**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 22

Encountered the imbalance problem again last night as the local weather turned rainy and low pressure sys moved in. It's mostly gone now but meh it's the third time so most likely it's a recurrent issue that won't go away. Will send em in for replacement then.

Hoping the turn-over won't be as horrendously slow as wje experienced.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jerg 

Encountered the imbalance problem again last night as the local weather turned rainy and low pressure sys moved in. It's mostly gone now but meh it's the third time so most likely it's a recurrent issue that won't go away. Will send em in for replacement then.

 

Hoping the turn-over won't be as horrendously slow as wje experienced.

Yikes. 

Why do you think it didn't happen for the first month or two....did you just not have low pressure weather at the time?  That's truly weird that low pressure would cause something like that. 

By the way does anyone have either a good discription or a video resource for removing HiFiMan pads if one were to order velours?

I still have mixed feelings about it.  The idea of wider soundstage is great, but the softness, the look, feel, and the darker tonality the pleather gives is something I'd miss.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by IEMCrazy 

By the way does anyone have either a good discription or a video resource for removing HiFiMan pads if one were to order velours?

 

I still have mixed feelings about it.  The idea of wider soundstage is great, but the softness, the look, feel, and the darker tonality the pleather gives is something I'd miss.
 

Just squeeze the hard plastic ring inside the cushion, so the narrow diametre of the squeezed oval coincides with two of the four tabs, and carefully yank one of those tabs; after 1 tab is out, the other 3 are easily wedged out.

Now putting a pad back on, that's much more difficult and frustrating if you haven't done it already.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jerg 

Just squeeze the hard plastic ring inside the cushion, so the narrow diametre of the squeezed oval coincides with two of the four tabs, and carefully yank one of those tabs; after 1 tab is out, the other 3 are easily wedged out.

 

Now putting a pad back on, that's much more difficult and frustrating if you haven't done it already.

+1 it was like a 2 minute process with little chance of doing any harm. If you pull off the pleather/velour from the oval, it can be a pain to get back on (like trying to fit a tube onto a bike wheel). 

Putting it the new velour pad on is about the same as reversing what you did to take the pleather off. You need to get two of the tabs on, then a third, and then you need to push on the end of the oval with the last tab to get it to click into place. Try not to push on the velour itself as you risk pushing the velour off the oval. Well, now that I look, it probably doesn't matter where you push it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jerg 

Encountered the imbalance problem again last night as the local weather turned rainy and low pressure sys moved in. It's mostly gone now but meh it's the third time so most likely it's a recurrent issue that won't go away. Will send em in for replacement then.

 

Hoping the turn-over won't be as horrendously slow as wje experienced.

Wow.  I'm really hoping for the best in your situation.  In Hong Kong, I dealt with Quingting.  He was great to communicate with and really stood on top of things where he could.  However,  you also have to factor in the 12 hour time difference.  In fact, I'd wake up at about 4:00 a.m. (Eastern time) to catch his e-mail messages so I could respond accordingly.  When you send your headphones into NY, call them on the day of, or the day after they are expected to be received and ensure Mrs. T. has them in posession.  In my case, I used Priority Mail and she indicated she had to go "pick them up".  So, I'm not sure if she's even located at the address where the shipments of defective items arrive.  However, when I called hear and learned that she was headed over to the location, it was actually on the afternoon of the day after the shipment had arrived in NY containing my package.

A bit later tonight, I'll PM you some e-mail addresses.  Having them will allow you to stay on top of things and ensure a timely turn-around.  Frankly, it would just be ideal if they would charge your credit card and send a pair out ASAP.  Then, when your bad headphones are received, issue the credit.  This would cut two weeks off of their current process - I'm quite sure of that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wje 

A bit later tonight, I'll PM you some e-mail addresses.  Having them will allow you to stay on top of things and ensure a timely turn-around.  Frankly, it would just be ideal if they would charge your credit card and send a pair out ASAP.  Then, when your bad headphones are received, issue the credit.  This would cut two weeks off of their current process - I'm quite sure of that.

Advance-exchange warranties are pretty much the only warranties I consider in any way useful.  Of course that usually involves getting a refurb as your exchange item, so there has to be a good repair/inspection/cleaning crew for such a program.

I hate in/out repair exchanges.  That's why I've been putting off RMA-ing my Lyr, even though Schiit's turnaround is far, far, far, far superior to HiFiMan's (or pretty much anyone else's.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by MattTCG 

I find everything better on the velour, including the bass. I've listened back to back over and over. For me there is no question; velour does everything better. Anyone want to buy my gently used pleathers 

I would hang on to the pleathers as backup in case a rabid coyote happened to maul the velours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MattTCG 

 

LOL. Actually I saw a coyote on the golf course recently. So I'll hang on to the pleathers just in case. 

LOL

Quote:

Originally Posted by MattTCG 

I find everything better on the velour, including the bass. I've listened back to back over and over. For me there is no question; velour does everything better. Anyone want to buy my gently used pleathers 

After getting a bit of insomnia at 4:00 a.m. this morning, I applied a top coat of polyurethane in my dining room and then moved on to trying the velour pads that came with my HE-5LEs.  Keeping in mind, I was about half awake at the time, I put on Kid Rock's "Born Free" to have a listen with the velour pads.  Clearly, the sound stage improved by many points.  Yet, on that particular album, I was finding that the recording alone was a bit bright and possibly not the best for trying out the velour pads.  I then realized, I missed some of the "warmth" that the protein leather pads provided on the HE-400s.  I then compared the pad thickness.  The protein leather pads were ever-so-slightly thicker than the velour pads, which meant for my fit and wearing, they would allow for slightly less clamping force than the other pads.

However, I'm not giving up just yet.  I'd still like to try my velour pads with some of the other genres that I listen to for the most part, as well as do the listening under more coherent situations for myself.