theaudiofiles.net

World of Audio

Alvin Gold — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:35:21 +0000

I have been invited to do some scribbling on the subject of headphones and microphones. It happens that headphones were responsible for some of my key formative experiences as a rookie writer in the wonderful world of audio and high fidelity. The first was with an early open-back model, the brightly presented HD 414, which came like a bolt from the blue to what at the time was moribund market dominated by the dull sounding heavyweight sealed back designs from US based manufacturers like, well you know who.

According to my increasingly leaky memory cells, the HD 414 dated back to the late 60s, and it remained in the range for several years, selling like hotcakes. Oh, it came with groovy bright yellow earpads where most of the others were dressed in multiple shades of grey. We used words like groovy then, without a hint of embarrassment.

The HD414 introduced the idea of open-back phones, where no seal was necessary around the ears to generate bass, and there were other benefits too: the option of different colour earpads, a simple but robust loop headband that could be folded over on itself, and which sprang back to its original shape when released, and interchangeable cables and earphone capsules that avoided countless return trips to the menders. Oh yes, one other thing: as well as being practically indestructible in everyday use, the HD414 was as cheap as chips.

I had the opportunity to listen to an HD 414 once long after the model had been withdrawn, and was interested to see how my memories corresponded with the more contemporary reality. They still sounded clean and open, with a lean bass and a rather bright treble which clearly sounded overcooked and edgy to my ears. Overall the sound appeared to have worn reasonably well, but of course things had advanced in the years since it was introduced.

Good thing really, or we’d have nothing left to talk about.

A few notes about my background, so if you’re not interested, stop reading now. I was born in a manger in 19…, and after getting what I loosely describe as an education, I transplanted myself to to Israel for a few years, before returning to the UK, eventually ending up working for one of the UK’s best hi-fi dealers, Grahams in London.

I decided that without the skills necessary to be a worthwhile musician, the less onerous task of writing about high fidelity seemed like a good idea. I started writing for the most radical and influential of the hi-fi magazines, the celebrated Hi Fi Answers, at a time when the publisher, Haymarket Publishing (now best of course known as publisher of What Hi-fi?), was not scared of being a tad edgy. I also wrote extensively for the latter, before the injunction against using freelancers was introduced, and eventually I started to write for many of the other titles that have come and (in many cases) gone.

My main regular writing gigs in the UK now are in Hi-fi Choice and Home Entertainment.

Neumann KM-D Digital Mic in action

John Willett — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:52:43 +0000

At the end of 2006 I went over to Neumann, Berlin to be shown the new range of digital microphones and initially was thinking – digital microphones, great, but…

However, I was forgetting about all the headroom that you have to allow for with analogue microphones. Headroom in the microphone pre-amplifier (and the additional noise in the analogue circuit) and the headroom you have to allow in the D/A converter. These two added together mean there is about a 25dB reduction in the s/n ratio – so, a 130dB dynamic range gets reduced, in effect, to only 105dB. That was point #1 that started me sitting up and listening.

The A/D in the Solution-D series (including the KM-D) is a patented Neumann true 28-bit conversion that gets the full dynamic range of the microphone – this is outputted as a 24-bit signal in the AES42 format. The interface controls the microphones and outputs the signal as standard AES3. Details of all this – AES42, Stephan Peus’s paper on digital microphones and product brochures can all be downloaded in pdf format from the Neumann website here.

Once the signal is in the digital domain in the microphone you can adjust the level, add compression, pre-attenuation, etc., even switch the microphone’s power light on and off or change the brightness. This is all controlled by the Neumann RCS software included with the DMI-2 (see channel strip below).

And there is a lot more you can do in the digital domain in the microphone. Most important (and convincing point #2 for me) is the inclusion of an integral digital limiter that prevents overload. On a test with a microphone with this disabled, is was very clear how effective this limiter is. No distortion at all, it just does not get any louder. Great for transients that would normally distort the recording and require a re-take – now it’s just perfect.

