I doubt there will be any way to find out because I suspect the built in DAC might do all sorts of signal manipulation to get the sound presentation and frequency response they are looking for.

 

Wait, what? You mean it doesn't fly? I was actually thinking this would be a fairly cheap option to transatlantic airfare over the next several years, and I could listen to music at the same time. 

It's a Sabre 9018 chip.

Where is the output jack?

One in the box with the headphones and one on the back panel

I get a massive discount but even then I'm out as I just bought a house. 

What's your problem...? Sell da house....  

Edited November 4, 201510 yr by wink
shpellink

Looks like they're pricing it firmly as a luxury product. Kind of a shame, as at that price it's completely irrelevant to most people. I wonder if they're going to do a reasonably priced electrostatic like the HE60, but then given today's pricing "reasonably priced" might mean 5k or so. Either way, I was hoping for more electrostatics in the hobby, not for something that for most is a headphone equivalent of a supercar poster on a wall.

I'd surely like to try the phone out of my BHSE, bypassing the internal amplification to see what this transducer is all about. Having talked to Axel Grell about it, it surely convinced me though that it wasn't just a facelifted orpheus. We can't say if it was worth the extra cost of manufacturing but they certainly seem to have spent quite a bit of effort making an electrode and diaphragm system with proper rigidity and self-damping and I don't believe Stax could have dreamed of spending as much money on a phone design. It looks pretty neat also imo.

On the other hand, I find the amp with motorized knobs and all extremely gaudy and, having the chief designer say it was to give a sense of "less is more" made me spit my coffee. If, with a 8 DAC chips, an amp and all these motors in there, he think of it as an expression of "less is more", I can't imagine what this thing would contain if it was an "more is more" effort :-). 

Edited November 4, 201510 yr by arnaud

I like the marble, tube housing and knobs, the only thing that kills the deal is the darn ugly headphone box attached to the top of the thing. It’s good see Sennheiser producing this stuff with their hearts still in it.

I would definitely swap one of my Beyer DT531's for one of these new Orpheuseseseses....  

It's the bling that was the trigger.....   

you can be sure that the amp inside the headphones is a version of the hev70.

that is, mosfet current source, mosfet driver. likely gain of 5 to 10. gain will have to be fixed because no feedback on the cable. and no room for output capacitors so the power supply is likely +/-300v or so because anything more would be very unsafe. (like +600 and 0)

could i drive this headphone with a better front end, you bet. 8 tubes, how can you possibly use 8 tubes unless 4 of them are for the dac.

It said that the driving Mosfets were inside the cups.  Then there is no way that these haedphones can be driven by other amplifiers without serious modifications.

I applaud Sennheiser for producing this advance in ES technology.  Ceramic stators etc  The inclusion of the output stage in the cups is a nice idea.

But just speculating; even allowing for the halving of capacitance by eliminating the cable, and possibly a particularly efficient driver, surely some 6w or so (just as a quick guess) must be needed in each earpiece.

A heat and weight issue.  But the words “Cool Class A” suggest it is not true Class A at all times, hence reduced dissipation. The quoted distortion figure is nevertheless impressive.

Well we would just design a new amp for them.    Not all that complicated and gold plate the fucker...    

The 8 tubes is just nuts, what could be possible be using 16 triodes for?  The Octave, Aristaeus, HEV90 have 12 which includes the output devices. 

My problem is with the whole "less capacitance" malarkey.  Can anybody find a DPAK or smaller mosfet with truly low Cob?  The Toshiba BJT 2SC6127 would be perfect for this but not a mosfet... 

 

I love when the mafia feels challenged. So many cool things to happen 

Ali

I applaud Sennheiser for producing this advance in ES technology.  Ceramic stators etc  The inclusion of the output stage in the cups is a nice idea.

But just speculating; even allowing for the halving of capacitance by eliminating the cable, and possibly a particularly efficient driver, surely some 6w or so (just as a quick guess) must be needed in each earpiece.

