amp for hifiman he-5le

Any reason why you feel the M^3 is not up to scratch? If you really want to spend money, maybe you can try upgrading other parts of your signal chain (source)?

 

Why wouldn't you want a balanced amp?

 

The he-5le screams for a balanced setup. It even comes with balanced terminating out of the box.

 

Do yourself a favor and take an Audio-GD Roc, at 730$ it should be within your budget. Unless you want to save 100$ now and upgrade later, which would cost you more in the long run.

 

It has balanced and SE outputs, so you are free to chose if you want to use it in balanced mode or not. You can also use the Roc with non-balanced sources. It will transform the SE signals into balanced on the balanced out, which will give a new dimension to your non balanced sources.

Edited by BigMango - 6/8/10 at 6:00pm

I really like the HE-5LE out of my GLite+DPS. I've heard the Maverick M Stage, the LDMKII and the MSSHT, and although I liked them all, I feel the GLite, for me, is my favorite.

I would concur with the balanced set up. Audio-gd Roc is my suggestion as well

Also a new owner of the HE-5LE, and ave been scouring the web for potential amp options. I may have missed some, and certainly it would be great to see the list grow as others chime in. Yes, some of these are out of the price range of the OP, but I only have time to cut and paste the list right now. But for now, here is the list of amps from the main HE-5LE thread mostly that have been said to work well with the HE-5LE:

 

 

 

Luxman P-1u

Bravo (similar to Indeed and some other clones)

Gilmore Lite

Matrix

RSA Protector, using a balanced cable (without balanced said it was not a good match)

 

Moth (via Speaker terminals)

 

Red Wine Audio 30.2 (via speaker terminals

Virtue One (via speaker terminals)

 

“For those who plans to drive HE-5LE by speaker amps: Please make sure your tube amp can drive a 38 ohm load. Some tube amp's output transformer only can drive 4 to 8 ohm. A solution is to wire two 8-ohm cement resistance in parallel. Solid state amp do not have such problem.” -Fang

 

I have that old SAC K1000 amp, real class A, designed to drive AKG K1000 (120Ohm, 74dB), In principle the HE-5LE should do well on this.

 

In my bedroom I used to drive my AKG K1000 with my Linn Classik's speaker terminals (75W @ 8hm).

Yes, the HE-5 LE are very good off the SAC KH1000 amp.  The Luxman P1u is a good bit better (as is the Eddie Current ZDT), but way above his budget.  He could maybe find a used SAC amp in the $600-700 range after looking for a while.

 

I would say that it's a little better than the EF-5 which is actually pretty good for the HE-5 LE in that $399 price range, and can be tuned with different tubes to suit one's tastes.  The Nuforce HDP is also a good match for the HE-5 LE, in power and tonal balance, but the SAC KH1000 amp is still a little better for the HE-5 LE.

 

The SAC KH1000 amp is also powerful enough to drive the HE-6 which are a good deal less efficient than the HE-5 LE.  (thats the only amp I've had time to try with the HE-6 so far, which arrived 20 minutes ago, because it's always warmed up and ready to go)

You can get a Audio-GD Roc for $730, close to your budget, and you don't need a balanced source at the moment to use the balanced output.

I use this amp with the HE-5LE and I'm very pleased with the result.

Can someone chime in on the synergy between Matrix M-Stage or Asgard or any SS around that price range and HE-5LE? Even reasonable guesses are welcome  

I own the HE-5LE's and I also owned an Audio-gd Phoenix, the Pheonix did not drive the 5LE's well. I purchased a Schiit Asgard not really expecting a magic bullet, but the truth is that the Asgard made the Phoenix sound broken. The Asgard drives the 5LE really well, dynamic, full bodied, with good transparency and a nice sweet (but not syrupy) high end. So I sold the $1200+ Phoenix and kept the better sounding (at least with the 5LE's it does) $249 Asgard. So I sort of doubt that the Roc sounds better than the Asgard, because the Phoenix sure as heck doesn't.

Yikes, thank you for the quick help/response. I am seriously considering buying a pair of Hifiman so I have two more questions for you or whoever would like to answer 

 

I just ordered a Matrix M-Stage and I currently own a Little Dot II+, do you think both of these or one of them would be more than enough to drive the HE-5LEs? 

 

My second question is compared to HD650, do you think I'd say, Man I am glad I got these Hifimans (now i don't think I'll ever stop listening to my 650s but these comparisons of HE5-LE with HD800s got me drooled and made me very curious about these phones) I just don't want to get a headphone and then figure out that I have to buy another really expensive amp to enjoy them. 

Edited by Yuceka - 10/10/10 at 11:02am

I am driving my he5le with a LD MK5. I know the ortho is under powered and lacks some low end punch. However, I rarely to over 12'o clock on the MK5 to make it loud engouh. I am really iterogating myself to decide if I really need a more expensive amp.