[cardozo]

Hello everyone!
 
For those who already had or heard more than one unit of HM-601, a question:

Have you noticed any difference in the sound signature between different devices?

This is my second HM-601 unit and the first one had, without a doubt, a more warmer and "analog" sound than the second one. Indeed, the sound signature of the second unit is much more closer to the HM-801, with his less warm, more bright and less analog sound than the first device.

Could anyone confirm this suspicion?
 
Cheers,
 
Peter

 

[Hero Kid]

Hi Peter, as far as I'm aware they didn't change any of the hardware so my suspicion is that "burn in" might have something to do with the differences you are hearing between the units.

 

[Anaxilus]

Great read and review.  Please don't comment unless you read the WHOLE article.
 
http://www.stereophile.com/content/head-direct-hifiman-hm-602-digital-audio-player

 

[tony31]

Hello gentlemen, I live in France and just received my HM-601.
 
Following Cardoso's message here the one i wrote in Hifiman generic topic :
 
 
""""
sorry to break the good feelings, but i am completely disappointed:. I had a creative zen vision M and just bought a cowon J3 to my wife 3 weeks ago.
 
when i listened to this J3 with my shure se535 or the grado SR80, i fell in love and decided to buy something better than the creative, more on the hi-fi way. I found the cowon was very smooth (added to the possibility to listen to flac files).
After having visited all the forums on earth

, I decided to buy this hifiman, being sure that i would buy something incredible and fabulous to hear.
 
I feel as i am listening to my creative, this sound is too much clear, too much agressive. Having a tube amp in my living room (replaced by an old Krell KSA-80 (class A)), I don't agree with the fact that this hifiman is as sweet as a tube amp. I would compare its sound to the sound of a transistor amplifier like Vincent Audio for example , energetic, crystal clear with  agressive mid/highs. Moreover, if i push slightly on the switch (low gain/high gain) being on low gain, the sound on the left side disappears a little bit.
I expected at least to be close to the sound of my Krell (relatively speeking of course) , at least better than my wife's Cowon J3, but I am really disappointed. 
 
I am totally disappointed and for me there is no need to concede on the fact we don't have the ergonomy and the flexibility of the cowon if the sound is like this. I should have bought another cowon.

 
What do you advise me ?
Thanks 

 

[lazysleepyboi]

Quote:

Hello gentlemen, I live in France and just received my HM-601.
 
Following Cardoso's message here the one i wrote in Hifiman generic topic :
 
 
""""
sorry to break the good feelings, but i am completely disappointed:. I had a creative zen vision M and just bought a cowon J3 to my wife 3 weeks ago.
 
when i listened to this J3 with my shure se535 or the grado SR80, i fell in love and decided to buy something better than the creative, more on the hi-fi way. I found the cowon was very smooth (added to the possibility to listen to flac files).
After having visited all the forums on earth

, I decided to buy this hifiman, being sure that i would buy something incredible and fabulous to hear.
 
I feel as i am listening to my creative, this sound is too much clear, too much agressive. Having a tube amp in my living room (replaced by an old Krell KSA-80 (class A)), I don't agree with the fact that this hifiman is as sweet as a tube amp. I would compare its sound to the sound of a transistor amplifier like Vincent Audio for example , energetic, crystal clear with  agressive mid/highs. Moreover, if i push slightly on the switch (low gain/high gain) being on low gain, the sound on the left side disappears a little bit.
I expected at least to be close to the sound of my Krell (relatively speeking of course) , at least better than my wife's Cowon J3, but I am really disappointed. 
 
I am totally disappointed and for me there is no need to concede on the fact we don't have the ergonomy and the flexibility of the cowon if the sound is like this. I should have bought another cowon.

 
What do you advise me ?
Thanks 

hmmmm well from personal experience, i'm supposed to ask "how long have you used it for?" Like most things in the hi-fi world, there's a burn-in period. The cowons have a special thing of sounding great right when you get it, but for almost everything else, there's a burn-in period

 

[cardozo]

Dear lazysleepyboi,
 
The burn-in is far from being the solution to all problems of the given setup. If the unit is not good, not even the whole world burn-in will fix it.
 
