Earlier I had the opportunity to attend Sennheier’s “private listening” event held in Ortigas Library, Pasig City. It was a one of a kind event that offered audio fans a chance to audition Sennheiser’s premium headphones. Present at the event were Sennheiser Product Marketing Manager Donald Low, local Sennheiser distributors Egghead (Robinson’s Galleria) and Acoustic Dimension (Powerplant Mall). In attendance were members of audiophile community Headphiles.
As an “audio enthusiast” myself, I am a proud owner two pairs of Sennheiser IE80 in-ear monitors. Back when I was still trying to decide what pair of earphones to get, one of my frustrations was that I could not find a store that will let me demo high end Sennheisers. Perhaps this has to do with cost entry level set costs around 7,000 PHP), or hygiene (you wouldn’t want to put something that has been in other people’s ears), but I cannot help but compare them with other brands that provide listening stations.
Back then I wanted to contact Sennheiser Philippines just to audition their earphones. Since the IE80 was not available in the Philippines back then I was willing to consider the IE60 or IE70. With no actual edition I could only rely on online reviews, which is like deciding a food is tasty just by looking at its picture. Still the reviews were hepful and eventually led to my purchase of the Sennheiser IE80.
That is why I really appreciate when my friend Vincent Haoson invited me to the Sennheiser private listening event. Not only did it provide a venue to get to know our local distributors and fellow enthusiasts, it also provided a way to audition high end Sennheiser products such as the Sennheiser HD700 and Sennheiser HD800 at a relaxed setting.
It goes without saying that the HD700 and HD800 are the best sounding of the lot. I could not help but smile the entire time. With the right amplification these babies really do deliver. Of course, the price for these headphones are ridiculously high, so I tried looking for something more within the budget.
I settled on the Sennheiser HD598, which is not only cream-colored and beautiful to behold but sounds disgustingly good. The highs are clear and crisp. The mids are clean, and the lows sound whole and not muddy. The sound stage is also neither too big or too tight. One thing that I really like about the HD598 is how it fits perfectly on my head. The cup seals around my ears well, unlike the HD600 which, despite being technically better, actuallly sounded worse because it wasn’t sealing well thus picked up a lot of ambient noise.
Unfortunately the successor to the IE80, the Sennheiser IE800, was not yet available at the event so I did not get a chance to audition it. It was a really fun and memorable event do hope that Sennheiser does more of these in the future.
[slickr-flickr tag=”Sennheiser Private Listening”]
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