HifiMAN HE-6 Planar Magnetic Headphone - Page 519

Just want a good player, not really want to customize it, so which would be the better of the two. Price is not an issue. 

Hey, will a Violectric V200 drive the HE-6 at least "good"? What is with a Lake People G109?

I really can't forget the way the HE-6 presented the music. Really natural and neutral (more neutral than a LCD-2 I think which lacks a little in the highs; great headphone anymway), but with great bass impact and very involving into the music. But i'm not intereseted in buying a speaker-amp or a tube amp like a shiit lyr, that i must import.

Hey, will a Violectric V200 drive the HE-6 at least "good"? What is with a Lake People G109?

I really can't forget the way the HE-6 presented the music. Really natural and neutral (more neutral than a LCD-2 I think which lacks a little in the highs; great headphone anymway), but with great bass impact and very involving into the music. But i'm not intereseted in buying a speaker-amp or a tube amp like a shiit lyr, that i must import.

Just setting the NFB or something at 90-95% should be enough to avoid input clipping the Icon2. In this case I believe it's a matter of input protection, to avoid overdriving the amp. This is not the same as input sensitivity, which brings us to...

The Master-10 has an input sensitivity (sort of an inverted function of gain) of 0.775V RMS for the rca inputs. This means feeding 0.775V into the amp is enough for it to produce its maximum output with the amp volume all the way up. If you're feeding it 2.5V from the NFB maxed out, the Master-10 volume will be somewhere around 75% (I might have messed up the math) when it reaches maximum output. Any higher and it will clip at output. 

The Master-10 has a lot of gain. If you want to have decent control at low volumes, then don't feed it max signal from your source. 

Forgive me, but I still don't know how to lower the input signal to the amp. Is there something I physically change on my DAC or is it simply lowering the volume on foobar? How do I set it?

Also is lowering the foobar volume the same as lowering the PC volume? I know lowering PC volume slightly degrades the signal.

Forgive me, but I still don't know how to lower the input signal to the amp. Is there something I physically change on my DAC or is it simply lowering the volume on foobar? How do I set it?

Also is lowering the foobar volume the same as lowering the PC volume? I know lowering PC volume slightly degrades the signal.

Lower the volume on your DAC.   If it has volume control.

Thanks!

We know it's not cheap but there is a TON of work that goes into them.

If you just want a paint job, we can work with you on that. We have some REALLY cool colors too.

The Mini-XLR's require extensive modification of the cups and absolutely require a repaint.

Yes! The current pricing does include a basic cable.

See above. The plastic cups DO look different. They have had much TLC applied. 

If you guys have any other questions, please PM me or contact me via the referencesounds website.

We know it's not cheap but there is a TON of work that goes into them.

Yes! The current pricing does include a basic cable.

I thought the price was just for the paint. With a cable and the mod work to have a different connector, that's a tough price to beat! If I didn't already have a cable I like a lot, I would definitely consider this. 

Agree.

But re tube amps- I talked to quite a few manufacturers of tube equipment and the consensus is that if the tube amplifier has auto bias there is no/less chance of any damage to the tubes or the transformer while driving a 50 ohm load like the HE-6 while for a fixed bias amp it is totally another story- shortened tube life and possible transformer failure.

None of them were too keen on adding a resistor to the speaker taps to drop the power. The circuit was not optimized for that extra resistance.

Once again it is all about current delivery.

In the never ending quest for better SQ, this HE-6 owner removed the two Mills 10 ohm resistors connected in parallel to the 8 ohm speaker taps of the auto-biasing BAT VK-55SE. There was absolutely no improvement whatsoever.

In fact, the opposite was the case. At least one tube in the left channel went microphonic and the center image "wandered". These traits became apparent almost immediately and lasted over the entire 7 minutes the amp was subjected to this impedance mismatch.

Needless to say, the Mills have been reinstalled and apparently no permanent damage was done. Once again enjoying the synergy of these cans with the BAT and the Calypso linestage.