Those are the main reasons why I immediately put my own money on the table and bought my own pair of the KM 183-D diffuse-field omni microphones and I have also now purchased the KK 131-D flat-omni (nearfield) capsules as well.

The Project
I had been asked to record a series of CDs for the pianist, Richard Meyrick. I have recorded Richard many times over the years, normally with Sennheiser MKH 20 omnis – but this time I also used the new Neumann KM 183-D digital microphones.

The project was sponsored by The Man Group and Blüther pianos, so our hands were not tied to get a good sound.

The recording venue was The Menuhin Hall in the Yehudi Menuhin School in Stoke d’Abernon. This is a superb building with a great sound. It is totally isolated from outside noise with a perfect cable route to the Green Room where we set up the recording equipment.

AES42 signals can travel good distances along normal microphone cable, but twice as far over AES cables; so I went along to Canford Audio and got them to make me some custom cables (yes, I know - I’m lazy and I am not proficient with lead-free solder yet) made with proper balanced AES digital audio cable, terminated with the new Neutrik EMC XLR connectors. AES42 at 24/96 can travel about 200-metres along these cables, so distance was not a problem.

As this was my first outing with the KM-D series, I did a parallel recording with a pair of MKH 20s (as you can see in the picture).

The microphones were set up as shown in the photo. As the KM 183-D is a diffuse-field omni, it has a lift in the upper frequency range. But I had the microphones only about a couple of metres from the piano. Anyone who has seen a polar-pattern of an omni microphone knows how the high frequencies are attenuated off-axis due to the physical size of the microphone. We started with having the 183-Ds at about 45°, but found this was still a bit too bright; so we turned them through 90° and had them vertical. At this position the frequency response was ruler flat and the piano sounded great (the MKH 20s didn’t need turning as they have a flat response head on).

The KM 183-Ds were connected to the Neumann DMI-2 interface which locked them to the same clock time. They were set to a 96kHz sample rate and a digital gain of 25dB was applied (in practice this was fine as the absolute maximum peak ended up being about -1.6dBFS – I ended up not needing the limiter at all). I did not apply any compression at all.

The output of the DMI-2 was fed to an AES splitter which outputted to a Fostex FR-2 recorder for the main recording at 24/96. The second output went to an Audio Design ProBox 10 sample rate converter which down-converted to 16/44.1 to record a DAT safety copy on my old Fostex D-10. The MKH 20s went to an Audio Design DMA2 24/96 mic. pre. and into a second FR-2 (kindly loaned by SCV London for the event).

Monitoring was via a Grace m902, Sennheiser HD 650 headphones and Klein + Hummel O110 active monitors (as shown in the picture). Talkback was via my custom unit (made by myself many years ago) which also controlled the red lights. I also used “The Box” for stereo soundstage imaging.

The first recording session was five consecutive days just before Christmas ’06. The sessions went extremely well and the microphones behaved flawlessly. We were delighted with the results.

The KM-D microphones are so quiet that we had no background noise “clue” when we were playing back. We kept thinking something was wrong, as every time we started to play back a take we couldn’t hear anything – until the music started. They are quiet!

The sound of the microphones is the sound of the capsules with nothing added and nothing taken away. Once we had tamed the top end by angling the microphones correctly, everything was wonderful.

After the session, we spent a weekend with Sequoia on the PC, editing most of the sessions and the pianist and sponsors are absolutely delighted with the results.

In total we had four recording sessions and the final result was for CDs with an initial run of 3,000 of each.

Yes – we chose the KM 183-D microphones for the release (not that the MKH 20s weren’t good – but this combination was the best one in this situation).

I don’t spend my own money lightly - probably something to do with my Scottish great-grandmother - and I certainly have no regrets in doing it this time.

In fact the KM 183-Ds work out quite cheap – including the interface, a pair works out at about the same price as any top class omni (slightly cheaper than a pair of MKH 20s) – but when you factor in that you don’t need a mic. pre. or A/D, or even a limiter / compressor…

And - when the mixer and DAW manufacturers come out with AES42 inputs on their equipment, you won’t even need the interface.

