**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 192

These got me addicted to the planar sound I think... but at times some vocals sound thin and a bit too bright but I am really not willing to spend 700$ on the HE-500's at the moment, when they sound good on certain tracks its sheer pleasure but they can (at least in my experience) make you dislike some previous favorite tracks, I REALLY wanna like these but I am torn, I think its just a little too V shaped for me.

As MadLustEnvy stated I too own Beyer's (880's) and they actually sound a lot less fatiguing for the same reason's stated... pretty spot on there.

cant deny though my grin so big for the first few days with these, damn... what to do.

When it comes to audiophile sound I certainly don't have the experience that most do here, I just appreciate good sound, but yeah I can definitely tell something's not right with female vocals. They sound somewhat thin and borderline sibilant. I'm willing to let it go because it does everything else so well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by beaver316 

When it comes to audiophile sound I certainly don't have the experience that most do here, I just appreciate good sound, but yeah I can definitely tell something's not right with female vocals. They sound somewhat thin and borderline sibilant. I'm willing to let it go because it does everything else so well.

Why is no one trying to use the simplest mod ever to fix this?

Get a f-ing tissue, peel of a f-ing layer.

Place the paper in front of the driver. 

Bam, bye bye sibilance, hello smooth sound.

I don't have these headphones yet, but this mod worked very well for closed headphones that were a bit sibilant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marleybob217 

Why is no one trying to use the simplest mod ever to fix this?

 

Get a f-ing tissue, peel of a f-ing layer.

 

Place the paper in front of the driver. 

Bam, bye bye sibilance, hello smooth sound.

 

I don't have these headphones yet, but this mod worked very well for closed headphones that were a bit sibilant.

The problem isn't the sibilance because it's almost non-existent. It's the recessed upper mids which cause the wonky female vocals, at least that's what I've been lead to believe.

But I will try that, thanks for the suggestion.

Use reduction eq.

Terms like "recessed upper mids" are sometimes annoying to hear - as they do not describe much.

It is possible to google the common frequency response range of  many instruments, and based on that, find some precision in your assessment of frequency response. Unless you think that your head is the same shape as a test dummies, in all liklihood, the profile presented by testers is not the profile experianced in the "real world" of listening.

Straight up piano music is usually a good way to identify the frequencies of offense with any speaker system, as are instruments like a violin. In many cases, I would think the 2khz dip of the phones is more problematic than its 5-10 khz "spike", which starts to reach outside the response of a lot of great instruments and the human voice.

Why not challenge your ears to listen to such instruments and try using the EQ to soften the annoying frequencies? I cut mine around 1 khz, and then 3-10 khz. Only 1.5-3dB increments which are barely enough to "hear" immediately. But I find they took a little edge off certain tracks I had found them on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TunneLVisioN42 

Yeah it really has to do with the upper mids more than just a typical detail spike at 10khz, maybe you will understand a little better once you get your hands on them, I find I keep wanting to turn the volume up more and more to get closer to the upper mids and then I realize at any volume I cant reach what I am grabbing for and its frustrating, tried EQing but I get distortion

Some of these electri-q presets might help you out:

http://www.mediafire.com/?x44y356zk9l60ik

http://www.mediafire.com/?69z3ngg9aojxx80

http://www.mediafire.com/?9viw2f5nbolcl13

The first one uses the data from headphones.com to reduce any peaks and dips.

The second takes that to a more extreme level.

The third one tones it down a bit and smoothens the curve a bit. Also I increased the sub-bass and the high end of the frequencies a bit. This is the preset I'm using myself right now.

They should give you a good starting point since the points of rise/fall are all there. Note that you'll need to lower your pre-amp or add an allpass band in order to get rid of distortion.

Here's a link to the free version of electri-q: http://www.aixcoustic.com/index.php/Electri-Q-posihfopit/30/0/ . Very good EQ, and it can be used either for winamp or anything that takes vst plugins.

Quote:

Originally Posted by beaver316 

 

The problem isn't the sibilance because it's almost non-existent. It's the recessed upper mids which cause the wonky female vocals, at least that's what I've been lead to believe.

 

But I will try that, thanks for the suggestion.

When I auditioned the HE-400 there was definitely some sharpness in the upper treble. This was indeed because the recessed upper mids made me turn up the volume so the higher treble became louder than desired.

The thin paper will smooth out the treble spike, I think it will definitely increase listening pleasure. 

I'm not saying the paper mod is perfect, I'm just surprised nobody has tried it since it's so easy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by TunneLVisioN42 

Yeah it really has to do with the upper mids more than just a typical detail spike at 10khz, maybe you will understand a little better once you get your hands on them, I find I keep wanting to turn the volume up more and more to get closer to the upper mids and then I realize at any volume I cant reach what I am grabbing for and its frustrating, tried EQing but I get distortion

Here is video that is a good example of what you said, at least for my ears. Keep turning it up for the vocals, just never really makes it. Everything else sounds fantastic just a little shy on vocals. Plug in my Martin woodies V/4 magnums and there is the great vocals, now it is just a little shy on the slam !

The vocalist on that track is weak in the mix no matter how you slice it.  I havn't ever found the HE-400 to be weird on vocals, especially not male vocals.  It has VERY strong lower and mid..mids, perfectly covers all the fundamentals of the human vocal range with ease.  An upper mid and lower treble recession might mask some female vocal harmonics, but that shouldn't cause for thin-ness.  In fact, sibilance often resides as the harmonics of human vocals.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMRaven 

The vocalist on that track is weak in the mix no matter how you slice it.  I havn't ever found the HE-400 to be weird on vocals, especially not male vocals.  It has VERY strong lower and mid..mids, perfectly covers all the fundamentals of the human vocal range with ease.  An upper mid and lower treble recession might mask some female vocal harmonics, but that shouldn't cause for thin-ness.  In fact, sibilance often resides as the harmonics of human vocals.

Agree with you there. Male vocals were never a weak spot with these cans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy 

I vote for a merger of both threads, as they are essentially the same exact thing, lol.

In most forums, this is done immediately by a Mod, whenever there are two threads in the top page about the same topic.

Does this Forum have mods ?

The threads are far too long and complicated to merge, so the easy fix would be to put a link to this thread in the end of the other thread, and then lock it.