Of course, I don’t have deep pockets or rich parents to steal money off like those kiddies who visit Jabbie, and did not intend to purchase the HD800. However, curiosity drove me and Zombie to want to sample this supposedly godly headphone.

Here is the description for the headphone.

More than 60 years of ingenious headphone engineering has been applied into the new HD 800. Incorporating Sennheiser’s most advanced driver technology, these open, circum-aural dynamic stereo headphones redefine what reference-level audio is all about. You will form an altogether new height of sonic perspective as you experience a high-fidelity natural hearing experience. Do take note that presently, no other manufacturer has been able to come up as close as the HD 800 in replicating the basic acoustic conditions of natural hearing.

Matching these headphones’ reference-grade audio performance is their striking and visually effective industrial design. Premium parts have gone into their production – the transducer is encased by a precision material made of stainless steel. The ear pads are handcrafted from a high-quality microfiber fabric. This material is extremely comfortable to wear and easy to maintain. The headband and headphone mounting utilises the most advanced development from the aerospace industry. In terms of connectivity, these headphones utilise specially-designed, four-wire, high-performance connections with Teflon insulation.

Truly, the HD 800 are a glorious success and have become a pioneer in headphone development.

HD 800 – Crafted for perfection.

Due to its high price tag and the exclusivity (if there is such a word) of the event, not everyone can attend and it is invitation-based only. The average consumer who groove to the ipod white earbud (actually the earbud can sound very good amped. I tried it and actually quite like it amped) or brags to me about their “expensive” $80 dollar sony headphones that sounded like junk, of course aren’t the target audiences for this event. The event is divided into 30min slots, and each slot only caters to 2 person.

Before carrying on, let me specify my take on headphones. Supposedly, good headphones can only really be appreciated by good ears, and this is especially so as the higher you climb in audio equipment, the harder and harder it is to spot the difference.

I do not have good ears. I choose my equipment by ignoring its price range (I don’t mean that I would buy expensive headphones, I mean I will not discriminate against cheaper headphones) and supposed quality of sound. I choose by how the equipment makes me feel. For me, that is the essence of musical enjoyment. For me there is no such thing as a more expensive headphone being “better”, it is just a different way of representing sound. I prefer to stay with cheaper headphones that are easy on my wallet though. That is the harsh reality. My 2 pairs of headphones costs less than 150 each, hardly “audiophile quality”, amped by the Little tube MkIII tube amp at $350.

How would a $2199 headphone sound like? Especially when Sennheiser was said to have thrown its entire expertise on headphones into crafting it? This is my reason for going to the event.

(Photo of invitation card to be added later )

So when the invitation arrived I was elated. The handwriting on it was pretty, and made me wondered if an equally pretty girl was behind these hand writings.

The card itself was designed in the same style, with an included DVD containing a short video showcasing the HD800 and highlighting some of its design processes.

(Photo of interior of invitation card to be added later)

So yesterday, on 4th June 09, me and Zombie met up at 5pm at Clarke Quay MRT, intending to grab a quick dinner, visit Headphone Gallery at Central to try out the JVC HA-RX700, and then slowly find our way to 72-13, where ever that is.

The walk to 72-13, the site of the event, is a long and hard one. Both of us are downgraded soldiers who had thrown any concern for physical fitness out of the window. The 1.6km walk felt like the 4km road march with full battle order. We decided to make a rest stop at Liang Court to check out the famous Audio House.

The long walk also made us feel thirsty, so we visited the supermarket at the basement level for some refreshments. This supermarket is one place where I will not be buying any fruits, however.

Just look at the price tags.

Exiting Liang Court, we wandered around for abit and even dashed dangerously across an expressway. We finally reached the destination at 7.30pm, 15mins after our appointed time. we arrived at the very ulu venue and were ushered in to a classy waiting room, with a Ultraviolet light as its sole light source, and with a staff chatting/entertaining us about audio stuff and being served by smartly dressed waiters with hotel-ish refreshments (beautiful looking tarts and cakes) and a choice of drink. We drank “Sennheiser Blue”, which tasted like a mixture of H2O and 100Plus. It is in this waiting room that we encountered a faint smell of merde. Zombie smelt it first, I didn’t smell it until we were about to be ushered in to the listening cubes.