The CDs we released can be seen on Richard Meyrick’s website here.

You can read Hugh Robjohn’s review of the KM-D series (published in the March 2007 issue of SOS) here.

Full details on the KM-D series are on the Neumann website here.

I also came across this informative video by Neumann on YouTube:

Many people have questions about digital microphones, so here’s the place to ask them…

Lossless Audio & Digital Audio Formats

John Willett — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:40:20 +0000

Digital Audio Formats - Lossless Audio

For those of you who appreciate audio at a quality that comes close to matching the original performance, you would be forgiven for dismissing the storing and playback of music on a computer, media hard drive or portable music device.

So what might you be overlooking?

Well, there are two main types of digital audio formats, Lossy and Lossless. Although we are interested in the latter, we will take a brief look at the Lossy format history.

Lossy

The most commonly known and used Lossy format is MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3), where music is typically stored digitally in a compressed form , from 128kbps to 320kbps*. - the higher the digital bit rate the better the quality.

Music stored in 128kbps gives varied results which has lead to it receiving a bad name amongst the audiophile community.

The term ‘compression’ is a compression algorithm process used to interpolate the analogue signal into a digital format .

AAC, or Advanced Audio Coding (MPEG-4 AAC) has taken the MP3 formula and improved on it. It is often said that a 128kbps AAC file is comparable in quality to an MP3 file at 192kbps.

Microsoft have their own version of MP3, known as WMA. It’s premise was to provide a better quality than MP3 for the same file size. Whilst it does improve upon MP3, it is not a match for AAC.

Lossless

There are now a variety of Lossless compression algorithms that exist. These have been developed specifically with music in mind, whereas some of the aforementioned Lossy formats were data compression tools adjusted to work for music.

The following formats have been developed to overcome the errors which MP3 is infamous for.

Apple Lossless - ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)

ATRAC Advanced Lossless

Audio Lossless Coding - also known as MPEG-4 ALS

Free Lossless Audio Codec - FLAC

Meridian Lossless Packing - MLP

Monkey’s Audio - Monkey’s Audio APE

RealPlayer - RealAudio Lossless

TTA - True Audio Lossless

WavPack - WavPack lossless

WMA Lossless - Windows Media Lossless

It is important to carefully research which format you choose to adopt so that worst case you don’t have to rip your music collection again or carry out any conversion process! Some points to consider:

Experiment with a good quality music track that you know well, using different settings.

Cross platform/device compatibility (Free Lossless Audio Codec)

Manufacturer support (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)

Freeware (Free Lossless Audio Codec)

Global adoption, longevity of format

DVD Audio

Whilst it is not yet supported on portable devices, DVD-Audio offers a quality that far exceeds that of a CD. To put it in perspective, the quality available on a standard CD is 44.1KHz/16bit, where as DVD-Audio is capable of 192KHz/24bit.

Advantages

Having every track being handled as a perfect copy in one place with ease of use is superb. The added tagging benefits in searching, ‘Genius‘ type replay and the fact the file won’t degrade over time (like a record or damaged CD) is of great benefit. Digital downloading has now reached the point where the music in 24 bit is better than a CD can ever get!

Adopt one of the formats on offer and open up the potential of your music collection. Take it anywhere with you! Commute, car, exorcise, office and enjoy listening to music with friends. Rediscover your music collection via easy to search interfaces or even let cleaver software pick out a play list of similar genres at your request.

In a recent test using a number of high quality digital sourced formats, Driver Heaven awarded Sennheiser’s IE8 headphones the Editors Choice Award.

Whilst the IE range are as portable as any other in-ear headphone, it is their heritage that is of relevance here, evolving from studio in ear monitors offering an unaltered sound, allowing one to hear music as it was originally intended on the move.

