How $1,500 Headphones Are Made 353
CNETNate writes "A tour of Sennheiser's Hanover factory reveals for the first time how its audiophile headphones are assembled by hand. The company recently announced its most expensive and innovative headphones to date, the HD 800, which discarded the conventional method of headphone driver design for a new 'donut-shaped' ring driver idea. Only 5,000 of these headphones can be made in a year, and this gallery offers a behind-the-scenes look at the construction process."
All headphones are hand-made... (Score:5, Interesting)
You get what you pay for (Score:3, Interesting)
A few days ago, I bought the cheapest pair of computer speakers with subwoofers I could find in the neighborhood, $USD 15.
They were Chinese made. With a sticker - "QC PASS" [i.e. Quality Control pass]
LOL, the damn connectors right next to it didn't work properly and I had "bend" the connector ever so little to make it work again.
Yes, these were probably assembled by hand too. But, not in a factory originally named with coolest name I have heard in years "Laboratium Wennebostel".
I wonder if that was hand made too, the name.
Re:Sarcastic or not? (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a point [headphone.com] well past the $100 mark - the question is is it worth the money, which depends on how much money you happen to have sitting around doing nothing as well as the relative objective quality of the product.
That said I'm not buying anything more expensive than the HD555 in the foreseeable future. In fact with digital room correction techniques I might not be spending anywhere near that much on headphones again, ever.
Also headphones are not just for the sound, they have to feel comfortable too. And personally I would not be happy to pay 1500 bucks for headphones that LOOK like the HD800s. :-P
In case there's someone here that doesn't know... (Score:2, Interesting)
If accuracy across the audio range is of primary importance, headphones will always severely pale compared with a set of reference monitors (a.k.a. speakers) due to their physical limitations. The most I've spent on headphones thus far has been around $300 - I've spent around $600-$700 for four different sets of cans - and I've yet to find headphones that aren't severely flawed. Headphones are a second-choice option, albeit one that comes up a lot in every day life.
Most people, though, don't want accuracy and just want something that sound pretty. You can get reasonably pretty sounding headphones for cheap, though the limited range will still show up in some fashion or another. I recently bought a copy of Closer by Plastikman, and even playing it at modest volumes results in the bass mangling the speakers.
Re:$1500 headphones (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sarcastic or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not convinced there's a point anyway. With headphones, you get so much difference in sound just from how little or how much the foam pads are compressed
Well.. No. No you don't. That's the thing -- one of the many differences between $5 headphones and $500 headphones.
I work with audio all the time (it's my job - I invent audio algorithms for broadcast, and related things), and I'm very happy with my HD650s. They were worth every dollar! However, if I get a chance to test the HD800s without having to buy them first, I certainly will. :)
I guess I don't know ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there any reason in particular that headphones cannot accurately reproduce sound?
The only thing I can think of that a headphone would have trouble reproducing, is a deep, loud bass. That's only because it doesn't have the displacement to highly compress low frequency. Monitor speakers suffer the same problem though.
Still, because headphones sit right next to the ear, they're _much_ more efficient at delivering sound waves to the ear. This allows them to deliver sound at a comparable volume, with much less effort. As far as I can tell, there's no theoretical reason why a set of headphones can't match monitor speakers for accuracy.
Re:Sarcastic or not? (Score:5, Interesting)
These days, even Sennheiser's low end is "good enough" for the non-snob audiophile. I picked up a pair of HD202s and I'm thoroughly happy for now. (I don't bring my 555's to school.)
Re:Sarcastic or not? (Score:0, Interesting)
So, how do you have "laboratory levels of precision"? I mean how do you know that a speaker can reproduce sound within 0.1% of perfection if you don't have a microphone that can record it within 0.1%? And how would you know if the microphone was if you didn't have a speaker that could? Isn't that a catch-22?
Audiophile... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:You get what you pay for (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a very nice 7.1 sound system which cost me close to AU$2000.00 (equivalent to US$0.9 to A$1 at the time) and I will admit that when I play a Blu-ray movie the sound is impressive for everyone who is listening. Unfortunately when I listen to my son's Logitech Z5500 sound system (AU$300) playing the same movie via his PC Blu-ray player/burner (under US$160.00) my sound system is wanting in comparison. I think the reason is his sound system has THX and a slightly better woofer than mine. Basically my son paid much less than me but then again he did not go for a really cheap sound system, he did his homework before purchasing. Still his system does not have the overall functionality of my system.
I also have Sennheiser wireless headphones which are excellent sounding compared to cheap headphones which I find very nice for watching TV and playing games without disturbing everyone else. One of the features of my headphones is they wrap around my ears (ie. ear muffs) which are very comfortable for me (a little hot in summer though) yet others would find them uncomfortable. On a personal note I cannot stand earphones which press against my ears yet others love that style, as for ear buds I can wear the thin ones but have to be very careful of the volume. Again this is what I like and while some may agree with me others wouldn't.
The choice of a sound systems is personal which can be a big issue within a family and between friends, especially if the one who is making the purchase has poorer hearing. To cater for everyone in a family a reasonable sound system is well worth the money but you need everyone to listen and agree to it first. Paying for an expensive sound system may be justified for an Audiophile but most people don't need to. Of course cheap is just that "cheap", you get what you pay for.
Re:Sarcastic or not? (Score:4, Interesting)
So we have our hypothetical concert with ourselves seated in the 2nd row. We can get a dummy and shove two microphones into his dummy ears for recording the sound. Do you think a 2/4/8 speaker setup would be more "accurate" than headphones?
Do you already know that what you're describing is "binaural recording" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_recording [wikipedia.org]. When you listen to them with headphones, you get amazing position-awareness of the sounds. Some early binaural recordings were of story dramatazations - and you could hear the door creaking open "behind you".
Take for example an explosion. Then I guess the headphones loose out to the sub woofer.
You bring up an interesting idea... using headphones along with a subwoofer to get get the superior sound of headphones and the "feel" of the low-end.
Re:$1500 headphones (Score:3, Interesting)
As with anything, there's diminishing returns. The more you spend on audio, the better the sound gets (well, assuming you are buying real improvements and not snake oil like wires), but by less and less the more you spend.
For example the difference between $10 headphones and no headphones is, well, everything. It is the difference between sound and no sound. Even cheap is better than nothing. The difference between $50 and $10 headphones isn't everything, but it's still pretty large. It's the sort of thing you'll hear even if your hearing isn't great, even if you are listening on poor gear, in a noisy room and so on. The difference between $50 and $250 headphones is reasonable. You'll almost certainly hear an appreciable difference, but it is likely to require a better environment such as a quiet room and good source material. If you have a poor source (heavily compressed music, bad amp, etc) and background noise, they may not be that noticeably better than $50 phones. The difference between $250 and $1000 phones is pretty subtle. It's possible you won't really hear it at all if you hearing is poor, and even with good hearing, you'll need a good situation to appreciate it. Even then, it isn't going to be a major improvement, just some refinement.
Goes the same basic thing with anything sound wise. As you move up from the basic stuff you can get some fairly large improvements, but then it starts tapering off, while the amount required to see an improvement increases a lot.
However, that doesn't mean it isn't worth it to some people. If you really enjoy music, and have the money, it can be a worthwhile pursuit. Trying to get things as close to perfect as you can.
Re:All headphones are hand-made... (Score:2, Interesting)