In São Paulo, a group of audio hobbyists announced that the sixth edition of the meeting for “lovers of headphones” would be special and would take place in the Sennheiser Brasil showroom. The event took place on March 18, 2023 and used the Sennheiser Experience, a space created by the Brazilian team of the German audio equipment manufacturer.
The organization of the “Encontro dos Fones” is done by Caito, Gustavo and Sandro. At the “6th Meeting of Headphones” they had the idea of getting in touch with Sennheiser’s Brazilian office to propose a partnership, inviting some hobbyists to participate in a special experience, which was to listen to the most expensive headphones in the world, the Sennheiser HE-1, which I evaluated here at Oficina da Net, thanks to a “long-standing” partnership I have with the company.
Sennheiser Experience: Place created to try products and get to know the brand
The Sennheiser Experience is a space that was designed with the aim of presenting the products launched by the company, allowing anyone to enter and experience the vast majority of products that are on display there. When passing through the entrance door, the first thing you see is a bench in the center with several exposed headphones and microphones, in addition to a Sennheiser soundbar connected to a TV in the background. There, it is possible to try everything from headphones to in-ears, whether wired or TWS.
Below is a video showing a panoramic view of the Sennheiser Experience showroom:
On the left side of the headphones and microphones showroom, there is a door that gives access to a corridor that has two paths. One of them is turning right, which gives access to the lecture room, where the participants of the “6th Meeting of the Headphones” heard Sennheiser’s history from its origins until arriving at the company’s Brazilian office.
Without a doubt, Sennheiser’s trajectory that was told to us in the lecture is impressive, even though it has been considerably summarized, since there were many achievements made by the founder, his son and his grandchildren. As a family business, the company always had the freedom to create whatever it wanted, but it always aimed to design products that society needed at the time. The first product created by Fritz Sennheiser, founder of the company, was an electric current meter, a voltmeter, and only in 1968 did the company launch its first headphone with an open-back design, the HD414, which even has an example on display. at the Sennheiser Experience, in São Paulo.
The other path, which can be followed following entering the showroom through the door on the left, goes straight and leads to what appears to be the leisure area, where various foods were served to those who were there.
Sennheiser HE-1: Headlining the “6th Headphone Gathering”
Undoubtedly, the showroom of products to try and the Sennheiser lecture were unique experiences, especially for those who are not from São Paulo and due to the fact that another edition of the “Encontro de Fones” was taking place, which allowed for a very rich. However, I might not fail to comment on how the experience was regarding the main attraction of the event: the Sennheiser HE-1 created through the collaboration between Sennheiser and the organization of the “Encontro de Fones”.
The “6th Headphones Gathering” started at 2pm and went until approximately 6pm, although it was reported to be until 5pm, but that’s normal considering there was a lot to do at the Sennheiser Experience. The first activity that was carried out, following the arrival of most of the event’s participants, was the lecture on the history of Sennheiser and the company’s Brazilian office. Then, the call of the people who would listen to the Sennheiser HE-1 began and, in order to avoid confusion, the names and telephone numbers were registered to call through a message in the WhatsApp application.
As mentioned above, there was a registration of participants to create a list for auditioning the Sennheiser HE-1. The order in which people were called was the order in which each participant was registered, that is, the first to arrive at the showroom was the first to listen to the headset. In addition, it was agreed with the Sennheiser Brasil team that each one would have the right to listen to a single song for 3 minutes, being able to choose a track from a playlist created especially to listen to the HE-1 or a song that was available on the service. streaming Tidal.
The reason for only three minutes of audition was the time versus the number of participants of the “Encontro de Fones”, which was 35, although some were missing. However, in my opinion, considering the short time, it would be better if people had the freedom to select more than one song to listen to a few seconds of each until the time limit is reached. Obviously, this would be a problem if we consider that there would be doubts regarding choosing the “best” tracks to listen to on the Sennheiser HE-1, but there is a solution.
I believe that if there had been a proposal to create a community music playlist for event participants, we might have had a better experience. There would be more time to choose at least one track per participant to compose the playlist. In this way, it would be possible to use Tidal to assemble both the playlist of the “hobbyist community” (participants of the meeting) and the playlist created by the Brazilian team at Sennheiser.
Another point that I think might be improved is the configuration of the Tidal application in Windows to obtain the bit perfect connection, which is the transmission of the audio file, without changes/influences from the operating system of the device responsible for playing the music. This can be done easily, and there’s even a tutorial on how to listen to music on Tidal at maximum quality.
It is interesting to mention that today there is also another lossless music streaming service that offers interference-free streaming on Windows computers, Qobuz. It might be an option to Tidal that can be used in future Sennheiser Experience experiences.