(Note: 27-10-09. Due to the continuing strength of the A$ the Sennheiser HD800 headphones have now been reduced from $2,399 to $1,999.)

There is little doubt that the Sennheiser HD800 has been one of the most anticipated releases of any Hi-Fi product in recent times. The official release was many months ago, conducted with great fanfare and publicity. Only then did the Australian distributors learn that due to overseas commitments there was no stock available, and since then a multitude of release dates came and went.

The good news is that the HD800’s have finally arrived, and the wait has been worth it. During the forty years I have been in this industry I have developed a rather cautious approach to highly hyped products – in the majority of cases expectations have been so great that reality has been a let-down. Not in this case, the Sennheiser HD800 headphones are actually better than I expected.

 There is no disputing that in terms of value for money headphones have much to offer relative to loudspeakers. Most good headphones will give you a sense of performance bettering speakers costing many times the cost of the phones themselves. You will be hard pressed to find a pair of speakers that will offer the performance levels of the HD800 (particularly in terms of bass – they go down to 6Hz!). The major criticism of headphones is that they play the entire performance inside the space of your head. This is something that Sennheiser have addressed with the HD800; they have the ability to offer a spatial effect that appears to be outside of your head. Very few headphones have done in the past, possibly the best example being the stunning range of Electrostatic headphones from Stax.

 The other piece of good news from the distributors of Sennheiser is that they are also now the distributors for Lehmann Audio, who manufactures excellent headphone amplifiers. We have the Lehmann Black Cube Linear on display. This unit sells for $1,649, and it is a great step up from the very popular Musical Fidelity headphone amplifiers we have been carrying for many years. While the unit we have is the standard version there is two additional versions available, one with balanced inputs, and the second variation with a USB input.

 As an introductory offer the company has paired the Black Box Linear with the superb Sennheiser HD650 ($899) headphones. This pairing is selling for $1,999, which is a saving of $500.