Cheers,
 
Peter

 
Quote:

hmmmm well from personal experience, i'm supposed to ask "how long have you used it for?" Like most things in the hi-fi world, there's a burn-in period. The cowons have a special thing of sounding great right when you get it, but for almost everything else, there's a burn-in period

 

 

[tony31]

I agree if it is far too cold and analytical, no burn-in will solve the issue.
The sound need to be at least ''listenable'' which was not the case for me for the 601 received last week

 

[kryten123]

Quote:

**** An update with my faulty HM-601 ie the buzzing\shrieking ****
I eventually recieved an email from Fang apologising as he had been away from his email on business. He did suggest that I should have contacted the customer support email address - I didnt know\couldnt find it. So for anyone else that needs it, here it is for your reference: head.direct.customerservice@gmail.com
 
I discussed with Ms T the fact that UPS insist on doing you a favour and "fast tracking" items through UK customs and then charge you £15 for the privilege when they arrive at your door. This was bad enough and unexpected first time around, but I am not happy about paying it again for a replacement HM-601. Anyway, Ms T suggested that I specify that they use a different courier when sending the replacement from China. I have made a note on the return slip that they choose another courier(as I dont know the couriers in China) or they use normal Air mail as I am prepared to wait longer for the item, as long as I am not charged by the courier again....so we will see what happens,as the faulty HM-601 was despatched to the US yesterday.
 
Once I had the correct email address, the impression I have got is that they genuinely want to help and provide a good customer service. However, they will need to address the courier\customs thing, if they are planning on shipping around the world.

I know this thread is a bit old, but I want to just finalise my experiences for anyone else stumbling across this.
 
With being very busy, the return of my HM-601 went on the back burner and time slipped by before I realised it had been about 6 weeks since I had heard anything. So I dropped an email to Ms T asking for a status update and was told that the New York office had no record of my return. Luckily, I had sent it via Royal Mail Recorded, so was able to check the tracking number and see that it had been delivered. I explained this to Ms T with the details of Royal mail's tracking page so she could confirm that it had arrived at their offices. Anyway, after a couple of days it was confirmed that it had arrived and that a replacement would be shipped from China. I emphasised that on no account were they to use UPS but rather just the normal Chinese postal system with tracking\insurance. Within 6 days, I received my new HM-601in the UK without any demands for money at the door

 
Well I have been using the HM-601 again for a few days and no shrieking or buzzing coming from this unit and I am still favouring it over my S9. I have also verified that the max SDHC card supported on the HM-601 is a 32GB Class 4. With a Class 10 I have found that as soon as the unit is powered off and on and you navigate to the SD card, it has lost all the songs and the card need to be popped out and re-inserted to renable a  scan of the SD card - this does not happen with a Class 4.
 
HM-601 - All EQ set to Off
I also stand by my comments earlier in this thread about how nice my T1s sound. However, I think I prefer(only slightly more) the sound from my Pro900s - possibly because the T1s are a warm sounding IEM and can be a little too warm for my taste with the HM-601. However that is dependant on the the music(FLAC) I am listening to at the time....modern music sounds brighter than older 70s rock, where the Pro900s sound better.
 
So....Overall my experience makes me believe that they do have some faults in the Quality control process, but when identified they try to be as helpful as possible in getting matters resolved and the sound from the HM-601 is great, but it is dependant on the Cans\IEMS\Music you are using.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[lee730]

Has anyone compared the 601 to the Sflo2. While I really do enjoy my Sflo2 this is going to be my second RMA on 2 brand new Sflo2s and its pretty ridiculous. If MP4NATION does not ship me out a replacement before I have to ship this one back I will just opt for a refund and jump aboard the Hifiman boat. At least from what I am hearing about the warm sound signature I think I will enjoy it with my Re cabled Sennheiser IE8's (as the silver wire has killed the warmth and raised the treble big time, not that that's a bad thing).

