Remember Ultimate Ears? Logitech purchased them and I never hear (no pun) about them any more.
Still have my triple-fi 10 Pro 
“Non-old” people? Lol
I had to think of something semi politically correct 
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It would be a shame if Sennheiser were to disappear. They still do several things especially well. They sell affordable but also reliable and well-built headphones that, in lasting for many, many years, represent some of the best values in the hobby. Is there another manufacturer that makes such durable, affordable headphones?
How many other companies make modular headphones that have readily-available and affordable replacement parts? Sennheiser pads are a decent price. Many of the same components are shared across different models, which means it’s easy to swap out any part that breaks even when the headphones are long out of warranty.
The affordability of the headphones, combined with the availability of replacement parts, make Sennheiser headphones ideal for modding. Are there other brands of headphones that have been modded as much as Sennheiser ones?
Beyond affordability, reliability, and “modability” 
, Sennheiser does make consistently appealing headphones, ones that produce a sound that’s widely and enduringly popular. If the HD 650 isn’t to your taste, perhaps the HD 600 will be. The HD 580, HD 600 and HD 650/6XX are still highly-sought after headphones. Drop alone has sold 62.4K of the HD 58X Jubilees and 127.6K of the HD 6XX.
Given their longevity and popularity, as well as their good sound quality, Sennheiser sells what are unquestionably solid, benchmark headphones, ones against which all others can be compared. This is another reason why it would be a shame to see Sennheiser’s audiophile headphones be discontinued.
And let’s not forget the impressive innovation and sound quality of the HD 800 and its successor, the HD 800S. At ca. $1,500, the HD 800S is still one of the best headphones on the market, and in a world with many $2K+ “flagship” headphones, it’s still a great value. I was surprised to see that Drop has already sold 920+ of its yet-to-be-released HD 8XX even though the release is still 7 months away (and even though there are relatively few impressions and reviews of it out there). I realize people can still cancel their orders but I think it speaks volumes about the enduring appeal of Sennheiser that nearly a thousand people have purchased a pair of $1,100 headphones that will probably require some fairly careful amp matching.
The one thing that wouldn’t be missed if Sennheiser’s audiophile line of headphones were to be discontinued is the absence of recent innovation. Apart from the HD 820, there haven’t been many, if any advances in the past few years. I’m not sure how I feel about the change of ownership; perhaps Sonova will bring new life and innovation to the headphones. I, for one, would be saddened to see Sennheiser’s long heritage come to an end. And I think plenty of people would be sad to see such long-lasting, affordable, well-made, nicely sounding, and popular headphones be discontinued.
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If I read the press statement that splayname posted correctly, Sonova plans to use Sennheiser to drive medical instrument sales.
Stated another way, they don’t care about the audio market at all. If true then continuing the tradition, or even making legit headphones, would not even be on the to-do list.
Hopefully I’m wrong but I’ve been around corporate long enough to see how “management” thinks.
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Yes, the question remains as to whether this statement represents the sum total of Sonova’s intentions for the Sennheiser line or if it’s just one facet of the business plan.
It’s possible, I suppose, that Sonova will leave the audiophile line as is, with minimal R&D investments. But this still wouldn’t do anything to reinvigorate the brand. I’m not optimistic. I’ve been buying replacement pads.
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I think all have realized that Sennheiser was being left behind. Focal is hitting them on the neutral, technical, high-end while Bose-Sony-Apple-Beats hit them on the low end. One can get very acceptable mass-market audio quality for $100 to $200 these days.
Sennheiser, AKG, Beyer, and Grado reflect the best of a past and relatively small audiophile generation. These days Focal, RAAL, ZMF, etc. outclass them all. The market is now global too, so any small vendor struggles against the Apple and Sony monsters.
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I agree entirely about Focal and ZMF leaving Sennheiser in the dust when it comes to innovating new, more appealing headphones that have captured a significant share of the audiophile market because they offer superior products, at least in the $1K+ range, although I’ll add the nitpicky caveat that the HD 800S still offers the best imaging and staging until you get to the MySphere or Raal headphones/earspeakers (but let’s not forget that the Raal SR1a is twice the price of the HD 800S).
I also hear you about Bose, Sony, Apple, and Beats undermining Sennheiser in the consumer market, especially in the mass-market $100-200 segment, and the similar decline of AKG, Beyer, and other manufacturers from the old days. Are Grados less popular now? Have they lost ground? I simply don’t know.
