Amazing and Dynamic HE6 - Page 10

Quote:

Originally Posted by debitsohn 

Thanks for the feedback as sad as it makes me. lol  i dont think id sell the wa2 in favor of 1 headphone, so HE6.... sorry, you wont be on my woo stand anytime soon.

If you really want the HE-6 along with all the rest i would look for something like an Adcom 535. It won't be much investment (around $200) and you will have great sound out of the HE-6. Just as an option 

Yeah, I was going to mention getting a decent quality low wattage speaker amp (high wattage with a volume control) for them. They are better than most every headphone I've heard (800s, 2s, HE-60) IMO. It's taken a speaker amp to do it though.

interesting. ill have to look into that.

Got a receiver?

I did my listening session last night where my usual habit is to take out 2 or 3 diff. phones and switch between them, but I just stayed with the HE6s for the entire 2 hours

because I like them so much.

They have more texture than the LCD2s, and maybe 90% of the the T1s and PS1000s, and I didn't feel I was missing any texture like I do with the LCD2s.

I was actually kind of enthalled with some of the 60s music I like (Searchers and such), with pristine, clear highs that were not painful.

I noticed a very nice detailed bass, and on most CDs, digital glare + shout (which I realy dislike) was gone.

The PS1000s deal better with digital glare, but on the CDs I listened to yesterday the HE6s handled it just fine.

So: the highs are clear and sweet.

Mids are not shouty, and vocals are decently rounded and, if not the last word in detail like I find the HD800s and Staxes, don't sound blunted or boring or

behind a wall, which is a feeling I get with Senn 600s/650s or AKG 701s (or too smoothed over or a bit slow as with LCD2s).

And the bass has a transparent, firm sound that is very natural and fast with no overhang; the bass is faster than the LCD2s or the PS1000s.

The soundstaging is showing some nice micro-spatial things that surprise me, like close-by instruments showing their position and size.

Percussion is a strong point, with great impact and character and no boom. The percussion is maybe the best I've heard with headphones.

I think the only negative is, on just maybe 1 of 5 CDs I tried, a slight smearing or slowness of a vocal, but this is  what I hear to a MUCH greater degree on the LCD2s,

and also much more often. And the LCD2s do this smearing with other things than vocals (like piano, whereas piano is beautiful with no ringing and just the perfect

amount of decay on the HE6s). And this smearing, like I said, was only on an occasional CD, like a live Elvis one or Donovan that the PS1000 and T1 handle well.

I think this is maybe a fundamental quality of orthos at this point, and that conventional driver dynamic phones have a little more natural roughness.

Again, I might not even notice this except in comparison to the Grados, Senns, and Beyers, and on most CDs I would not even consider it a negative,

as it barely registers and vocals just sound very right.

On SACDs, the HE6s are dream come true, with detail, no abuse, and right up there with overall satisfaction with my HD800s.

With SACDs and well-recorded redbook CDs, the HE6s are just right, natural, silky, but live and satisfying and really everything I want in a headphone.

Somehow, with SACDs and really good CDs, the texture is perfect and there is no trace of smearing, so I think the HE6s are picking up something

from my digital source.

I'm really getting to like the HE6s a great deal, and I had trouble parting with them when it came time to sleep.

Thanks for reading, hope this is interesting.

nice write up.  whats your source and amp?

yes Richard, nice write up. i tried looking at your profile to see what the ancillary gear was but you haven't filled it out (a useful thing to do, btw).

In my experience, piano sounds reasonably good on the HE-6, but not great and not as good as it sounds on the HD800, SR-007, my speakers, or in reality (I used to play the piano).

When I hear a modern piano on the HE-6, I notice some characteristics similar to the sound of a fortepiano. Something isn't quite right about the timbre/tone/detail/decay - it's hard for me to put the finger on it exactly, but it doesn't sound quite right. Not bad by any means, but not exactly what it should be. I noticed similar subtle problems with the sound of other acoustic instruments like the violin and trumpet.

I enjoy my HE-6, but they aren't my first choice when it comes to the best reproduction of classical music or vocals for that matter. They do sound pleasant, though.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by rgs9200m 

(like piano, whereas piano is beautiful with no ringing and just the perfect

amount of decay on the HE6s).  

vg, very interesting observations. i love it when someone who knows what both a wide range of quality gear as well as real instruments sound like chimes in. i still have to wonder if your impressions will stand or vary once you hear them more appropriately amped.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveDerek 

vg, very interesting observations. i love it when someone who knows what both a wide range of quality gear as well as real instruments sound like chimes in. i still have to wonder if your impressions will stand or vary once you hear them more appropriately amped.

I expect to be able to listen to the HE-6 with the Beta 22 and GS-X amps next month. I'll post my impressions. I don't really expect these amps to make a difference in the sound of a solo piano, but maybe I'll be surprised. The DAC1 headphones section with 0dB attenuation seems to be powerful enough to drive the HE-6.

i'm not optimistic that either of those amps will be optimal with the he6s. i'm aware of at least 3 amps being designed with these phones in mind. if you go through the thread that i previously referred to (with a link) there are many posts describing how well, or not, various amps work with he6s. the first post in the thread points, via a link, to a post where i had linked to posts specifically with impressions, sort of a cliff notes to the thread. i've not updated it in a while so there may be a number of other relevant posts in the most recent third of the thread. where are you located btw? (it's useful to fill out your profile with at least location, gear present and past, and musical interests). perhaps you can get together with other h-fers who have their systems more optimized for these cans and see if what folks are suggesting here holds water or not. it's also good, as well as fun, to go to regional meets (see this area: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/list/62).

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveDerek 

i'm not optimistic that either of those amps will be optimal with the he6s. i'm aware of at least 3 amps being designed with these phones in mind. if you go through the thread that i previously referred to (with a link) there are many posts describing how well, or not, various amps work with he6s. the first post in the thread points, via a link, to a post where i had linked to posts specifically with impressions, sort of a cliff notes to the thread. i've not updated it in a while so there may be a number of other relevant posts in the most recent third of the thread. where are you located btw? (it's useful to fill out your profile with at least location, gear present and past, and musical interests). perhaps you can get together with other h-fers who have their systems more optimized for these cans and see if what folks are suggesting here holds water or not. it's also good, as well as fun, to go to regional meets (see this area: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/list/62).

Thanks, but I thought the Beta 22 was reported to be a good fit for the HE-6. If I remember correctly, the balanced Beta 22 provides around 7W into 50 ohms...

Honestly, none of this business about particularly high-powered amps for the HE-6 makes technical sense to me because based on the sensitivity and impedance specs of the HE-6, there's just no way it can actually use even 1W before the voltage and volume get too high. Based on how well the DAC1 amps the HE-6, I would say that the HE-6 specs are correct.

If the HE-6 sounds the same on the Beta 22 as it does on the lower-power DAC1, then I'll be done with the amp wild goose chase. No intention to connect them to my expensive speakers amps which were not designed for that type of load.

which spkr amps do you have?

visualguy posted:

 Why the problem with connecting them to a speaker amp?

The only thing you need to watch is the volume control.

If you have a little DIY experience you could make a load box with 2 power resistors  in it.

One for each channel. Pick the power rating and resistance which would be the same as your output impedance amd power rating of the amp.

Loudspeakers are such beasts that the stated impedance  is usually quoted for 1kHz.

The impedance and efficiency (the amount of sound for the same current input) can vary quite a bit.

A resistor would be far a more stable load for the amp.

Connect a socket wired across the resistors for each channel for your headphones, and you're done...

Happy listening..................