Audiophilepure

The designers at Sennheiser have also gone to great lengths to ensure that the HD 800S is comfortable to wear. They have employed ultra-soft microfibre padding and very light composite materials to reduce weight. They have also taken into consideration that no two end-user heads are exactly the same and so they have designed earcups with dual-axis articulation which adjust to the unique structure of every end user head and result in a very comfortable fit that reduces the fatigue of having the headphones on for very long periods of time.

The HD 800S also comes with a choice of ultra-low capacitance 9.8 feet/3-meter-long cables which are impedance-matched. You get a ¼-inch/6.3mm stereo connector for use with headphone amps, DACs and A/V receivers and a balanced, 4.4mm connector for use with the newer generation, balanced output devices.

The ear cups of the HD 800S are not perfectly round. Rather the rear of the ear cup is flatter than the front side. I found this to be a distinct advantage when listening to these headphones while resting my head on the headrest of my Eames chair. The flatness of the ear cup’s back mean that they did not touch the headrest of the chair, making it a lot more comfortable, listening to these headphones in this seated, leaning back position.

For the audition, I plugged the HD 800S into my Bryston BP19 preamp connected to my Calyx Femto DAC, fed by the ROON Nucleus Plus server which manages my library of over quarter of a million digital tracks, most of them in high resolution formats. The ROON software is very intuitive and allows me to store, organize and access my library in a more convenient manner than another other audio playback software I have tried. Also, the up-sampling engine on the Nucleus Plus is the best that I have encountered to date.

Let’s talk about dynamics and tactility. While HE-1000SE unveiled is great, the Solitaire P still win in ultimate tactility and dynamics. Let’s take guitar plucks or strings in general, they offer a stronger attack and body on Solitaire P. They just sound more visceral, have more detail and offer a more tactile, physical experience. The HE-1000SE is still great here and offers incredible precision in the leading edges. I would say that with Solitaire P the strings and guitar plucks move more air, have more impact in the attack and are more visceral, while the HE-1000SE unveiled is still very tactile and offer a bit more “zzzing” energy in the upper midrange.

Both the Solitaire P and the HE-1000SE Unveiled are superb headphones. The HE-1000SE Unveiled is notably more linear, while the Solitaire P has a warmer and more colored tonal balance. Despite the technical differences, the Solitaire P’s bass performance, PRAT, visceral impact and mesmerizing vocals remain compelling. Personally, the Solitaire P still sounds slightly more natural and realistic to my ears, though this impression is inherently subjective. For example, in the Solitaire P interview I mentioned I was startled by the sounds because they sounded so natural, I felt like the sound was originating from my room. And while to some degree, this happened with other headphones, the sensation was short enough for the brain to quickly understand is coming from the headphones. With the solitaire p, the sensation is longer and I actually need to look around.

Furutech is a top-level product, not a kaleidoscopic travelogue that leaves the listener speculating or lost in imagination. Project V1-S possesses a rare emotional magnetism, allowing music to be explored as a vast, uncharted universe, always wrapped in an enduring experience. It delivers significantly more musical drama than I expected, always ready to reveal musical stories, lyrically, never subdued.

For any high-end audio speaker cable, it is a genuine challenge to render the repertoire with endless musical textures. Exemplary, at every turn, Project V1-S seamlessly and effortlessly reinforces a sense of authoritative control.

Many high-end audio cables, regardless of price, offer merely an acoustic simulation. Furutech speaker cable stands apart, demonstrating that when things are envisioned and executed properly, the sum can be greater than the parts, with expertly rendered spatial and textural qualities.