Downsides

Well, not many really. When playing Lossless audio on a portable device, some people have reported up to a 40% reduction in battery life from each charge. But, given most manufactures quote 30+hrs playback, this I feel is a small price to pay and certainly still allows plenty of juice for your daily commute!

One other concern that was initially voiced was the storage capacity that is required. Again, with ever progressing technology providing almost double capacity devices year on year, this will become less of a sticking point in time.

Future

Like it or not, some big players in the Hi-Fi world have invested heavily to produce devices that cater for Lossless audio.

Naim Audio for example are taking this seriously and have acknowledged it with their site called ‘naim label‘, offering music in traditional formats but also FLAC. They have produced a media unit called the ‘HDX Hard Disk player‘ to store and playback digital music.

Linn have also produced a music dedicated site, Linn Records and have created a range of media units called ‘Digital Stream Players‘.

We have but scratched the surface here! Please share your knowledge on this developing area.

UHF Frequencies: What’s Happening?

Andy Lillywhite — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:43:01 +0000

Many people are concerned by the apparent uncertainty regarding the future availability of UHF frequencies for radio microphones. The first issue is the change over from Analogue TV broadcasting to Digital Terrestrial Television often referred to as DSO (Digital Switch Over). Added to this there are now pressures from European Mobile Telephone Network operators. Not all UHF radio microphone users will be affected by these changes, though many will.

N.B. Throughout the rest of this post please take the words “radio microphones” to also mean In Ear Monitors (IEM’s). It’s a long enough post without me writing both out every time, and all the issues covered apply equally to both. Thanks!

As a major global manufacturer of radio microphones it is reasonable for people, especially our customers, to look to Sennheiser for guidance in these matters, so here goes.
Sennheiser UK is actively engaged, through BEIRG, with Ofcom and many trade associations which represent radio microphone users and also other manufacturers to try and ensure a satisfactory outcome for all UK radio microphone users - or the PMSE community as they are generally referred to in official documents (Programme Making and Special Events).

To understand the changes which are expected over the next few years we must first understand the current situation. To do this we need to break down UHF radio microphone use by the type of UHF frequencies used. They fall into three categories:

Licence exempt frequencies
Channel 69 shared frequencies
Site specific “Interleaved” frequencies

Licence Exempt
At present none of the planned changes to TV broadcasting or anything else will have any direct effect on the Licence Exempt UHF frequencies used by Wireless Microphones. Just to be completely clear; the only licence exempt UHF frequencies for wireless microphones in the UK are those between 863 - 865MHz. If you are using UHF wireless microphones outside of this frequency range in the UK and you don’t have a licence then you are committing an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act. If all of your radio microphones are only ever used on frequencies between 863 - 865MHz then you can stop reading here, nothing is going to change that we know of at present. If you only ever use freePORTTM radio microphones this means you.

Channel 69
Frequencies from 854 - 862MHz are commonly referred to in the UK as “Channel 69“. It now looks increasingly likely that Channel 69 will be cleared to make way for new mobile broadband services - 790 to 862 MHz TV bands 61 thru 69 inclusive - have now effectively been earmarked for auction and subsequently, the deployment of these new services. However, through a process of negotiation Ofcom have committed to providing PMSE with a replacement TV band - most likely to be Channel 38 - and have agreed in principle that some form of funding scheme will need to be implemented to assist with the ‘migration’ from Channel 69 to Channel 38. At time of posting details on this are yet to be finalised.

Site specific “Interleaved” frequencies
If your radio microphones operate on UHF frequencies anywhere from 470MHz to 854MHz then you are using Interleaved frequencies (and you have, of course, therefore got a site specific Wireless Telegraphy Act licence from JFMG Ltd. for them valid for each and every occasion and location in the UK where you use them, haven’t you? Good.) Interleaved frequencies are also often referred to as “white space frequencies”. This refers to the gaps which exist in the geographical coverage from the TV transmitters. The gaps are necessary to prevent mutual interference being caused to TV reception by neighbouring TV transmitters. The gaps where there is no, or very little TV signal on a particular TV channel are the “white spaces”.
Because you have a licence you should be receiving information from JFMG and Ofcom regarding the future of your fixed site licensed frequencies.
DSO should more accurately be termed ASO, or Analogue Switch Off since it is only once the analogue transmitters stop transmitting that the so called Digital Dividend can be realised.

