**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 196

Different measurements are going to have different compensations, HRTFs, etc just as it's going to vary per person.  I used headphones.com's data. Tyll's data shows a 9khz spike as well, as well as one around 13Khz(which is back down to neutral once compensated). I wouldn't worry about the 13kHz spike as much though, as there's not a whole lot going on around there.

Edited by chewy4 - 12/11/12 at 12:15pm

When playing around with electriQ, shelving down at 13kHz was what that mostly removed the "tizz" in the treble for me. 9~10kHz is fairly prominent but not the problem spots.

What songs are you experiencing tizz in? I've actually never noticed it myself.

 

13kHz should just barely be touching the harmonics of cymbals and higher pitched vocals. It's right around the edge of everything audible in the majority of music. I would think the frequencies before it getting rolled off would have a more significant impact than the frequency itself getting lowered.

Female vocal music. This is the one music genre where the nature of the recording / mastering process seems to introduce an excess of upper treble information to the vocals. I can visualize it clearly as a haze around 12-15kHz range in the spectrograms. This haze is typically not there with music from other genres though.

Well that's one type of music I don't have a lot of. I can't even think of any music I have that has female vocals as the main focus... closest thing I have is a Shpongle track or two, but the instruments are really more of the focus and the vocals are pretty smooth and laid back in them. As well as some Easy Star All Stars stuff which gets more edgy but not very high pitched.

Purrin doesn't use one of the already available hrtf compensations for his measurements.  He compensates based off his objectively flat measuring speaker system, you can read the specifics at his forum.  Long story short, whatever flat on his chart is more-true to actual flatness than headroom or inner fidelity.  Not saying there's anything wrong with either measurement system, but each one does have to be interpreted differently.

One problem with his measurements for these is that they're using a slightly modified headphone. I'll have to make a preset based on them in electri-q and see if I like it better.

Listening to the HE-400 as of now.

*USING PLEATHER*

No Fatigue.
Treble is a bit recessed.
Bass not as loud as i thought it would be, but the extension is way better than any headphones i've ever tried.
Separation and detail is clearly amazing.
Black background
Resolution on these are stellar.
Cans are very very very open. When i put them on, it sounds like it only suppresses 5% of sound from that of bare ears. (I can watch/hear tv while having headphones on)
Not very neutral, more of a fun laid back sound (however not too laid back)

Best way to describe it, they sound like Audioengine A5+ speakers made into headphones with less bass.

0 hour burn in by the way, opened the box and immediately connected them to my NuForce Icon HDP w/ Sigma 11 PSU

Will listen for about 10 hours before switching to Velour pads which i have in hand.
I don't know, but by looking at the pleather & velour, i can tell the velour will be better for my ears (in term of sound quality) Looks like it would give better treble due to it being less enclosed. (stitching)

UPDATE: Sounds better than my AKGQ701 & Sennheiser HD650.
It's a little darker, and not as full sounding as the HD650. HE-400 makes me miss less of the HD650's smooth sound signature.
Gives me enough treble but not overflowing treble like the AKG Q701. treble hurts my ears somewhat (fatigue)

+Tim
Edited by cssarrow - 12/11/12 at 2:47pm

Are you sure it's not placebo? lol.
I've switched to the Velour after 3 hours or so with pleather. Barely any differences. Sound is more airy, treble is a lot more open sounded and less restrained now. As for bass, it's still punchy but less muff sounding.

I don't see how jumping from velour to velour will do so much as to call it "smoother mids and tighter touch in bass" but ok, whatever rocks your boat.
Edited by cssarrow - 12/11/12 at 5:46pm

I have old and new velours too; the main difference is that the old velour pads are shallower and are all-velour rather than the rubber inner linings, so that would definitely have an impact on the sound. Unfortunately no matter how hard I tried I couldn't install it onto my HE400 or HE500...

Oh since that's the case, then it's not placebo at all.
It would be extremely placebo though if you were taking time to switch them every now and then, because by the time you put the other pads on, your conception of the sound would of changed.

The HE-400 is exquisite. Like have everyone said, It's different. You either hate it or love it.

They sounded dark to me in the beginning, but with the added velour, the extra air and treble lifts the dark sound a little.

Definitely a nice pair to have to compliment the HD 650. (however it seems like im liking the HE-400 a little more) 60/40 ratio.

Might buy the HE-500 to replace the HD 650 so the ratio would even out 50/50.

- Tim