Is the Hifiman HE-6 clearly a league above the Hifiman HE-500? - Page 15

 

Um....

 

Yeah  just meant that Multi corporate companies control what consumers want to some extent, we as consumers don't have a choice. If you want a burger you have no choice but to use MacDonald's a lot of the time.. This is because the burgers buggars are everywhere.  There is no choice! Macdonalds is controlling what your kids eat! And that is capitalism at its worst!

 

Headphones shops? or the distribution of headphones is nothing at all like this... Need I go on? Mass consumption of Big Macs from one of the biggest most powerful companies in the world... Is not the same as choosing a headphone because you like it. You have a choice, use it well.. go for the HE500's!

 

Thank you...  I'm hungry now, might have a burger. Big Mac or Whopper?? I.. think... I'll... have... a Subway instead

I guess I get what you're saying there, but that actually is true for headphones to some extent. It's so much easier to just go to Best Buy and grab some Beats that you can test in the store, rather than order some headphones and hope for them to sound like what you want. It can be hard to find stores that you can test a whole lot of headphones in, especially Hifiman headphones.

That seems to be the case for all niche hobbies. 

I know what you mean yeah, thats why I said I consider beats as no different from Macdonalds. I would consider Hifiman, Audeze, Stax etc as top of the line luxury products. Just like Ferrari, Bentley's etc. There is a big difference to me in these products being designed to please the consumer as opposed to mass marketed to make profit on gullible hungry people.

 

Bl**dy hell, Macdonalds is getting some great advertising here... The Devil is everywhere my friend..

What amp and sources were you using with the 5LE?  That certainly has not been my or many others' experience with these fine headphones.  The 500 are the more "forgiving" of the two, that I'll concede, but not the more revealing.  

 

The HE-500's treble roll-off translates to lost spatial and transient queues compared with the HE-5LE.  Juxtaposed with the properly amped HE-6, the HE-500 fall short on detail across the frequency spectrum, and in virtually every other department that matters to the listener--at least to this listener.  : )

 

My time with the HE-500 was enjoyable; I've never said it wasn't,  But to me--subject to critical amping conditions--they are the equivalent of neither the HE-6 nor the 5LE.

 

To me, the HE-500 versus the HE-5LE is like the DT-880 Premium 250 ohm (2005) version that replaced the DT-880 Pro (2003) version.  To my ears--yes, they are still my ears--Beyerdynamics' successor fell woefully short of its predecessor, even though the former eventually supplanted the latter and won the popular market's accolades.      

Edited by pataburd - 10/9/12 at 11:54am

Getting back to the OP, I will reassert that the HE-6, properly amped, are clearly a league above the HE-500.  : )

LB1,

Your assertion--or perhaps your implication--that the majority opinion somehow determines the better product.  Am still waiting for your defense of that one.  : )  

 

Get enough people jumping up and down and yelling the same thing and somehow the point must necessarily come across.

 

Well, it's only served to steel my preferences for both the 5LE and the 6 over the 500.  : )

I don't have one my friend, It's all subjective and quite rightly you should stand by your opinion.  

 

Nothing like a heated debate over something we are passionate about! ;)

 

Treble roll-off is a kind of technical disability, so I simply don't agree to cathegorize it as a different flavor, presentation, etc. It's a different topic whether somebody prefers headphones of higher or lower quality but in such and many other cases we have better against worse fidelity, a synonym of quality. Quality is something objective, measurable, not a source or result of preference. So, for me, more revealing headphones have higher SQ, not those being more pleasant and less complete sounding at the same time, and it has nothing to do with what I'd prefer.

What do you prefer? just out of interest.

 

I personally don't think that the HE500's have treble roll off, if I'm getting what it means. The LCD2's have far less treble emphasis than the HE500's and they are one of the most neutral phones going apparently... Are they technically disabled? More revealing headphones reveal more thats all. No-one can categorically claim that that is better SQ. Because there would have to be an absolute perfect SQ to compare it too. Do you have means to this?

 

This is getting into sound science territory

 

I'd be very interested in your comments vs other hifimans. I had a pair once and ended up selling that pair, a pair of HE-5 and a pair of LCD-2 and keeping the LCD-2s. 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree. It was awhile ago that I had my pair, but as memory serves me, they were overall smooth and darker side of the spectrum. Maybe even darker than the LCD-2 I had at the time. It was like the HE-5 was super bright, the HE-5LE was dark, the HE-6 was a tad on the bright side of neutral, and the HE-500 was a little brighter than the HE-6. 

It's a tough qestion, most easily answered when I point one headphone and not the other like HE-6 vs. HE-500 or PS1000 vs. HD800. I prefer the PS1000 and the HE-6 respectively, and then prefer the PS1000 to the HE-6. Why? Becasue I choose quality in the first order and then choose less intrusions, own character, you name it. The PS1000 and the HE-6 are of more or less the same quality but the PS1000 is less of it's own beauty and more of the raw, delivered signal, and they are a bit faster. You can ask why such choice and here comes my belief and a bit of experience - when you provide high quality of electrical signal and play a good recording, you will get more of its own beauty not hidden behind the headphone's intrusions and the beauty found in the recordings happens to be on higher level of pleasure than that delivered all the time "for free" as the headphone's feature. Such constant elements become boring to the level of irritation and don't fit all kinds of music while transparency fits everything, and translates to a couple of technical parameters to be balanced, minimized or maximized. For me the LCD-2 are mediocre headphones. I compared them a couple of days ago to the HD800, PS1000 and K1000, and they are thick and crude sounding. What they do really bad is orchestral music. It's crowded and congested. Nothing natural to me. There is more headphones that I prefer to them - ATH-W5000, T1, T5p, HE-500, HE-6.

Regarding quality - I think it's justified to say that headphones allowing you to hear more are better. On the opposite end, you have bad headphones from which you hear nothing. On the other hand, stating that everything is relative and subjective, means that no discussion or opinion exchange makes more sense than exercising mouth or keyboard.
Edited by majkel - 10/9/12 at 3:00pm

LCD-2.2 neutral?  I would say not.  There heavily tilted towards the bass.  That can make the treble recessed.

Might've heard one of the veiled sounding LCD2s, they are out there and they sound really bad compared to the unveiled ones.

 

I prefer warmer headphones and think the HD800 is definitely thin and treble-tilted.  So there's always that too.  Different sound preferences will lead to polarizing and extreme opinions.