produce like that many of them we're talking about a
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$1,500 headset here that comes with a
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2-year warranty from Sennheiser and is
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made for people who are very very very
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serious about their music and listening
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to them on very very expensive
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headphones all right so what do we got
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here uh designed and engineered in Germany made of new material only may
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contain polyurethane foam okay we're not going to spend too much time on the packaging with this one because I'm sure
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you guys are as excited as I am to see the hd800 so here is operating
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instructions comes in a variety of languages including
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English oh wow really lots of lots of different languages here I don't know
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some kind of cerlic thing cool next we
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have the custom limited edition carrying case
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well it's not limited edition there's as many of these as there are hd800s and
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then once you open it up you get like a nice little clothy presentation thing
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you have a a foam piece here that covers up the cord you can see there's not a
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whole lot they can do in terms of cable management on something like this due to
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its sheer bulk so you end up with kind
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of a bundle of wires like this all right
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now I'm not going to talk much about these in terms of the overall spec or
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sort of you know basically well like why
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why you would want to buy them if you don't already know why you want hd800s
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then you probably don't need them anyhow
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but what we are going to do is we're going to have a close look at this yeah when I say limited edition I guess I do
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mean limited edition these are made in Germany okay let's have a look at the
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side here so high defin driver these are
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300 ohm headphones so that is very high
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impedance which means that in order to even consider driving these things that
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is to say running music or games or movies off them you need a powered
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headphone amplifier and a fairly substantial one at that think of it in
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terms of your movie is like your headphones are like a rock
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okay so you got a small guy that is to say an unpowered headphone Jack okay you
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got a small guy who's trying to move the rock he can push on it like really hard
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and he can move it but it's not graceful whereas if you took a giant and he moved
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the rock he could move it ever so slightly he could have the control so
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that is sort of an analogy that explains why High impedance so these are a very
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large Rock headphones require a very
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powerful driver that is a giant headphone amplifier in order to operate
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correctly okay inside here we find a Sennheiser logo which is probably shaped
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correctly for the best acoustic properties okay inside here we find
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another one I made that up I don't know that okay here we have individual leads
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going to each of the earphones okay so
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you can see they split apart right about
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here okay they're just so
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beautiful can't wait to try
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them here's what I look like with them on oh hold on see look it's label left
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right
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slick so jealous right now wow these are very very open so okay open versus close
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so Clos means that you cannot hear your
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surroundings and your surroundings cannot hear what you're listening to
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open means that you can hear your surroundings in this case I can hardly
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even tell that I have them on and that your surroundings can hear you so if
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you're cranking music on this guy there's the Jack by the way then others
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will be able to hear your music as well but it'll still be less obnoxious than a
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similar quality set of speakers and
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playing them at that kind of a noise level if you live in a condor or an
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apartment really high-end headphones are about the best you can do in terms of
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enjoying your music and your movies and your games and whatever else you want to
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listen to in the way that they were meant to be heard now these feel very
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large on me I can only imagine how large your ears would have to be in order for
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these to be too big for you they're quite like weight though quite
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comfortable so the top is got like a foam padding on the bottom of it and
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then these sit sort of very gently on I
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mean it's more like they sit on your face and like your entire head rather
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than just sitting around your ears and I don't really think there's
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much else to say about them well actually here follow me we will be using
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these headphones for a particular purpose and that will be to evaluate the
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ASUS Zonar Essence one so this is is the
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world's first eight time symmetrical upsampling USB Dack and headphone
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amplifier capable of powering according to ASUS headphones that are up to 600
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ohms of impedance so I don't know where I would get 600 ohm headphones but
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whatever and then we're also going to be comparing these headphones against some
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of its Brethren so here I have my HD
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555s which are pretty beat up and sort of Ratty I have um some PC 350s so these
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these are uh I I guess the 360s are out
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but these are sort of high-end gaming headphones we have slick hd5
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95s okay and finally we have what would be my personal favorite gaming
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headphones the steel Series 7h so we're going to fire all of these up including
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the hd800s plug them into the essence one and give you sort of semi layman's
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terms the business so thank you for checking out this unboxing online is
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