simorag said: Dear fellow head-fiers, during this weekend I had an experience which I thought was quite typical of the (never ending) audiophile journey to our personal sonic nirvana, and I have decided to share it.

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Hi guys, this is a follow-up to my previous post, I hope it can be of some use to anyone looking to further improve over the mighty HD800S.I have immensely enjoyed my HD800S for almost one year now. They have exceeded my expectations about what I could get from headphone listening, to a point where I was thinking they could easily be my endgame hp.Then, the audiophile disease known as acute upgraditis, combined to an engineer’s over-analytic brain started to focus on some small issues here and there, and the search for an even better experience started (sorry for you, my dearest wallet).These small issues were:1. Some glare, or excess of treble energy, around vocals, especially female;2. Sibilance, again mostly on female vocals;3. Lack of sub-bass (say, under 60-80Hz);4. Exaggerated soundstage width.While being occasional and not overly apparent, these issues were conditioning my choices about what music to listen to, as I could ecstatically enjoy chamber music, baroque, acoustic guitar, some instrumental jazz, but not as much so with large orchestral compositions (where are the double basses?), organ, grand piano, rock, electronica, vocals.Not sure how much of the above is related to the HD800S, and how much to the remaining components of my rig (see signature), or to the recordings, or to my subjective hearing and liking, but when I tried the Audeze LCD-4 at home (see my previous post), I found that all these “problems” went away.This first-hand experience, which matches some other user’s feedback about the HD800S, made me think that I should look for a new headphone before looking into other upgrades (source, DAC, amp, cables, ...).Unfortunately, I did not like the LCD-4 presentation in some key areas (e.g. transparency, PRaT), so the quest continued.As many of us, I do not have the chance of doing a proper audition (i.e. for several days, at home) of other TOTL headphones before buying, therefore the only viable option was to rely on reviews, advice from forum users more knowledgeable than me (thanks @bigfatpaulie and @TheAttorney !), and to luck / instinct.Finally, I decided to buy the Abyss AB-1266 Phi a few weeks ago, after a lot of hesitation due to price and fit / comfort.I am still under 100hr of listening on the Abyss Phi, so perhaps still in the burn-in period, but I am happy to say that all the issues mentioned above have been fixed or improved, with the exception of sibilance, which is still there, with no drawbacks or significant trade-offs on the strengths of the HD800S (for me, transparency, imaging, separation, out-of-the-head experience).Also, I have no problems whatsoever with comfort, after playing with all the frame / pads adjustments for a while.I am going to post my impressions on the Abyss thread in the next future, but as long as the comparison with the HD800S is concerned, here is what I think at this moment.The overall presentation of HD800S and Abyss Phi is not so different, in my opinion (apart from the added two octaves in the 20-80Hz range), and this was good news for me. Abyss Phi keep the cinematic, detailed, transparent and resolving character of the HD800S and add a subwoofer to them, and I would recommend them to anyone like me who is looking for and improvement over the Sennheisers within a similar sound signature.Abyss Phi sound BIG, perhaps overly so. The size of the soundstage is even larger than the HD800S, not ideal for intimate listening and not realistic for closely miked recordings. I still think they provide an improvement over the HD800S because the size grows not only in width but gains significantly in depth, so the soundstage, while being as overinflated, is now more three-dimensional.When listening to romantic symphonies, this BIG sound and 3D stage provides a phenomenal experience.Feeling you are inside a Steinway grand piano still feels odd, however...Sibilance issues are still there, and in some recordings, I am feeling that the Abyss Phi are even brighter than the HD800S. Again, perhaps this is due to other components of my chain, which I will discover soon as I move on with my further upgrades.Fortunately, the diffuse glare I sometimes heard on the HD800S around the vocals is gone with the Abyss, and both female and male voices seem more natural and full bodied. That said, LCD-4 had IMHO something special with vocals, which is unmatched by any other headphones I have heard.As for the bass, boy this is by far the most impressive improvement. By playing with EQ I was able to find some reasonably good settings with the HD800S for most music genres, but I was still feeling something was lacking. With the Abyss Phi it is, as I wrote above, like adding a subwoofer to a good pair of loudspeakers: the sheer physical impact of the lower notes (unfortunately limited to your eardrums and skull for obvious reasons) is an experience in itself. I am no basshead, but I know what an organ sounds like, or what you feel when a grand piano plays its lowest notes, or when the double basses suddenly attack on a Wagner or Beethoven piece. This part of the spectrum of my emotional involvement in the music was largely missing with HD800S and it is now there with the Abyss Phi.To summarize the long write-up, I would say that, if you like very much the sound signature of the HD800S, like I do, and look for improving over them without trading-off their magic spots (transparency, imaging, etc.), the Abyss Phi are really worth auditioning.To me, they have provided what I was looking for, as I can now fully enjoy all the music genres I listen to, from chamber music to rock or even hip-hop with no need to EQ or trade-offs, while not being the “perfect” headphone (if such thing will ever exist).The price factor is largely against the Abyss though, because if you are like me you will hear a marginal (while clearly recognizable) improvement in several areas, being the sub-bass response the only real outstanding plus. So, in the end it depends on how much you value these extras based on your musical tastes, personal preference and budget availability.