Sennheiser HD 800

Design

Most high-end headphones have silly designs, and these two headphones are no exception. The HD 800s come from a future in which machines rule the world, and the ATH-W5000s come from some steampunk alternate reality, with their wooden backs and orbital headband. Both feature solid construction, so well leave this up to the eye of the beholder.

Sennheiser HD 800	Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Frequency Response

The ATH-W5000s have a unique frequency response. They almost seem like an inverse of what most headphones try to do, by downplaying the bass and high-end and giving a boost to the middle.

Sennheiser HD 800	Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Distortion

The ATH-W5000s have some minimal distortion, but it’s not anything you’d notice.

Sennheiser HD 800	Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Tracking

Something to note: the ATH-W5000s use our old tracking graph, where we left some junk data stapled on the right and left. While these indicate a trend, they aren’t accurate. Overall, the two headphones are both fairly even. The ATH-W5000s warble slightly more than the HD 800s, but not so much you’d notice.

Sennheiser HD 800	Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Isolation

If you’re looking for isolation, you’d best look elsewhere.

Sennheiser HD 800	Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Comfort

We thought the HD 800s were far more comfortable than the ATH-W5000s. Although some people around the office complained that the HD 800s felt too big, just about everyone thought the ATH-W5000s felt enormous. It’s because those little head grabbers didn’t have strong enough springs, which allowed the heavy cans to sink lower than they should have.

Wear
Sennheiser HD 800	Audio-Technica ATH-W5000

Verdict

While we’ll say the ATH-W5000s had an interesting sound to them, the HD 800s were the better pair of headphones. They were more comfortable and, both according to our tests and the people that used them, had better audio quality. The ATH-W5000s didn’t have terrible audio quality, but they weren’t nearly as crisp-sounding as the HD 800s.