**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 360

Quote:

Originally Posted by kothganesh 

Hi Matt:

 

I have just ordered the HE-400 and can't wait to get my hands on it after reading your post and updates. FYI, I have also ordered the Bifrost and the Asgard (Jason's recommendation). My music source is the iPod Touch (latest gen). In your trials, did you experiment with different sources , e.g. laptop, a music player like Cowon.

 

Curious to know if the source makes a huge difference. 

 

Thanks

Bifrost>Asgard>HE400 is a pretty solid setup, just know that it will be very very detailed and revealing, so be prepared that some low bitrate or poorly mastered music will sound like crap, while better mastered lossless stuff will sound really great.

Thanks Mat ! I am sorry I was not clear in my earlier post. I did intend to go from the iPod to the DAC/Amp combo and then to my headphones. Looks to me you are suggesting laptop, iPod, combo and then headphones.

I will certainly give this a shot.

Boy, you must be clairvoyant! I was (very furiously) converting all of my music to Apple lossless when I saw your post. really appreciate the heads up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy 

I dunno. I plug the HE400 straight to my Galaxy Note 2, and it sounds pretty damn good.

Sounds pretty good coming out of my iPhone 5 as well.

Tim

I'm not sure if you got the USB version or not but it won't be as satisfying from your iPod into the Biforst, 3.5mm-RCA or dock-3.5mm-RCA or whatever you are doing. If you plug it into the computer it bypasses the sound card in the computer, essentially it's own (I think I'm correct?). This is how you should use it to get optimal sound from your HE-400's. You can't really bypass the internal DAC on an iPod, just amplify it. The iPad I believe is the only Apple mobile product you can use a USB DAC with, by using the camera connector kit, you get a pure digital signal this way, the same way you would with USB from your computer. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by kothganesh 

Thanks Mat ! I am sorry I was not clear in my earlier post. I did intend to go from the iPod to the DAC/Amp combo and then to my headphones. Looks to me you are suggesting laptop, iPod, combo and then headphones.

How do you plan on connecting the iPod to the Bifrost?

Will be a waste of money to use the headphone output of the iPod.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kothganesh 

I bought the Bifrost with the USB option. That wayI was hoping to bypass the internal DAC of the iPod.

Tough luck bro, Apple locked iPods by design not to have its internal DAC bypassed.

You might as well just use the DAC/amp setup with your PC permanently, since they are not portable anyhow, and you can store lossless music in huge archives on the PC, and not on the iPod.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jerg 

Tough luck bro, Apple locked iPods by design not to have its internal DAC bypassed.

 

You might as well just use the DAC/amp setup with your PC permanently, since they are not portable anyhow, and you can store lossless music in huge archives on the PC, and not on the iPod.

From what I've read, and heard from other sources, there are just a few companies that have gone through the licensing and approval by Apple to do this.  Fostex, is one such company with the $550 amp/DAC offering, as well as a few others.  But, that number is quite small.  This is why there are some of us die hard iPod Classic "5" / Video, where that last model featured the Wolfson DACs and had great sound.  After that, things changed and not for the better.

Quote:

Originally Posted by FlySweep 

The Lake People G109-S arrived a few hours ago.  I've got it running with the ODAC & HE-400.

 

The sound?  I'm pretty sure I've died & gone to heaven.  Just phenomenal sound quality.  It's worth every penny (and more), in my experience so far.

 

It's freakishly transparent.. and makes the HE-400 sound utterly effortless.  The sound is hypnotically clean, effortless, & natural.  Tremendous depth and detail.  I can't believe the quality of instrument separation, detail, and tonal accuracy I'm hearing.  Just astounding.  It makes the O2 sound, comparatively, slow and muddy .

 

My solid state, desktop amp search is over.  This delivers everything I was looking for.

 

Give me some time to pick my jaw off the floor and gather my thoughts.

No surprises here, these are the same guys that make the Violectric amps after all (I think). Glad to see you're enjoying them so much, even now after owning these for the best part or 3 months they still awe me with new music.