Topic: HD800 - New top-dog Sennheiser phones announced, available February

[Gutbucket]

HD800 info at the Senn site

New ring radiator design driver (sort of a coil with two speaker surrounds attached to it, one on either side as the air driving surface, looks sort of like a dome driver with a hole in the middle)

Diffuse field eq'd 300Ω dynamic drivers
Frequency response  6 – 51,000 Hz (- 10 dB)
Frequency response 14 – 44,100 Hz (- 3 dB)

Factory measured response data for each unit available by entering the serial number on-line.

[guysonic]

Very interesting open 56 mm design that looks very similar and directly competes with Sony's 50 mm size MDR-SA5000 or3000 set discussed on my headphones review page:
www.sonicstudios.com/mdr-f1.htm#mdrsa3000
NOTE: After my SA3000 review I did purchased the Sony MDR-SA5000 attesting to it's being worth double the cost of the SA3000 model for having better build quality that eliminates the SA3000's mechanical movement noises and with greater wear comfort.

The posted HD800 specs (below) indicate a 300 ohm impedance requiring at least 5x more driving voltage (~10 volts) compared to Sony's 70 ohm version for producing equivalent loudness.

[Gutbucket]

Does look like the model number could be MDR-SA7000 for these.  I've wondered about those SA5000's but haven't heard them.

[Shawn]

I've heard rumours of these for a few months. surprised to see them coming so soon. honestly I'm not sure why they went with a completely new look over the hd600 hd650 style. These look like a plastic toy.

I guess I'll keep my eye open on various headphone sites for some hd650s. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of them on the used market for a decent price right now.

[Gutbucket]

I'd guess the overall appearance of new Senn design is primarily driven by the same engineering goal that the Sony designers had: Creating a very open ear basket with the driver positioned forward and angled toward the rear.  I don't mind the appearance at all, but for me that's a minor concern compared to its performance.  Anyway these are giant 'open back' reference phones.  They really only meant to work in private.

[George]

f'ugly is the word that comes to mind right next to "ghetto" 

I'm still waiting for a electrostatic headset to come out since the HE60/HE90 series have been discontinued for years.