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Will there ever be a (non-electrostatic) headphone harder to drive than the HE-6?

post #1 of 3
1/5/12 at 3:10pm
Thread Starter 

I think the makers of the HE-6 actually revel a little bit in the notoriety their baby has gathered as being a pain-in-the-backside to drive.

 

Do you think in the future, other headphone makers will make headphones much harder to drive than the HE-6, either purely as a by-product of the necessity in their designs, or, because they think consumers will equate needing a huge and over-powered amp to drive it is a sure sign of a headphone's audio-fidelity?

 

Basically, if I buy an amp powerful enough for the HE-6, will I be future-proofed against all (non-electrostatic) headphones that will be released before I die?

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post #2 of 3
1/5/12 at 5:22pm

I don't think any manufacturer sets out to make a set of cans "easy" or "hard to drive" out of principle of driving alone.  I think they look for a certain voicing and then whatever the driving factors are, so be it.  They recreated the voice they wanted and then it's up to the end user to amp it.

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post #3 of 3
1/5/12 at 5:48pm

You may have it the wrong way around - Fang simply gave the amp builders an excuse to build 2K+ amps to drive his flagship cans. Given that many seemed happy to drive them from a speaker amp, I'm not sure how successful that tactic has been, but Head-Fi has always catered to the extremists. I'm sure some bought the Dark Star/Pinnacle etc simply because they could. Such is life.

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