A heat and weight issue.  But the words “Cool Class A” suggest it is not true Class A at all times, hence reduced dissipation. The quoted distortion figure is nevertheless impressive.

 

Beyond my pay grade but they mentioned about it being class A at low frequency but sliding into class AB at high frequency. So the polarization  seems continuously adjusted based on actual current draw from the load.

From talking to Alex, he mentioned about constant continuous monitoring of current going into the phones and automatic shutdown if there is anything abnormal so that bias adjustment is part of the job I suppose.

Probably just a current limit on the PSU controlled by the CPU which runs all of the amp.  It would be hard to run any sensing into the headphones. 

the polarization of the diaphram is something that changes on the order of minutes or longer, no way are they changing that. 

What they probably did is something similar to shure, shrink the distance beteen the diaphram and the stators and then run a lower voltage amplifier. There are p-channel fets that would allow a push pull amp with a very small class A bias that would run on +/-300v

That would be my guess as well.  No way to alter the charge on the diaphragm in a constant charge setup (and it won't sound all that hot if it is indeed conductive) so a smaller gap would be plausible.  The HE90 uses somewhere around 0.4mm given the fondness of driver issues so this could be similar. 

Both the HEV70 and the HEV90 used +600V supplies cap coupled to the stators. 

Yes sounds plausible.   And one thought about the platinum sputtered diaphragm, i assume this makes it slightly conducting and perhaps they can control the surface resistance very accurately.

I had a dream I was demoing these.

I was picking at one of the inside screens and the whole ear cup fell apart!

I crept away.

BTW, they reminded me of Voltron's 009/T2 rig.

go figure

Bad wording on my part with "polarization" (I did say this was beyond my pay grade ), I meant bias current of the transistors mounted inside the cup... 

So it wouldn't appear that they would be interested in selling the headphones separately?  Of course, they would probably want $20k or $25k for a pair... tee hee...

I'll check as that's the only bit I actually care about.    It helps to have a distributor that basically lets me do what ever I want. 

That startup (and shutdown) "ceremony", I mean wtf?

Will there be a Meier group buy again?

I am only interested in whether the phones themselves are any better than say the Stax SR009 or SR007, or my personal favorites the Sigma/404S ( where S stands for modified with sorbothane damping. )

 

 Suspiciously Sennheiser has made this evaluation difficult if not impossible since even if you can get past its DAC you apparently can't avoid the amplification in the earcups ( and we assume it is only straightforward amplification and not some euphonic signal processing.)

 

A better comparison would be one of the above phones range hooked up to $52,000.00 of top class dac and amplifier. 

 

I just don't like the concept of being stuck with an integrated system,  and a very expensive one at that.  It kind of reminds me of Bose' marketing ploys.  "Trust us we make great stuff"  If I had that kind of dough to splash around I would rather  put together my own system components. 

Edited November 6, 201510 yr by edstrelow
typo

please stop copying your posts from head-fi.

O/T: I really don't get all the fuss about this sorbothane (or dynamat rubber sheet) mods as of late I mentioned this years back in the old Stax thread about me doing it to my LP's after I took the suggestion originally made by spritzer years before when he mentioned the baffle and housing on the Lamba's is what holds back the lambda drivers, now edstrelow started doing the Sorbothane mods and everyone on cunt-fi is seeing this as the second coming of bread and shit. 

 

Anyway I hope Sennheiser don't sell many of these new Orpheus' so they can pay attention to make products normal people can afford. This statement product bullshit is nothing short of stupidity one could be seen comparable with the likes of Goldmund or EAR.

Edited November 6, 201510 yr by DefQon

It appears that the HE1060 will be available separately...wonder at what cost?  KG & Birgir...what shall be a mafia amp for the HE1060?

Is there a cost announced for just the phones themselves?

 

A mafia amp would be intense.