Sennheiser HD 820 is definitely the king of headphones I have ever owned and I regret nothing.
You might remember these headphone at CES when we first got a glimpse of these they showed up on a bunch of different YouTube Channels in the form of a first look. At CES they had two pairs of Sennheiser booth and everyone was dying to try them out. They sounded great but that was on a really crowded show floor being surrounded by noise and you’re only able to listen to one song they have available on repeat over and over again trying to appreciate them.
You might be wondering, what’s it’s like to actually bring them home and experience and own a pair of these ridiculously high-end headphones?
Sennheiser HD 820 Hands On
These headphones promise a couple of things, first of all the super wide soundstage similar to the legendary open-back Sennheiser HD 800 and 800s but with all the benefits of closed back thanks to the glass on its sides.
let’s start with the price the headphones are ridiculously high priced compared to the one hundred to three hundred dollar headphones I spend most of my time listening to but you do get some insane specs for that price.
Specifications on some headphones might actually be the least important part but just so you know these headphones comes with huge fifty-six millimeter drivers same size as HD eight hundreds, they have a frequency response that ranges from 12 to 43800 Hertz, have an impedance of 300 ohms and edged onto the side of the ear cups and they are a completely over ear design with lightweight leather ear cups that wrap completely around ear without touching it it kind of feels like having premium speakers floating next to your ears.
Sennheiser HD 820 headphones have thinner velvet-lined foam up at the top and it’s actually structurally made of mostly just hard plastic but without feeling cheap because plastic is lightweight. It also comes with a three meter high quality braided cable removable at the gold plated connectors at both of the ends and on the signature piece is this concave Gorilla Glass cup behind the drivers which serves to reduce interference from the outside sound making it closed back and so the final result finished package is a huge massive pair of headphones. Definitely they’re way bigger than people are normally used to seeing.
These headphones aren’t your plug into your phone and walk outside for headphones actually it’s the opposite of that these are just your proper sit down and listen and that’s it type of pair of headphones and that’s what they’re designed for. These headphones don’t have to be low impedance, they don’t have to be highly efficient with smaller drivers, they don’t have to be noise cancelling or any of that stuff they just have to be lightweight and comfortable for listening for long periods of time because that’s what you want to do with these is just sit back and listen for a long time and really that’s what of course we’re most interested in from the start with a pair of headphones.
This is how these headphones sound and I can tell you right now they sound absolutely amazing and interesting thing with these headphones is that they’re supposed to be a closed back headphone with all the benefits of an open back design or as close to an open back pair as a closed back pair can get.
A typical high-end pair of open-back headphones has the classic trade off because they’re open. The upside is a much wider soundstage things sounding like they’re coming from across the room and a variety of areas, a very dynamic sound but the downside is massive bleed in both directions everyone around you can hear what you’re listening to and you can hear things from outside and in your environment outside of the music so in a loud space you’ll hear that too so that was the deal with HD 800 and HD 800s and pretty much any other high-end pair of open-back headphones I’ve ever tried but the HD 820 on the other hand, there’s this concave piece of Gorilla Glass over the driver that stops a lot of sounds from getting in or out so the bleed is dramatically less, the people around you will hear much less of what you’re listening to but more importantly for me anyway you hear less of the world around you it’s not a complete seal it’s not noise cancelling but when you put them on, you hear a lot less.
So, like I said it’s not gonna be noise-canceling by any means you will definitely still hear the loudest stuff but because of that seal all the way around your ear and because of the glass it’s reduced in a major way. it’s like going from a big empty room to a much quieter sound treated empty room. The soundstage though is still extremely wide thanks to the huge drivers and the air actually in between the drivers and the glass, and the space between your ear and the drivers so it’s still kind of a spread out situation which is why the headphones are so big.
So, it’s a very complex solution to a real problem but I can verify that it has the intended effect and the end result is an amazing listening experience as it better be for twenty four hundred bucks.
For headphones like these, I feel like I can listen to them at very high volumes I keep wanting to turn the volume up because when I do instead of it getting more harsh or more like shrill at those especially the troubles and the high pitches it just gets more full like there’s just more sound. It’s so much easier to listen to I hope that makes sense like carrying the volume up too high on normal headphones obviously it gets distorted it gets too loud and it’s hard to listen to, it hurts your ears but turning the volume up really high on these headphones just feels like more intensity and more sound and more volume without being harsh.
So, in view of all features and sound quality these headphones are definitely worth each and every penny you’re going to spend.
