Axel Grell hadn't joined Sennheiser to design headphones

Everyone’s got an opinion in headphones, though some of them (humbly) carry a little bit more weight than others. That’s exactly how Axel Grell, legendary designer of Sennheiser’s HD600, HD650, HD800S and Orpheus 2, comes across – a quiet authority, whose work talks louder than he does.

A man who defined a generation of Head-Fi on his own, who made headphones so much more than a "work tool" which he quotes himself as once thinking. Grell opens up to The Occasional Podcast on a vast swathe of topics wider than a HD800S's soundstage.

Like:

• The move to huge ring radiator drivers found on the groundbreaking HD800
• Sean Olive's excellent work in defining a target response
• We are four-fifths of the way to completely understanding how humans hear
• The difficulty of translating measurements and data into audible results
• Bluetooth can sound better than wired transducers
• Headphones are often less flawed than their larger counterparts, room speakers

A unique opportunity just short of personally speaking to Grell, one of our hobby's most brilliant minds.