What should I do?
Sennheiser are committed to helping their customers deal with the future changes in the most efficient and cost effective way possible. Depending on the age and model of radio microphones (and IEM’s) that you have there may be a number of options open to you. Whilst replacing everything may be the most obvious option in most cases this will not be the only option. Some Sennheiser UHF radio microphone equipment can be re-engineered to operate on different frequencies or frequency ranges from those they were originally supplied on and in most cases this will be considerably more cost effective than complete replacement. Sennheiser have been manufacturing UHF radio microphones across the whole of the range from 470 - 960MHz for around 20 years or more now so we are extremely confident that whatever part of the UHF spectrum you need to move to in the future we will have a solution for you. As the situations become clearer we will issue further information and advice. In the mean time if you have any concerns about how the forthcoming changes will affect your use of radio microphones please get in touch, we are here to help. Above all, as the situation particularly regarding Channel 69 is still developing, don’t panic!

Further information can be found at:

www.beirg.org.uk
www.jfmg.co.uk
www.ofcom.org.uk

Love your Sennheiser’s

Linda Irvin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 09:41:07 +0000

You have invested time and money into your headphones and with the correct maintenance at home you will increase their lifespan without having to go through the expense of returning them to the manufacturer or servicing agent for repair.

Here are eight simple steps we would recommend for home maintenance:

Always read the instruction manual prior to use
Keep the product dry and avoid damp contact with button or controls
Store in a dust free environment. Use a pouch if provided
If necessary, locate spare parts on spare part finder
Clean using tools provided, some ear-pads may be rinsed clean in soapy water
Replace damaged or worn ear adaptors/pads
Avoid extreme bending of the cable
Change headband cushions regularly

If for some reason you no longer have a copy of the product manual to help you care for your Sennheiser product, we have an online archive where you should be able to download the relevant manual free of charge.

Spare Parts Finder

Linda Irvin — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 09:21:59 +0000

Often, the thought of servicing an old or damaged pair of headphones may be cause of concern and trepidation! However, if you have purchased them from a reliable and long established manufacturer, chances are there is no need to worry. Most good quality headphones will be modular (with the exception of some of the budget, portable models) and will be easy to repair at home. Cables, speakers, earpads and headbands can often be fitted by the end user.

Spare parts - what parts are available for your product and where to purchase

Returns and servicing - who and where to contact and what options do you have outside of your warranty
Product archives - find your manual online for products that are obsolete
General Maintenance - DIY tips on increasing the lifespan of your product

Spare parts can be hard to find especially if the product is old. For headphone related products identification of the right part number is required. We have set up an online part finder tool to help customers locate what they are looking for which you may find useful.

For headphones that are faulty within their guarantee, you should return them to the retailer for direct replacement along with proof of purchase.

If you find the information you need using the online part finder you can then contact one of these recommended stockists to purchase the spare parts required - Unilet S & V, Lawton Trading Ltd or W Darby & Co.

The many flavors of wireless are all delicious

Eric Palonen — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:17:15 +0000

Imagine it is the hottest day of the year…”sweltering” may provide a better visual. You have just watched an amazing concert and need to cool down. You and your friends commute to the local ice cream shop to find the store loaded with customers as far as the eye can see. The scent of fresh cones fills your nostrils. Thankfully, the line is moving fast, however, you need to quickly choose a flavor. The pressure is officially on as you look at the 63 different varieties. How do you choose?

The future of wireless audio will be somewhat similar, only choosing will be much easier and the Sennheiser family of flavors will not evaporate in your hands when you need it most.

Since cutting the cable for TV broadcast studios in the 1950’s, Sennheiser has pioneered wireless audio transmission. Since, we have been working around the clock to perfect our recipe for quality, reliable wireless products. The past year has brought existing, new and improved technologies to the Sennheiser lineup. Lets take a closer look at the menu.

