Heck, there's interesting stuff to be gleaned from Tyll's measurements too. I went ahead and took the best 009 measurement to compare just to be fair. I mean really, there's a stat advantage to be gleaned here beyond 30hz squarewave and mid to low bass distortion? Seems the HD800 wins or draws even on most of these charts to me. I consider the FR charts a matter of taste here and the impedance chart irrelevant to what we are discussing.

www.innerfidelity.com/images/StaxSR009SNSZ92251KGSS.pdf

www.innerfidelity.com/images/SennheiserHD800.pdf

Is there an automatic way to do multiquote on this forum?

I think MuZo2 brought up a good point.  There are certain headphones that have a thick or slow bass, which tends to overbear the entire sound and mask detail.  One of my biggest gripes with the LCD2 when I had them was that the bass was so thick (not slow though), that there was no texture at all. 

FR is definitely a segment of detail, and can lead to false detail.  For instance, if there's a large upper mids peak, you might hear silverware on a live recording a conclude that your HP has "more detail" than another HP because that particular thing was more audible on your HP...when in reality your HP is just putting an emphasis on a certain range of frequencies.  The same goes for dips in FR.

I know Anax isn't talking about FR generated detail though.  He's talking about the natural ability of the driver to dig up information, which is what I refer to when I mention 'resolution'. 

I think electrostats are much more resolving than dynamics in general.  Much.  The HD800, Qualia, and certain bass light R10s are the only dynamics I'd put into the 'very resolving' camp.  The Abyss might be the only ortho I'd put in there, too.  The HE1000 I heard sounded pretty bad and I think it was defective, so I'm waiting to give it another shot before I have a serious opinion of it.

Anax, those decays are a bit misleading, I think.  The vast majority of the lingering decay on that SR-009 graph is from -40dB to -60dB and less, which is WAY under anything that will be heard with music + ambient noise.  Hell, I probably listen at 60 dB a lot of times, so that stuff isn't even anechoic chamber levels of magnitude in comparison.  If we look at the -20 dB decay and up (yellow/orange/red), which is much more relevant to real world listening, we'll see the SR-009 is exceptional. 

This also doesn't necessarily reflect directly and completely on the driver, as the housing has just as much (or even more) to do with the CSD plots, and the housing for the HD800 is really advanced.  I also think Marv's measurements put an even bigger emphasis on the housing, since the cavity is essentially empty under measurement conditions instead of being largely filled by an ear.

I also like the old visualizations more.  Really easy to read, and vibrant.

No. Irrelevant. Being rolled off or overly tilted up won't help either way though. That's false BS 'detail' and doesn't resolve plankton in the mids and bass. Some will say elevated treble might help with SS and imaging but I'm not sure I'm completely on board with that one yet. If it's true it's only part of it.

I think most people would believe that a bright headphone is more detailed.  To some extent, it's understandable. A footstep or a snap really "pops" out with a treble tilted headphone. I think it takes more experience to understand the details present in every part of the frequency response, but I haven't found a good way to explain that.

Milos does bring up a good point that is often overlooked in these topics and especially reviews or impressions. Listening level. That can change the entire dynamic of a headphone! I've often told myself to include this in my impressions but I sometimes forget as old habits die hard.

So we need to probably be even more relativistic here as usually is the case with all things.

SR-009 distortions figures look better to me.  At 100 dB, the SR-009 is basically at or below 0.1% THD throughout the measured spectrum.  There are a couple spots where it hits about 0.2%.  HD800 gets to about 0.1% THD (and not really below) from ~1 Khz and up, with some small peaks between 3-5Khz.  From 20 Hz to 30 Hz @ 100dB, HD800 has 50x-10x the THD of the SR-009.  HD800 300 Hz square wave is better though. 

If anything, those graphs seem to separate the SR-009 from the HD800 a bit more, but I don't think those measurements are necessarily an indicator of resolution (topic) to be fair.

Who's listening at 100dB? On one hand, you're telling me most people only listen at 60dB including yourself, which I doubt. So -60dB is irrelevant. On the other you are saying we should look at 100dB for accurate interpretations? I'd say that's nice headroom to have but I think at these distortion levels the relative difference is small and insignificant compared to what the CSD's are doing. So yeah, I agree with you, it's probably not THAT relevant to plankton.

I already discussed the 30hz-50hz performance and always said bass distortion is the 800's achilles heel. Still, I prefer that flaw over the general lack of midbass or presence in most Stats.