Amps that can drive the HiFiMan HE-6 planar headphones - Page 8

I did a whole bunch of listening with the HE-6 today and my WA-5 using K1K port and Apex Peak/Volcano.  Personally if your looking for a warmer more lush sound than I would say that the WA-5 really can't be beat in this regard.  The Apex P/V is a more neutral amplifier IMO, bass has better definition, depending on which tube you use, it can have some of sweetest mids and trebles.  In general I find that Woo Audio amps are about as warm/lush I like my amp to be, which kind of makes them easier for me to listen to for longer periods of time.  Conclusions for me is that you really need some beefy amps for these bad boys.  The headphone port out of the Leben doesn't really do it for me with regard to these headphones, but I have not tried the speaker taps as I do not have the pigtails.

I got a Little Dot MKVI+ yesterday, and just kicked up the gain. On normal gain, I'd say power is comparable to my Audio-gd Roc (that is, about 2-3o'clock for normal listening levels, but really song dependent). On high gain, this amplifier REALLY brings out these headphones. Normal listening levels at 11, max listening at about 1 I get distortion from the headphones at 3. I had a Virtue audio two.2, and this amplifier is just as powerful, and provides so much more in terms of sound quality. Attack and decay are much faster, and I can hear separation and transparency of bass like I've never heard, especially the decay of it.  Loving this combo!

Edited by elwappo99 - 5/28/11 at 8:02pm

Don't bother just use their soon to be realeased EF6.:)

 

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/hifiman4/1.html

 

 

I had my tube amp plugged in with my monitor, laptop, universal player source, eSata HDD, and table light plugged in the same outlet through an APC UPS. I then moved my amp to a different outlet just by itself. I noticed that the amp's transformers are not as warm now. They still feel warm through their cover but not as warm as before.

 

I should have done this before, when I had a full range speaker system, my amps were plugged on their dedicated AC outlet and the rest of my system were on a separate AC outlet as well.

Edited by wuwhere - 5/28/11 at 9:56pm

milosz..can you give an impression of how he-6 sound with ck2iii? i see you rate it as capable of driving he-6, but how good??

Well... The MKVI+ has about a month build time, so I purchased it well before that article was posted. I'll be interested to see what's in the EF-6. However, comparing the EF-2 and EF-5 to their comparable Little Dots, I wouldn't expect too much out of the EF-6 except a lot of power.

A Pinnacle drives them just fine. You get up to 7-8 steps on the 23-step volume control. Bass is superb.

Has anyone noticed if the HE6s get warmer with break in of a few hundred hours? Thanks.

I'm browsing locally for an old used speaker amp to try with the HE-6 out of the speaker tabs. Right now I'm looking at:

 

- Kenwood KA-5010, 2x80w 8 ohm 

 

- Technics SU-610, 2x75w 8 ohm

 

- Denon PMA-920, 2x105w  8 ohm

 

Any thoughts on what might work well with the HE-6? Do I need a XLR -> Pigtail adapter and nothing more?

 

Edited by ZorgDK - 8/5/11 at 8:19am

Skylab just posted a review of the RSA Darkstar. It seems like it will be a kick ass amp for the HE-6. http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/565779/review-ray-samuels-audio-dark-star-solid-state-headphone-amplifier

Powerwise all three are above the needs of the HE-6, however the sound quality (transparency etc.) is a different story, which I won't comment on since I don't know the amps. The HE-6 would benefit from an amp that has a slightly boosted bass and slightly rolled off treble, but this is not mandatory.

Originally posted in the vintage amp thread.

 

Is anyone else using the HE-Adapter with their amps? I recently got my HE-6, initially using it from the headphone out of my Marantz 2385 (185 wpc). I thought that was it, as the headphone out can more than manage the HE-6.

 

Then I wired up the HE-Adapter from one of the sets of speaker outs to the HE-6. The phrase 'scaled-up' doesn't do the combo justice. It's not just a question of volume. The HE-6's sound has more weight, presence and authority. The best word I can think of the sound is solid. 

The bass goes deep, but is articulate. My favourite thing is listening to the notes decay into black, which I miss in my LCD-2.

 

If your amp is under 100wpc this may not be relevant. I now want to a big vintage PIoneer and Sansui to try out.

Yes, I find the HE-Adapter does improve the sound with speaker amps as well, even with my 55-watt Yamaha amp or 40 watt Marantz 2240.

I'm not using the HE adapter. My amp is an all tube Audio Research D70 Mk II, 60wpc. I'm using its 8ohm speaker tap. I placed a 10 ohm resistor across with the 6's 50 ohm impedance to bring down the impedance to 8 ohms for the amp.

 

That 10 ohm from the adapter is essentially what I did. Using speaker wires with the adapter is more costly and may affect the sound more than just using resistors and converting your cable to pigtail.

Edited by wuwhere - 8/6/11 at 6:06pm

 

I would have done that if I knew what the hell I was doing. Besides, Judge said I'm not allowed to keep a soldering iron in the house. Something about protection of myself and others.

 

 

No soldering required.