**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 118

No worries, that means it will sound better.

 

If I am not mistaken, the LYR doesn't come with a DAC, so you are ahead of the game in that sense.

Just received my HE-400 today after the storm(I live in NY area). Moon Audio next day aired it to me which is really nice.

 

I'm really surprised and amused by how simple the package is. There's not even manual in the box? The warranty card is also just one slip of chinese paper. Is that what it is like? Checked the driver, it's the corrected "2.5" version(white/gray color).

 

Nonetheless, paired with ODAC+O2, the sound quality so far is pretty awesome compared to my previous Denon AH-D2000. The bass is really tight and punchy. The sound is more open compared to Denon because of the open back design. However I find the it's a bit harsh on tremble(especially cymbal?). Maybe that's how it is?

 

Is that slip a warranty card? I had no idea what it was, since it's all in Chinese.

 

I think their whole deal is that they skimp out on style and luxury stuff in order to bring sound quality. The packaging and presentation is indeed very poor for a $400 set of headphones.

While I am using the spdif connection for my bifrost with windows 8 so I can't say from experience but windows 7 and 8 are nearly identical under the hood so most drivers should work between the two.

Yep, the slip is warranty card(I can read Chinese) but it's so poorly done without any mentioning of the warranty period and such. It only says it won't cover resale and sale lower than the MSRP.

 

I know it's trying to cut the fluff costs but no manual or instruction really bogs my mind, not they are important that is.

 

Yep, the tizzy treble seems to be the problematic aspect of HE400s, at least with newer ones (very old HE400s are very dark and can sound muffled even).

Yeah I got the velour pads already but I haven't put them on yet. I find it a bit difficult to put in on -__-

Also I wanna listen to pleather for a bit so I can compare when I put on velours.

The treble was always a bit hot, to be honest. It's not as obvious as the DT990, but it does get grating at times. The fact that the HE400 is dark, makes the treble stand out more when it does get hot. At least with the DT990, the overall tone in on the bright side, so it's not as shocking as when the HE400 gets up there. Same with the HE-4. They are airier sounding than the HE400, and the treble doesn't jump out of the darkness the way it does on the HE-400.

Though, the the HE-400 is near perfection to me. The treble isn't bothersome the vast majority of the time.
Edited by Mad Lust Envy - 11/2/12 at 11:19am

 

The mid-upper treble emphasis has always been there since early rev2. Like MLE said, the fact that the upper mids / lower treble is recessed means the rest of the treble is even more emphasized which results in some fairly obvious tizziness esp in female vocals.

 

It's the main reason why Tyll at InnerFidelity has never reviewed the HE400s.

Edited by jerg - 11/2/12 at 11:21am

 

It's fine in most cases but if there's a lot of cymbal in the music, it goes a bit raspy like hissing. But other than that, the sound is very good.

 

Isn't this something that can be equalized? Female vocals play a big part in some of my favourite songs, this is a little disappointing to me.

 

Yeah but at least from my experience, EQing doesn't get rid of the "grating" effect in the trebles these have. 

 

Anyway YMMV, you might not notice this at all. Heck I did not notice any issues with the treble a few months ago, it was only when I had to go through some recall replacements that I started really paying attention to analyzing the sound that these drivers make, and now I can't not notice the issues.

 

Edit: the treble tizz also seems to be very track-dependent, for instance, the treble sounds perfectly smooth with Madonna's songs, yet gets tizzy with Feist's vocals.

Edited by jerg - 11/2/12 at 11:35am