I’m not so sure about this. My point above was that Sennheiser offers something specific, distinctive, and highly valuable to the hobby and that it would be a shame to see it disappear. But since we’re considering in this thread the wider issue of Sennheiser’s future and viability, I wonder if it’s important to consider the middle ground between the mass market and the high end. I know that we’re both leery about Hifiman’s quality control, which means that Sennheiser arguably occupies an important place (niche?) in the $200-$500 range. The questions are whether that’s sustainable and whether it could continue to be profitable.
Excluding the HE 1, beyond the HD 800S and the HD 820, which find strong competition from ZMF and Focal and Audeze, the rest of the “Audiophile” range, as Sennheiser defines it, consists of the following headphones - the HD 559, HD 569, HD 560S, HD 599, HD 600, HD 650, and HD660S - and the following two IEMS, the IE 300 and IE 800S. (I could add the Drop exclusives, too).
@netforce posted some interesting information from Sennheiser’s annual report for 2019 here recently. The report states that the consumer division brought in €393.4m of revenue that year. If the audiophile segment was 14% of the consumer division’s turnover, as Sennheiser discloses, then the audiophile range’s turnover was worth about €55m. That sounds like a decent amount of revenue, on the surface. I’d be interested to know how that compares with the revenue of other companies selling audiophile, and not mass-market, headphones. If figures available online can be trusted - and I don’t know if they can be, and I think we need to be very skeptical about them - then Sennheiser’s Audiophile range may not be faring too badly. One site suggests that Audeze has $10m in revenue, Grade $9m, and audio-technica $20m. Another site puts Audeze’s revenue at $5m, and a third puts it at slightly less than that.
Of course, it’s not as though one could simply peel off the Sennheiser Audiophile range as an independent, standalone business and expect it to have the same amount of turnover or the same overheads or manufacturing capabilities. And that’s the rub, I guess. I also suppose that the key issue is how much profit the €55m in revenue translates into.
In the end, my points here and in the post above are that would be a shame to see Sennheiser’s audiophile line disappear since it accounts for a significant share of the market and its headphones contribute so much to the hobby.
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The current price of Focal products is $1,000+, but tech always declines over time. They could be half that price in a while, or others could force the price for quality down.
I didn’t have time to elaborate when posting, but selling 200K 58X and 6XX is a tiny blip versus the broader personal audio market. Most use bundled Apple, Samsung, Xaiomi, etc. stuff, or shop in the Porta Pro class. With the rise of Asian economies and recent tech buying (China, India, and Korea), the potential market is way bigger than Europe, North America, and Australia/NZ.
It’s hard to find clean data, but Sennheiser appears to be a relatively small fish:
https://brandongaille.com/23-headphone-industry-statistics-and-trends/
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Right, that’s why I specified the audiophile segment.
My concern is that Sonnova, being a hearing aid company, will want to focus on the more prolific earbud market than the relatively irrelevant over ear headphone market. Although, as some have already observed, aside from a few key exceptions Sennheiser hasn’t really put out anything relevant in a very long time. In any case, I’d say get your HD800S now as it may not be available forever.
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and your extra pair of pads! (I did).
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It may be that Sennheiser has been facing increasing competition from Asia that, with it’s lower cost structure and increasingly competitive audiophile technology, doesn’t look as profitable in the future, particularly given the labor costs in Europe.
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I’m not an expert on labor cost on Europe but if audiophile items can be made here at home they can be made anywhere, furthermore I think we all need to pause when ever an audiophile company has to leave because let’s face it most of the new entry’s are chi-fi, that’s not a negative,small,topping areone of many chi-fi companies doing it at awesome levels but the point is that company’s in Asia have so many advantages in this market that we need to keep our old stand by’s relevant by supporting companies that have been their with us in the trenches because I don’t see Huawei giving a shit that audiophiles buy things.
Ever hear of etymotic?
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Sonova biatch … this calls my HE-1 plan into question …
Not that it wasn’t a known potential at the time I hatched that plan. But I had rather hoped that if someone did acquire Sennheiser’s consumer audio business, it would be a company or group that was already a significant player in that segment.
Looking at it from another perspective, however, Sennheiser’s headphone group really only have four other current products that I care about anyway. The classic HD650, the newer HD660S (neither of which I own anymore), the HD800S and HD820. As good as those cans are, they really needed a more reasonable, aspirational, product on the same plane as the Utopia, Susvara, SR1a and so on …
Hopefully something good comes out of this, but absent a push for more high-end product development, which I can’t see as a fit for a hearing-aid company, I am not seeing it.
Which leaves me a little melancholy.
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They will become the European version of etymotic
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