The MX W1, using the amazing KLEER^TM specification, delivered a standing ovation with incredible audio and complete wireless freedom. Even better, it is incredibly simple to use. KLEER^TM delivers what other digital audio transmission formats cannot; uncompressed, CD-quality sound with impressive battery efficiency. You see, getting a lot of information from point A to point B without wires can take a lot of power unless you use KLEER^TM. The audio quality? Crystal-clear with wide dynamic range…not what you would expect from a portable headphone…until now. This masterpiece is the ultimate cure for the salivating audiophile, hungry for hi-resolution audio whilst on-the-move. The flavor? A sweet and tasty all-natural strawberry: rich and satisfying with no artificial ingredients.

Bluetooth®, one of the most common wireless specifications on the market, has made communication between digital devices easy, affordable and commonplace. You could liken Bluetooth® to chocolate; it has a lot of appeal and thus can be found at everywhere. The Sennheiser Communications line of BT headsets ensure that the latest all-in-one gadget you purchased keeps you connected. The VMX 100 with VoiceMax^TM is ideal for those that have a Bluetooth® enabled mobile…which these days, is just about everyone. Sennheiser’s acclaimed microphone prowess does not stop at the studio or stage; anyone looking for better speech reproduction on their mobile should give the VMX line a look.

And those of you reaching for something plentiful in “toppings” with enough versatility for every preference should consider the MM 200. It’s a stereo headphone, a microphone and remote control for your music enabled mobile all in one slick package. Bluetooth®’s ability to connect to so many types of devices via PAN or Personal Area Network is appealing to cultures’ eroding borders and the social networking craze. Regardless of language or geography, you can go to nearly any postal code and expect a great reaction from Blue to-err, chocolate. This technology continues to hold promise for future Sennheiser innovations.

Traditional radio frequency devices such as Evolution Wireless microphones and RS model headphones are classics and quite un-traditional in comparison to the market trends; reliable, comforting performance that you can feel safe with regardless of the scenario. Ladies and gentlemen we have found our classic vanilla. Lets not forget Infrared; an efficient, effortless treat in front of the television or at the cinema.

How do you choose the wireless flavor that is right for you? Let the experts at Sennheiser show you their vast choices and put your trust in the name that understands wireless in every way. What you will find is certain to please the most discerning audio connoisseur.

Crafted for Perfection

John Willett — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:00:18 +0000

We had the first British showing of the new HD 800 headphones at the Bristol Sound & Vision show in February.

The headphones were connected to a Grace M902B headphone amplifier which was fed from a Nagra CD player, one of the best setups on the market.

With all all the talk on internet forums, Head-Fi in particular, there was a constant queue of people throughout the duration of the show wanting to experience the HD 800, several visitors even brought along their own CDs to listen to.

The response to the HD 800 at the show was overwhelmingly favourable with someone paying out immediately at the show for a pair; with quite a few more saying they will likely buy after hearing them in quieter surroundings at their local dealer.

Personally, I was lucky enough to take a pair home before the show and listen to them at my leisure over a weekend.
The headphones had previously been run-in with 24-hours of pink noise to settle them in, as you would with such a quality product.

I used my own Grace M902B which was connected to a professional hard disk recorder and listened to selected classical piano recitals.
As a comparison I also connected them to my Myryad hi-fi system and listened to several CDs straight out of the headphones socket on the pre-amp.
Both were a delight to listen to.

My own feeling was that they do everything right. They were neutral, very natural and superbly revealing; I was hearing things in recordings I had never heard before and I found myself so getting caught up in the music that time passed without notice.

I can well understand why so many people at the show are saying that that they are the best headphones that they have ever heard, one reviewer summing up the HD 800 with a single word . . . Flawless‘.

In my opinion, once you have heard them, you won’t want to listen on anything else.

