Sennheiser HD 820 Headphones: Best Ever Audio Output with A New Closed-Back Design
Ask anyone who are always particular about using very fine audio experience with headphones, and you will hear most of them speak some brands that invariably feature Sennheiser HD 800 S from all the recent ones that arrived within a year or two. Just as headphones continue to evolve with better audio output, design and features this German company recently came with the latest upgrade on their much-acclaimed headphone. Sennheiser HD 820 has just been announced at the CES 2018. Greeted with jubilant applause this smart earphone once again deserves a complete review.
The shift from open-back to closed-back design
The 820 launched this year at CES is actually a variant of its predecessor 800 S with the backside closed this time. It has been designed to deliver more value with listening pleasure by isolating the surrounding sound with the music. The earlier version used to look much like a sieve allowing surrounding sound in a while making out volume equally come out of it. As for the reason of this open-back design, we can rather talk about the need of staying connected with the surrounding through sounds. But obviously, this also made us compromise on audio output while listening music as noise is obvious.
On the other hand, closing off this acoustic chamber of the earphone can interfere with the purity of the audio output because of unwanted resonances and reverberations occurring while playing music. This is precisely why the open-back design was popular with many advanced earphones. The new closed-back design of the latest variant addresses this issue quite convincingly with great sound output with no internal resonances and surrounding sound interfering with the audio quality.
How it enhances audio output?
Sennheiser as a company has already taken an exotic approach to deliver a design crafted headphone to give a better version of 800 S. The company this time by offering an outer glass cover gave its HD 820 detained its signature metal finish while not really exposing the audio drivers. Sennheiser also claimed that it would deliver a delicately curved Gorilla Glass cover to reduce the sound resonance to a great extent by introducing special absorber chambers capable of reflecting sound waves.
Though the introduction of glass as the outer cover can actually give make the device a little vulnerable to damage, it also gives the earphone a premium look and feels while capturing best sound output.
Is it a game changer?
As per the company’s chief headphones engineer Axel Grell, this new design of Sennheiser headphone that dealt with the reverberation effect nicely through the introduction of an absorber chamber can actually be a game changer. It delivers exceptional sound output while offering complete insulation to the listener from the surrounding sound. This makes this earphone most transparent sounding earphone as of now. You can listen to music with every tiny detail as they have been intended for the listeners. That is really a game changer design for an earphone. From being one of the best open-back designed earphones, it became the ultimate earphone with the closed-back design.
Great material for a sophisticated built
The company made some stellar changes with the new earphone and gave it new material built for optimum sound output. This time Sennheiser brought a mix of synthetic leather and microfiber as the material for the earpad of HD 820 which gave the earphones unparalleled insulation for the optimum listening experience. Sennheiser as a company also adopted 4.4mm Pentaconn balanced connector as the advanced grade audio jack popularised by Sony. Though it is a bit larger than the traditional 3.5mm audio plug, it offers optimum sound output with minimum distortion.
A final note
Priced at $2,399, Sennheiser HD 820 seems to be an expensive buy, but if you want to catch up with the optimum listening experience that any earphone can deliver, this is the best option you can think of.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.