Sennheiser HD 800, equivalent sound?

[gisgillen]

Just at a friend´s house and listened to his Sennheiser HD 800 (or S? not sure). Wow, so comfortable and amazing sound. Unfortunately they are rather expensive. I now have the HD660S which are ok, but what a difference! I would prefer closed, like the HD 820`s for example, but could manage with open. Are there any headphones which sound as good, yet not so expensive? Unfortunately I have no hi fi shops anywhere nearby, so am unable to listen. Have tried to research online, but all the good ones that are mentioned are similarly priced to my 660`s, or even less!! I have a Cambridge Audio 651A, and he had something of a similar nature. Many thanks.
PS I already have B&W P5`s, but they are quite sweaty on the ears after a while, are all B&W`s like this? And preferably wired headphones!!

 

[Jasonovich]

Just from my personal observation, people who're sold on the Sennheiser sound, tend to also like the Grado headphones.

I would suggest the Grado RS1X, they're about £690ish - Peter Tyson sells them, see below.

Grado RS1X Reference Wired Headphones

Leading the way for Grado's 4th gen X Drivers, the redesigned RS1x combines maple, hemp, and cocobolo wood into a vivacious and elegant headphone. {{widget type="Magento\Cms\Block\Widget\Block" template="widget/static_block/default.phtml" block_id="914"}}

petertyson.co.uk

 

[gisgillen]

Thank you for that!! A good start

 

[RTHerringbone]

I think the brutal truth is that you aren't going to get the same sound of a £1,200 set of headphones from a set at around half the price.

What you need to think about is what it was about the HD800S that appeals and then see what other headphones are reported to have a similar sound signature. My understanding is that Sennheiser's are typically very neutral whereas feedback I've seen about Grado is that they're typically a bit bright (which CAN be a trait of neutral. transparent headphones).

 

[nopiano]

Just from my personal observation, people who're sold on the Sennheiser sound, tend to also like the Grado headphones.

I would suggest the Grado RS1X, they're about £690ish - Peter Tyson sells them, see below.

Grado RS1X Reference Wired Headphones

Leading the way for Grado's 4th gen X Drivers, the redesigned RS1x combines maple, hemp, and cocobolo wood into a vivacious and elegant headphone. {{widget type="Magento\Cms\Block\Widget\Block" template="widget/static_block/default.phtml" block_id="914"}}

petertyson.co.uk

Yes, I’m one of those! I still recall the original Sennheiser HD414 and what a revelation they were compared to the ghastly Koss head crushers that were popular in the 1970s.
I still like the openness from Grado designs. All I’d add is I’m less persuaded that the more expensive models are greatly superior to the cheaper model. But equally comfort is important and we have different bonces, so try a few if you can. Or just get some secondhand 800s, as they are quite often advertised on eBay and suchlike.

 

[Hal9001]

Just from my personal observation, people who're sold on the Sennheiser sound, tend to also like the Grado headphones.

I would suggest the Grado RS1X, they're about £690ish - Peter Tyson sells them, see below.

Grado RS1X Reference Wired Headphones

Leading the way for Grado's 4th gen X Drivers, the redesigned RS1x combines maple, hemp, and cocobolo wood into a vivacious and elegant headphone. {{widget type="Magento\Cms\Block\Widget\Block" template="widget/static_block/default.phtml" block_id="914"}}

petertyson.co.uk

The Grado are worth auditioning but they have a remarkably different sound signature.

 

[Hal9001]

Yes, I’m one of those! I still recall the original Sennheiser HD414 and what a revelation they were compared to the ghastly Koss head crushers that were popular in the 1970s.
I still like the openness from Grado designs. All I’d add is I’m less persuaded that the more expensive models are greatly superior to the cheaper model. But equally comfort is important and we have different bonces, so try a few if you can. Or just get some secondhand 800s, as they are quite often advertised on eBay and suchlike.

Here's the good news. You don't have to pay a lot to get great sound.

https://aes2.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=19774 or directly at https://aes2.org/e-lib/download.cfm/10048.pdf?ID=19774

See the attached image which shows a graph of price versus "performance" (to a particular standard) where you can see that some 'cheap' kit is better than some expensive kit, and so on. TLDR, you can achieve similar performance across a range of prices, where some $100 headphones are performing similar to some $4,000 cans.

Now in the case of of the 800's, you can see their measured characteristics here (https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/sennheiser/hd-800-s) and then use that as a hint about what kind of response you like. Since headphone measurement is not quite as standardized as other kinds of measurement yet, you will want to use this data to compare with other headphones RTINGS has measured, so you are comparing apples with apples.