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New Hifiman Headphone HE-400 is out
Jan 9, 2012 at 7:37 AM Post #256 of 6,017
Considering putting my HD650's I got ~1 month ago up for sale to purchase these. The HD650's are great and do a lot of things amazingly well, but I find them to be a bit to distant for me. I do however love their bass, and based off of first impressions it sounds like the HE400s might best the 650's in that area. Hopefully the HE400s are more suited to my preferred sound signature if I do end up pulling the trigger :p. If anyone who has actually heard these, I have to ask, how do they fare with female vocals? While I found the HD650s very natural and real sounding, they just seemed a little too distant for my liking.
 
Edit: Talking more high pitched female vocals rather than lower jazz style female vocals.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 9:06 AM Post #257 of 6,017
Quote:
blankdisc said:
HE-500 is still the king of mids/vocal. :) In comparison the mids of HE-400 is a little bit less refined and not as smooth. Although i really enjoyed listening to male vocal on HE-400 because of the extra bass. 
 
I never liked the mids on HD650. too lay back and veil in my taste. In comparison the mids of HE-400 is more forward and involving.
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Are you saying that you find the lower mids to be boosted?
 
 
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 11:15 AM Post #259 of 6,017
ultrainferno said:
I decided not to get the He-400 afterall, I have the lovely He-500 and the 400 will never be that good, right? :D
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Willing to bet the curve will be different. The HE400 will probably be a bit funner than the balanced sounding HE500, so two different flavors. Kinda like how the HE-4 is V shaped... which is what I'd go for first and foremost. If the HE400 was V shaped, I'd have to consider it.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 11:42 AM Post #260 of 6,017


Quote:
mad lust envy said:
Willing to bet the curve will be different. The HE400 will probably be a bit funner than the balanced sounding HE500, so two different flavors. Kinda like how the HE-4 is V shaped... which is what I'd go for first and foremost. If the HE400 was V shaped, I'd have to consider it.
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Shhht, don't convince me again :D
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 11:47 AM Post #261 of 6,017
Honestly, I don't see why Hifiman would make several headphones with the same signature and different levels of refinement. I would think they'd want to cover all their bases. Not everyone wants warm/bright/V shaped/neutral/bass light/bassy/etc. They should make headphones for everyone.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 12:00 PM Post #262 of 6,017


Quote:
mad lust envy said:
Honestly, I don't see why Hifiman would make several headphones with the same signature and different levels of refinement. I would think they'd want to cover all their bases. Not everyone wants warm/bright/V shaped/neutral/bass light/bassy/etc. They should make headphones for everyone.
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Most manufactures have a house sound. Magneplanar speakers pretty much all have the same signature some may have more bass and size but the sound signature is the same and usually I find that with all manufactures its the same and I think Fang wanted to have a complete headphone line which he accomplished at every price point but the house sound will be similar and the higher you go price wise the more refinement you should get. At least that my take.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 12:02 PM Post #263 of 6,017
I can understand that, but to make the HE400 and the HE500 too similar? That's just competing with themselves at this point. Though one can argue the same with the main 3 Denon cans.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 12:32 PM Post #265 of 6,017


Quote:
mad lust envy said:
I can understand that, but to make the HE400 and the HE500 too similar? That's just competing with themselves at this point. Though one can argue the same with the main 3 Denon cans.
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If they are too close in sound then its really a bad   move because everyone will buy the HE400 so I am assuming the HE500 is better and I will here it end of the month.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 12:43 PM Post #266 of 6,017
Good luck beating the HE-500...
rolleyes.gif

 
Driven by the Lyr, sourced by the Bifrost, not even the LCD-2 R2 can touch them...
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 12:57 PM Post #267 of 6,017
If anyone is expecting the HE-400 to be a better overall headphone than the HE-500 I can only guess you're in for a disappointment. Even at it's new lower price, the HE-500 is still DOUBLE the cost of the HE-400 with the intro discount. Fang is not stupid.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 1:23 PM Post #268 of 6,017

 
Quote:
mitsu763 said:
If anyone is expecting the HE-400 to be a better overall headphone than the HE-500 I can only guess you're in for a disappointment. Even at it's new lower price, the HE-500 is still DOUBLE the cost of the HE-400 with the intro discount. Fang is not stupid.
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This, and the fact that HE-500 performs way better than anything in its price-range.
 
However price doesn't always match performance even in the same brand, especially since orthodynamics are a relatively new technology for HIFIMAN and the rest of the industry (disregarding the 80s), newer editions could easily prove to be better than older editions.
 
One could argue HE-500 is better (overall) than HE-6, even if the HE-6 is well-amped, yet the HE-6 is almost double the price of HE-500.
 
Also, HE-400 is most likely going to be better than HE-5LE, despite those being double the price.
 
Jan 9, 2012 at 1:43 PM Post #270 of 6,017
 
jerg said:
HE-400 is most likely going to be better than HE-5LE, despite those being double the price.
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That's basically what many ppl will want to know...Fang says that he has found new ways to build drivers for cheaper. I might soon be in the market for a used HE5LE, but a brand new HE-400 would be right up my alley. OTOH, one could speculate that there will soon be a single figure Hifiman using those cheaper to build new drivers? I would prefer a higher impedance to be honest, in order to gain more headroom on the stepped attenuators of my desktop amps.
 
I'm also wondering how those Hifiman's sound compared to vintage Yamaha's, so a comparison would be much appreciated as well. The T50RP might be technologically far superior to the latter but its deep bass is über-flabby and its SS nothing to write home to Mummy about. This review implies that the HE5LE kills those vintage Yam's, that's why I'm asking: http://www.headfonia.com/vintage-yamaha-orthos/3/
 
And it's been repeated here as well: http://www.sgheadphones.net/index.php?showtopic=11036&st=30
 
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