sent to sennheiser support:
hi.
i've had a pair of hd 440-II's for about twenty years now. that's two thirds of my life. these 440-II's have followed me everywhere - from bus rides to high school in the 90s with a cassette player right into recording studios for mastering processes. every piece of music i've ever connected to or created has been heard through these phones.
after 20 years, they're getting a little shorted, and i feel it's time to replace them.
i would like to replace them with another set of 440-IIs. otherwise, the world would just sound entirely different. better specs, worse specs - it wouldn't matter. my recordings would all sound wrong; my favourite records would become alien. my universe would just implode in on itself...
yet, they appear to be discontinued. i am very distraught by this thought.
and, so, i have two questions:
1) do you have any hd 440-iis sitting around somewhere?
2) if not, what is the closest model?
if you end up answering (2), i would like to request that you take the time to run the question by some engineers that can answer it properly, rather than try and sell me on something. i'm not looking for the phones with the best specs, or the cheapest phones or any other such thing - i am looking for phones that can replace the 440-ii's with the least amount of variance.
thank you,
jessica