HifiMAN HE-6 Planar Magnetic Headphone - Page 236

I receive the WSX650 back from Fedex today after EBay refunded me she never picked it up as the address was bogus. So I am out 35.00 for shipping both ways. i cleaned it up and have it in the system. This 35W amp through the headphone jack is driving the HE6 and doing it well. its not as detailed as my 980SX but I tell you i am amazed at how this 35W id driving them better than any solid state headpamp I owned and I had 4 of them. It sound great and for anyone looking and dont have much money to put into it look for the Silver Series SX650 and you will not feel like its a budget amp. What simple has me dazled is how good the vintagew receivers are and this is better than the marantz 2220B I sold. No pigtail necessary and at 10 its loud.

Anyone willing to make me a pigtail cable (4-pin XLR to bare speaker wires or banana plugs) for a reasonable price?

Quote:

Originally Posted by theleonlion 

Anyone willing to make me a pigtail cable (4-pin XLR to bare speaker wires or banana plugs) for a reasonable price?

I told you Highflight does them on the cheap in the other thread and Ron is a great headfi member who makes a great product.

I didn't check super long to see if this was discussed, but the FR graphs of the HE-6 are up on headphone.com and I am very pleased to see my initial and current impressions of the headphone are quite in line with them.

The low end is slightly rolled off compared to the LCD-2,  they roll of more in the extreme low bass than the HD 800, and the highs do indeed have a large spike similar to the HD 800 but higher up and much broader... they sound great but the highs always sounded slightly odd to me so glad to see there is indeed a visible culprit. They are also close to the HD 800 in bass, which I actually felt were a little more forceful during playback of music. The HE-6 fared better in test tones, though.

To my ears the spike on the HE-6 is much more pleasant than the spike on the HD 800 although I still like the HD 800 better overall. Kinda sounds like that slight excitement the T1 have in the highs. The HD 800 seem to accentuate sibilance whereas to my ears the T1 and HE-6 do fairly well at making certain details, especially in cymbals, louder than normal and thus appear to be more detailed. Very nice tricks indeed. And I mean that in the best possible way, because they truly are a detailed and revealing headphone.

Perhaps FR graphs are not so useless after all ;)

Yup! I already messaged him but I was hoping for a slightly cheaper alternative. HiFlight quoted me $48 for the bare wire and $63 for the banana plugs.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank I 

I told you Highflight does them on the cheap in the other thread and Ron is a great headfi member who makes a great product.

Quote:

Originally Posted by theleonlion 

Yup! I already messaged him but I was hoping for a slightly cheaper alternative. HiFlight quoted me $48 for the bare wire and $63 for the banana plugs.
 

 

thats a good price for quality. Try the vendors and your at twice or more. Happy with the one I bought.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank I 

thats a good price for quality. Try the vendors and your at twice or more. Happy with the one I bought.
 

 

Yeah for good parts and labour I think he would be very hard pressed to find a better price.

That being said, if he had a friend with a soldering iron, he could by the parts for like 20$ max and have a ghetto looking, but very functional cable.

For what length?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by theleonlion 

Yup! I already messaged him but I was hoping for a slightly cheaper alternative. HiFlight quoted me $48 for the bare wire and $63 for the banana plugs.

HiFlight quoted me for around sixteen inches. I can make do with a much shorter cable though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by grokit 

For what length?

I needed a longer speaker amp cable so I sent Ron my HiFiMan 1/4"/4 pin XLR and had him re-terminate the headphone jack on his cable and spade the XLR cable. It worked out perfectly and for a very reasonable price. Turn around time was a day and quality is professional. You could buy the materials and do it yourself but why?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skylab 

Quote:

Originally Posted by sokolov91 

I didn't check super long to see if this was discussed, but the FR graphs of the HE-6 are up on headphone.com and I am very pleased to see my initial and current impressions of the headphone are quite in line with them.

 

The low end is slightly rolled off compared to the LCD-2,  they roll of more in the extreme low bass than the HD 800, and the highs do indeed have a large spike similar to the HD 800 but higher up and much broader... they sound great but the highs always sounded slightly odd to me so glad to see there is indeed a visible culprit. They are also close to the HD 800 in bass, which I actually felt were a little more forceful during playback of music. The HE-6 fared better in test tones, though.

 

To my ears the spike on the HE-6 is much more pleasant than the spike on the HD 800 although I still like the HD 800 better overall. Kinda sounds like that slight excitement the T1 have in the highs. The HD 800 seem to accentuate sibilance whereas to my ears the T1 and HE-6 do fairly well at making certain details, especially in cymbals, louder than normal and thus appear to be more detailed. Very nice tricks indeed. And I mean that in the best possible way, because they truly are a detailed and revealing headphone.

 

Perhaps FR graphs are not so useless after all

I generally agree with your analysis except in the bass. First of all, the "roll off" in the deep bass you are referring to is below 20 Hz which is meaningless. The HE-6 do NOT roll off faster than the HD800 above 20 Hz. Further, the bass balance of the HE-6 is tilted slightly toward the deep bass versus the upper bass, when compared to the HD800, so it will have more apparent deep bass because of this. Just so happens that this is also exactly how I hear it.

I'm a little surprised the treble peak in the HE-6 doesn't bother me more - I guess this is where the cleanliness of the HE-6's treble is really helping out.

Yep low end is really just splitting hairs and most likely meaning less. I think your way of more "sub bass oriented" is a better and more accurate way to put it. The HD 800 were more forceful in the sense they had more "boom" but not more "thud" in my elementary explanation. But like I said, the music sounded more forceful on the HD 800, but not the test tones. So I guess it is just the bit of added mid bass making it sound "weightier". Would make sense as this is primary how Grado gets away with releasing headphones that jump of a cliff after 100 hz and still have plenty of "boom".

I still find it funny how these treble spikes can really change the sound of a phone though because the HD 800 really do sound so much leaner and bright despite having a much smaller peak. I have heard some people really whine about beyerdynamic headphones though so maybe ~6khz the magic number for some and ~10khz is the magic number to others.
 

It comes down to what higher frequencies you are sensitive to.  I think that with the HE-6 having a similar, lower but much broader peak in the treble allows it to sound uniform across the range and instead of just one short peak, spreads it out nicely.  Of course this wouldn't work at all if the quality wasn't as clear and distortion free.

Theleonlion:  Consider $48 for the cable, tinned + $20 for a pack of monster cable spades/plugs...  $63 is a steal.  Also, 4 wire DIN mic cables are about the same price and you'd have to strip, solder and tin them.

I am listening to the HE-6 with the fi.Q and it sounds so very fine. I was listening without the AC to DC adapter and it was ok then I remembered the voltage jumps 6 volts with the adapter and of course, so goes the power. They don't clip and sound nice and open with very precise and controlled bass. Fun stuff!

I recently upgraded my KK/HE-6 SS speaker amp rig with a 6SN7 tube buffer, and rolled in some Sylvania Bad Boys.

It was just what the doctor ordered for the HE-6