Has Hifiman upgraded/downgraded the HE500 drivers? - Page 2

Oh I know just how good they sound :) 

I was asking about the ones the OP measured. 
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrarroyo 

No, the HE500 that I have sound superb and at $699 a major bargain. 

I just measured mine.

Left channel 15 ohm

Right channel 38 ohm

Is my left channel broken? I've noticed it's a little bit more quiet than my right.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phoo 

I just measured mine.

 

Left channel 15 ohm

Right channel 38 ohm

 

Is my left channel broken? I've noticed it's a little bit more quiet than my right.

 

 

I had the same issue with one of my HE500s (and one of my HE6s incidentally). Got them both replaced.

Just for the heck of it, I re-checked my HE-6 again. Right channel 49 Ohms, left channel 48.5 Ohms.

So much less than 50 Ohms is definitely wrong and more important, between channels.

And just to add, I like to measure the impedance from the cable's end because that is the total impedance the amp will see.

The variable numbers are indeed concerning. 

It might be a good idea to take a more scientific approach and have some write a quick procedure on how to test the drivers to normalize the results.  If enough people participate the data would mean a little more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by flargosa 

Got a reply from Fang.  +/- 25% in impedance is fine, sound quality will not change much.  Fang will be updating his site sometime to include this info.  Nothing to worry about.  I would guess as long as impedance is closely match between left and right channels you should be ok.  Mine is within 0.5% between left and right. 

Really? That doesn't seem right. That's basically saying his production is so bad that he can have plus or minus 25% variances! That's pretty awful if it's the best they can do. I'm guessing a 30 ohm HE500 would have a different FR than a 50 ohm HE500. How could it not? That said I always liked the sound quality of Fang's headphones but this is pretty disapointing to hear.

Any news regarding this topic?

You can expect greater variance between the ideal specifications of a driver and the actual production.  This is a big part of the reason you will hear companies go into great detail about matching drivers for headphones and speakers alike.

The variance in impedance from channel to channel would be concerning, but having two drivers that are both on the low side would indicate a strong effort at matching complementary pairs of drivers. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argybargy 

I received my HE500 yesterday and immediately noticed that the left channel is louder than the right channel. I'm mailing them back for replacement tomorrow.
You would think that such an obvious defect would have been caught by quality control.

Hi, any chance the cable is not fully seated at the connectors? Good luck.

Still waiting for my cracked LCD 2 to be fixed and sent back. 

Yeesh, all these expensive headphones with these production problems. For your sake, I hope you get a good one this time. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by powerpopper 

My HE-500 get here tomorrow. Really hoping for no problems after the cracked LCD-2 (which sound awesome).

I triple checked to make sure the connectors were nice and tight.  When the new ones come in, the first thing I'll do is check the impedance on each channel.  

I wonder if the $200 price drop also corresponded with a few cut corners.  If anyone has both an early ($900) HE500 and a later ($700) HE500, I'd be curious to see a side by side comparison of the innards to see if there were any changes.