You need to try them out for yourself rather than going solely off of other people's impressions, because your ears are not our ears, so our impressions will differ from yours.

I've tried them twice, and they sound very weird, but I don't think it's as bad as some people make it out to be. It's always going to sound "thin", like vocals don't have much weight or body to them. If the vocals require the lower midrange (e.g. many male vocals), it can start to sound hollow, like sound is coming from a very echo-ey chamber. The way I would put it, for male vocals, is that it makes every vocalist go up one pitch, like bass becomes baritone, baritone becomes tenor, and tenor becomes basically falsetto. It immediately sounds weird for male vocalists. I think female vocalists are less affected, especially if they already have a higher-pitched or thinner voice.

The treble can be a bit grainy and uneven, but not harsh. It's not a fatiguing sound. The bass sounded pretty good to my ears, with decent quantity and quality. And the soundstage is one of the widest I've heard, not just amongst closed-backs, but in general. But the midrange is one of the strangest I've heard, and it's a dealbreaker for a lot of people.

Definitely one to try before you buy. I'm guessing a lot of people bought it blind because it was the top model in Sennheiser's lineup and were immediately put off by the bizarre midrange and wanted to sell it. The 820 is the headphone I most want to listen to more, to fully understand its weirdness, but I don't feel like spending $1800 on weird right now.

It sure looks awesome, and it’s very well-built. I did not listen to it long (I’d rather spend my time with pleasant headphones), but I did not enjoy it.

The soundstage is good for a closed back, but it sounds tonally extremely wrong. The HD 800 sounds like you’re in a live concert hall, the 820 sounds like a slightly smaller concert hall, but the singer is singing from a backstage toilet and has sinusitis.

I think you should try them yourself in a local audio shop, and don't choose headphones by the looks :D

It's pretty bad.

I personally have not tried them (yet), but from my experiences, take what you read with a grain of salt until you can try them out for yourself. Either my tolerance for "bad sound" is quite high, or it's that people are capable of exaggerating to the point of hyperbole.

To be fair, you do also have to take into account the asking price for what's being offered; and it's the same with any other headphone. Take for example the Focal Elegia and Hifiman HE6se v2, both were largely deemed as "not worth it" at their respective MSRP's, and for a variety of reasons. However, now that Adorama are pricing them at or below the $400 mark, suddenly, more and more people can now tolerate the faults (i.e. sound quality, build quality, comfort, etc.), which by the way have not changed - only the prices have.

So, for an MSRP of $2399, it's understandable that the expectations for the HD820 didn't quite meet the mark, but for used prices of ~$1000 (or less for some lucky few), can they now become acceptable? It's all just a matter of perspective. :)

I actually like them and don't find anything offensive about their presentation. They sound super spacious for closed back and out the box do bass the way my HD800S does after I add a bass shelf so it solves that problem.

I own them and love them (Mostly a EDM listener)

Crinacle has a list where he rates the 820s a low E score but i’ve tried the utopias (a high S- by his rating) and thought they sucked and didn’t even buy them like i expected to even with $2k off. So $3500aud down from $5500aud

Just a subjective matter clearly

Briefly listenened to them at a store (a few years back now) and remember feeling very puzzled by what Sennheiser was thinking marketing this as one of their flagships. Not for me, definitely not at MSRP anyway, but this is a very subjective matter. I’d wouldn’t spend too much money you can’t get back if they don’t work for you IMO

It’s not unlistenable like some people say. Not bad with electronic music at all but I only had about 15 minutes with it.

Definitely a little wonky in the tuning but far from the worst I’ve tried, dare I say I enjoyed it as it retained most of the great subjective qualities of the 800 at the cost of tuning. It’s a great headphone if you don’t mind some EQ.

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I haven't heard them, but I own the T1.2 that had similar criticisms and boosting 2500khz by a few dbs fixed the missing warmth in vocals which was the only thing I felt they weren't doing for me.

At the end of the day you get high tier technicalities at a lower price, as long as you can EQ or tubefy the sound to your preference and be happy.

Which is why I kinda wanna try the HD8XX to try and defuckify their mids with the sticker mod/EQ and save a grand.

You listen to a headphone instead of looking at it.

820 gets all those criticisms because it massively diverges from 800 and 800S. It dives deep but basically sacrifices any other advantages that 800/800S have.

The 820 is one of the most hated headphones without a good reason. It's a worse than the 800s in some ways, better in others. In general, I'd say the 800s is better by a fair bit, but considering they were able to do what they were within the constraints of a closed back headphone is nothing short of incredible. There are fair complaints to make, but I wouldn't take advise from anyone saying that it's a bad sounding headphone. Bad for $2400? , fair enough. Bad outright? Nah. It's good.

Closed back? Uhm no.