Yes ! I too have ordered my own personal pair.
If you get the chance go and listen to the HD 800 at you local dealer, you will experience something rather special.

A whole new meaning to Frequency Response

Eric Palonen — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:07:50 +0000

Launching a flagship product is always GREAT fun. Here at Sennheiser, every launch is met with child-like excitement, but few have exceeded the overall anticipation of the HD 800 spectacle that took place in early 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada in the USA.

Publicly unveiled for the first time at CES, the HD 800 delivered a response that we are actually proud to say has a lot of “buzz”. To further play on the term “frequency response” (in the scientific sense, the total measured tonal bandwidth of a headphone speaker system), the public and press response of the HD 800 announcement has indeed been quite frequent. Thanks to the rapid delivery of internet content, news of the HD 800 spread through the hi-fi community in just moments, taking the launch from the middle of the Nevada desert to every continent of the globe. A defacto source for headphone news, Head-Fi broke the official story with first impressions, pictures and up-to-the-minute input from the South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

The flurry of continuous coverage from trusted media outlets like Stereophile and Home Theater Magazine, CNET.com, Sound & Vision validates what Head-Fi found out in the Sennheiser CES listening booth: that the HD 800 is not only a new headphone, but a groundbreaking achievement in acoustics.

The results?
A response so overwhelmingly positive that in a matter of days, the HD 800 first impressions thread on Head-Fi became the 5th most popular thread (and counting) in all of Head-Fi history. In fact, just hours before this writing, the aforementioned thread was the 4th most popular of all-time at Head-Fi.

A viral effect so potent and contagious that Head-Fi founder Jude Mansilla’s Flikr account (the first to show public pictures of the HD 800) expanded from about 60 views per day to over 30,000 per day during the launch.

A response so wide (just like the HD 800’s ring shaped transducer) that “occasional” hi-fi enthusiasts have visited the above blogs and forums with great “frequency”, even in remote areas of the world.

Now, when we speak of the HD 800’s frequency response (an astounding 6 Hz to 51,000 Hz) we must consider the truth behind the numbers; the incredible audible coverage of this acoustical masterpiece resounds in the community it serves far beyond what was ever expected out of a headphone.

Too good to be true…

John Willett — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:11:59 +0000

“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.” (John Ruskin)

This seems to be the state of the world nowadays – people hunting for ever lower prices encouraging the market in fake goods.

Manufacturers that produce high quality, popular products are being counterfeited in the Far East and sold on the internet as the real thing.

Unfortunately, many people are taken in and are buying fake product thinking they are genuine, as the copies in some cases are extemely good.

Sennheiser’s popular in-ear headphones like the CX 300 and similar have been faked, as well as the popular evolution range of wired and wireless microphones.

Often the biggest clue to a fake is in the cheap price – too cheap and it’s almost certainly a fake.

As a fake is counterfeit and not genuine there is no guarantee, no sending back to the manufacturer for replacement, no technical support and, in the case of radio microphones, it’s actually illegal to use them as a fake does not comply with the relevant telecommunications regulations. Basically; buy a fake and you have thrown your money away!

The safest way to make sure you have a genuine product is to buy from a legitimate retailer. Your nearest retailer can be found on our website using the Sennheiser dealer locator.

If you buy on-line, make sure you purchase from a known, legitimate dealer. Internet auction sites are well known for fake productsrs. Although they are often get shut closed down when they are discovered, they often pop up again under a different name – so be careful. Be very aware ofAlso be careful about “Market place” sellers, selling on the sites of well known internet suppliers; some of these may be genuine, many others are not.

Together with Customs and Excise and Trading Standards Sennheiser actively pursues illegal counterfeiters fakers, blocking imports, seizing countefiet stock, and in some cases with international assistance closing the counterfeit manufactures.when they are discovered, including raiding factories and warehouses in China to shut down the distribution network.

The best advice is to “be careful” and if a deal looks too good to be true – it probably is.Compare the prices form several suppliers if one is particularly cheap it may be a fake.