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

Has anyone compared the 601 to the Sflo2. While I really do enjoy my Sflo2 this is going to be my second RMA on 2 brand new Sflo2s and its pretty ridiculous. If MP4NATION does not ship me out a replacement before I have to ship this one back I will just opt for a refund and jump aboard the Hifiman boat. At least from what I am hearing about the warm sound signature I think I will enjoy it with my Re cabled Sennheiser IE8's (as the silver wire has killed the warmth and raised the treble big time, not that that's a bad thing).

If you like the Sflo2 sound the only direct upgrade is the QA350 but that's a transport.  The 601/2 are a different sound you may or may not prefer w/ the TDA1543.  If you want warmth the 602 should be the ticket and is an improvement over the Sflo2 if you like the signature.  Not sure about the 601 and after reading some different impressions on it I'm not sure what to make of the 601 atm.  
 

 

[lee730]

Yeah its pretty strange. Some posts say the 601 is nice and warm while the 602 is even more warm. And then some say the newer 601 is a treble monster lol? I thought this thing had rolled off treble. Honestly the Sflo2 through its headphone out is a bit laid back and the treble is rolled off. When I first got my Silver cable for my IE8 I could not use it for long with the UHA4 and the Sflo2 line out (man that thing was treble of death for a few days lol). After the IE8s burned in for a few days I was able to go back to the line out on the Sflo2 and its been very nice since then. So much more detail in my opinion now with the upgraded cable (tight bass non bloated, beautiful mids, highs are very well extended and detailed) and I actually came from a different upgrade cable just previously. The re-cabled IE8s resemble nothing of the stock ones anymore its a different IEM now lol  (in a good way that is). I was mainly looking into the Hifiman if MP4NATION screws me over again. I will not accept having to ship this unit back to them before I get a replacement this time as this is the second unit I have received brand new which is defective (it takes 8 hours to fully charge this unit from a wall charger now lol). Its not fair to have to wait 3 months for a replacement at all.
Quote:

If you like the Sflo2 sound the only direct upgrade is the QA350 but that's a transport.  The 601/2 are a different sound you may or may not prefer w/ the TDA1543.  If you want warmth the 602 should be the ticket and is an improvement over the Sflo2 if you like the signature.  Not sure about the 601 and after reading some different impressions on it I'm not sure what to make of the 601 atm.  
 

 

 

[Destroysall]

Question: I see in the first original post that both ALAC and AIFF is not a supported format (at least it is not cited). Has there been any firmware update that allows this?
 
Destroysall.

 

[Makiah S]

I might just revive this thread, I found an HM601 for around $125, which is what I paid for my first one used about three years ago. I'm curious to hear the player that started me down a path [that eventually lead me to the HM901 I have now] 

 

[dryvadeum]

I recently got an HM-603 after abstaining for a couple of years. Why the hell did I wait so long? I can't believe how pleasant and engaging the sound signature is.

I'm curious now about the 801. Is it worth the upgrade? I love the how cohesive and full sounding the 603 is. Does the 801 have that same atmosphere or does everything sound more distant and less impactful?

 

[Makiah S]

I recently got an HM-603 after abstaining for a couple of years. Why the hell did I wait so long? I can't believe how pleasant and engaging the sound signature is.

I'm curious now about the 801. Is it worth the upgrade? I love the how cohesive and full sounding the 603 is. Does the 801 have that same atmosphere or does everything sound more distant and less impactful?

I know for me, moving from the 601 to the 801 I gained an increase of sound stage an better overall detail oh and the bass had better impact as well
 
it was a very literal upgrade, 
 
an then going from the 801 to the 901 was... also pretty cool but the 601 an 801 are very warm an organic sounding DAPs, the Hm901 doesn't use the same Burr Brown as it's previous 2 so it's sound charecter is very different