Lastly, the treble. This is one of the hardest things to get right about headphones, as it’s really easy to make things sound too bright or subdued. You can’t have a fully natural sound without a good treble response.
The treble response of the Crosszone CZ-1 is almost as bad as the midrange. Peaks and dips all over the place, harsh and subdued at the same time, unnatural and weird sounding. There’s nothing smooth, detailed, or extended to it, as the entire treble response is just simply bad. Nothing more to say.
The Diana Phi is once again: too aggressive and harsh, and its treble performance comes up as too forward and tiring most of the time. It lacks definition and coherence, and its frequency response seems all over the place. The treble of the Diana Phi is highly detailed, but because of its poor control and definition it can only score 4 points.
The treble response of the HD8xx is pretty peaky with great technicalities. The detail retrieval and the amount of speed are both fantastic. However, I have to rate it significantly lower than the competitors mainly due to its somewhat chaotic tone and lack of smoothness.
Both of these headphones offer an incredible level of detail retrieval in the treble area. The only reason they didn’t rate higher is purely because of the fact that the next headphones offer a more tonally accurate or more interesting approach to the tone, while also having a phenomenal detail retrieval.
Two different approaches to the treble, both spectacular. The D8000 Pro has a highly neutral, reference-sounding treble that is full of detail and resolution. An exceptional crispy kind of delivery that is actually one of the most detailed in the game.
The Elite on the other hand is not AS impressive when it comes to the technical performance, but the tone of the entire treble response is just lovely. It has that ability to make things sound prettier than they actually should. Highly musical, dense, incredibly smooth, and incredibly natural.
Once again, the Susvara gets 10 points, but what can you do. The treble response of these headphones is just simply mind-blowing. Exceptional texture, God-tier detail retrieval, the most natural timbre there is, and all that while still being beautifully smooth and rich. This treble can be both aggressive and mellow, depending on what it’s actually supposed to sound like. It doesn’t get better than this.
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: Contenders
Page 3: Presentation
Page 4: Build Quality & Comfort
Page 5: Tone
Page 6: Detail
Page 7: Soundstage
Page 8: Bass
Page 9: Midrange
Page 10: Treble
Page 11: Musicality
Page 12: Value
Page 13: Results
About Author
Woww….What an amazing comparison.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much Ruff! 🙂 Enjoy the content!
Great review! Pitty so many are missing – LCD-5, CRBN, DCA Stealth, Staxxes, Utopia, T+A Solitaire…
Thanks Peter!
Yeah, but I’ll get all of them eventually and will constantly update this 😀
Thank you again and enjoy your time here.
Great idea, well executed, but one small item please. Why not use the real Sennheiser HD800S as it is a headphone that many folks in the headphone community know and love (or hate) but at least it is a widely known data point. The Drop is comparatively unknown and had a lot of poor reviews due to the many variations in tuning. This has ruined your hard work and effort, sorry.
Hi Ian!
Thank you very much for your comment, I really appreciate all the feedback 🙂
While I definitely wouldn’t call that it “ruined” the hard work, I might get the 800S eventually to include it in the comparison as well. The more, the better. The 8XX is a rather fresh release and I’ve got it here, so it was natural for me to include it and see how it scores.
Thank you for your feedback and hopefully I’ll be able to get the 800S in the future. Enjoy your time here 🙂
This is one hell of a comparison of top and upermost earphones around. Keep up the highest mountines of our ears Pawel!
Thank you Kris, I’m glad you like it! I’ve mentioned this article so many times to you that there was quite an expectation I believe haha 😀
Dear Pawel,
It was a refreshing read of a comparison. I was in the market to see if I wanted to get one of the headphones you compared here and your article just made the decision for me! Keep up the great work and looking forward to future updates on this summit-fi shootout!
Thank you very much Kelvin, this really means a lot to me!
I’m glad it helped you with your decision. What headphone did you choose in the end?