We waited and chatted in anticipation. Soon, it was our turn and a smartly dressed lady directed us to the listening area. Sennheiser wants to give everyone the “personal touch”, and all the staff who ushered us or spoke to us makes it a point to remember and address us by our names.

We were ushered through a narrow passage way partitioned from the waiting room and listening room by thick, black curtains, and there were 2 projectors running videos of Sennheiser’s history. We didn’t really get to watch the videos however, after one of the staff mentioned, “Here are the videos showing Sennheiser’s history, the early headphones etc etc.. you guys probably are more expert than these than me” and gave an embarrassed smile. We went straight to the listening room.

The most striking aspect of the room are the 2 cubes cubes made entirely of glass in the middle of the room. In each cube, a very comfortable high back office chair/sofa, the HD800 hanging on a stylish looking rack on the right with a spotlight shining directly on it. In front of the sofa was a audiophile-quality CDP (cd-player) and a headphone amplifer, and also a selection of CD recorded by Stockfish records.

After sort of like forcing us to watch the video that was included with the invitation card on the screen (during which me and Zombie took lots of photos), our audio journey began..

Me in the cube

The HD800

Closer look at the earcup of the HD800

Audio Equipments provided for listening pleasure

Lehmann Audio Black Cube Linear Headphone Amplifier

A TA brand CDP (Sorry for the blurry photo, I was practically shaking with excitement and couldn’t take good photos)

Me enjoying the HD800. Sound was so exceptional it blew my face away.

Can you spot the very blurry looking Zombie in the other listening cube?

(It was while in the respective listening cubes that Zombie realised the merde smell was coming from his shoes.)

The sound was close to perfection. It seemed to give you more of every aspect of sound which you want in your current headphones, and then some. Despite being relatively heavy, it is actually quite comfortable to wear and your head don’t really feel the weight. Despite my large ears, the ear cups are able to fully enclose them and with still enough space for me to wriggle my ears with the headphone on, if I ever learn how to wriggle them. Soundstage was wide, although I have heard even wider sound staging in other headphones. The soundstaging is similar to my Ultrasone HFI15G, which costs just $149. The trebles are controlled, there is no harshness about it. The bass, although detailed, is not strong enough to send me dancing around like that of Koss PortaPro. This dedicate balance is a very tough feat to achieve. The vocal is smooth and forward, it feels as if the singer is right next to you. Imaging is fantastic, probably because of the slanted driver position, allowing sound to reach your ears at slightly different timing, stimulation a “3D” feel to the music. This concept is similar to the S-Logic employed by Ultrasone in all its headphones.

The counter of the large projector display ticked to zero and the overhead light flashes. Female staffs promptly appear out of nowhere and opened the door of my listening cube. 30 minutes of listening to the $2199 headphones had ended. Zombie was ushered out immediately, but I was asked to stay behind to be interviewed and have my opinions of the HD800 recorded for their internal/publicity use. I declined, explaining that I am not a very critical listener, and I don’t really have much to say. She insisted for me to do the recording. So I had to fall on the cliche excuse of “having something on” and I was finally let go.

As I was exiting, a couple arrived. That made me wonder if I should have brought my girlfriend along. Will she be bored to death during the 30minutes of auditioning the headphone? I donno.

I commented to Zombie later, “See, if you go to regular events like IT fairs and car shows, they hire pretty models and dress them up sexily. Being attracted to those show girls is so wrong. If you attend refined events like this launch event, meant for the higher class audiences, the staff aren’t sexy girls but pretty girls dressed in formal wears. No sexy girls to see. But you feel good with their courtesy, service and is able to focus more on the products than boobs and butts. This is the kind of event we should attend to more often.” But of course, any attempt to convert Zombie into preferring less-sexy girls failed.

Over all, thank you Sennheiser for well-executed event, and my FIRST SACD (although I have no SACD players to take advantage of that). Although I can’t reciprocate by buying a HD800, and neither did I intend to buy one, HD650 is on my wishlist right now:)