Headphones

I have the 800S along with a bunch of other stuff (some of which is in my flair).

My view on the 800S is that it is a competitive headphone for its price, but it depends a LOT on your setup, the type of music you listen to (genre and master/recording quality) and your listening preferences, especially around soundstage and timbre. A bit more on each.

TL;DR - It is a great headphone, but I would not call it a competitive "all around" headphone in 2023.

First is setup. Depending on your starting point, two things are likely to come up with the 800S. First is getting an amp and second is possibly looking into EQ. There are lots of good options out there in this quality range that have much lower power needs so don't necessarily need standalone amplification (reducing cost of ownership and adding other benefits like portability/general usability). This is a headphone that you will also find a lot of people EQ. Again, plenty of headphones of this quality/price range out there that more people tend to find pleasing without the use of EQ, so more work with the 800S. Depending your your setup, how well you may be able to EQ also varies. For example, if you are in the Apple ecosystem, EQ can be a real pain, or at least an added expense and device and/or software. In 2023, there are other headphones I'd put higher in the "ease of ownership/use overall" category - Focal Clear being on that other posters have mentioned (I also used to own the Clear as well).

Second is genre/recording quality. The three things you will likely find that stand out and get commented about the most about the 800s - its wide soundstage, its excellent imaging/placement performance within that soundstage and its significant lack of both bass quantity and dynamics that leads to an analytical/dry listen. That combination can make genres (generally) that are very warm and have a lot of action in the bass and sub-bass regions sound less pleasant and somewhat hollow to some - and it can be jarring. That also happens to be a lot of modern genres - hip hop, pop, alternative, EDM/electric, R&B, etc. For genres like classical, jazz, classic rock, and other genres that are largely instrumental performances that have most of the action in the mid range and high end, the 800S faces a lot less challenges.

This is why I would call it a great headphone but not an all around headphone. In my collection, it is mostly used for the genres I mentioned that are in its favor - and for those genres, IMO, few can beat it at this price range - or when I want to listen to something and get really analytical and use that soundstage to really focus on individual pieces of the mix. But, if I want to pour a drink, sit back and throw on some headphones to enjoy my favorite tune, it would only be with the genres that are good for it specifically.

All of this is subjective of course, as everything I've said is rooted in my listening preferences. There are some that value the wide soundstage and technical performance so much that they are willing to sacrifice the low end or don't particularly care for low end anyway - but I hope this helps.