**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 370

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy 

Now Jerg needs to do it with velours.

It doesn't work that way, velours don't have the tonality I want, besides it is already very well-damped so adding holes will do jack.

The reason why I even considered ripping up a $20 pad in the first place to try modding it, is because I saw the potential in the pleathers. It had a tonality that accentuates the warm full-bodied sound that the planars give, but needed the extra nudge to extract upper end detail and sound cleaner and less resonant in the midrange.

Doesn't matter how hard you mod the velour pads, they will not ever have the weighty lush lower end that the pleathers have.

Hey jerg, just one question.

Do the holes need to be spaced evenly with laser precision? Because i messed up a little in that part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hifi Man 

 

 

Well, this is the kind of news that I was fearing. I had an original goal to use a budget of 500 dollars to get a pair of headphones. I'm not able to spend another 80 dollars I hadn't planned to spend, especially when I'm not sure what the difference in sound will be. Though, it looks like there's enough people on this site to convince me that they do in fact need an amplifier. In that case I will probably end up returning these headphones and the DAC (it's a schiit modi). Is there any headphones + amplifier that would sound good for metal? I want to take advantage of the return policies I have right now, and in the end I'll probably still want a high end audio equipment upgrade from my Logitech G35s. 

 

Maybe this isn't the right thread to ask. Is there a thread I can use for this discussion?

If you can manage to get the Magni to complement the Modi, you will most certainly be golden - it is an excellent value for what you can get out of these headphone for the price.  The extra wattage really brings the HE--400 to life from my experience.  I currently use the Magni connected to my sound card, a Titanium HD, but will plan on getting the Modi eventually.  If you have a decent sound card, I'd say swap the DAC for the amp for the time being if funds are short.  I listen to quite a bit of metal (Ulver's Bergtatt is melting into my ears right now), and I find my current combo works brilliantly, albeit with the occasional minor EQ tweak here and there.  

As for an alternative, I've not had an opportunity to try many other full size headphones out yet, but I'd suggest looking into Beyer's DT880/DT990, Denon D2000 (if you can find one) or possibly Grado's SR225 or lower models (I have a friend who has these and is also an avid metal fan).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Okamoto 

Hey jerg, just one question.

 

Do the holes need to be spaced evenly with laser precision? Because i messed up a little in that part.

I answered to that question in the guide thread actually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Lust Envy 

You hear lush, I hear muddiness, and mid recession like woah. Not that it matters. They could sound like LCD5s, I'd still wouldn't wear the pleathers.

Muddiness? Solved by the mod. The clarity is now on par with velours, but still with the pleather weightiness in the low end, and lack of brightness/sibilance up top.

Mids recession? Now mids are more forward and present than even the velours. Solved.

 

Yeah you live in Florida so it doesn't matter. But if you ever decide to move a bit more North, then doing this mod is a no-brainer 

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrokeStudent 

Fair enough. I dont have much experience with amps so I did a quick search on this site to see if anyone knew anything about that amp. It appears that its a decent speaker amp but not a great headphone amp. However, it would still be a good idea to plug your HE400s in there (and into a good source) as they will still provide some amplification that would give you at least a decent idea as to how these things should sound.

Oh yeah, the sound is definitely fuller, richer and louder. I hear a bit of static and fuzz every here and there but apparently that's because the amp isn't very high quality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrokeStudent 

I see, when I open up my HE400s all I see is an opaque/clear plastic. I checked some pictures out and its definitely not the bone coloured one. 

I'd also love to know how to tell apart rev 2 from rev 4 (and what the differences are believed to be).  I just got a pair of HE-400s via Moon Audio, and believe they were "fresh" stock (so rec'd from  HiFiMan in the past couple weeks.  IIRC, the plastic support was white (not sand), but I'm not sure what "support" people refer to when spotting the rev 4.  Anyone have pics or suggestions on how to spot the difference?

My friend who is making me the fleece cover for the Brainwavz stand is going to make a few different sets of pads to try out with the HE-400. I recommended she read this thread to get some ideas for material and what everyone thinks is the best. I'll have her look into Jerg's mod because I imagine damping is one of the key characteristics that would be hard for her, someone who doesn't care for high-quality audio, to nail. She can work with all of the materials discussed so far.

I'm excited! Once she has a few prototypes so to speak, I'd love to send it to a couple of you who are into pad-fi (Jerg for sure) to get some thoughts to help her refine them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ninjames 

My friend who is making me the fleece cover for the Brainwavz stand is going to make a few different sets of pads to try out with the HE-400. I recommended she read this thread to get some ideas for material and what everyone thinks is the best. I'll have her look into Jerg's mod because I imagine damping is one of the key characteristics that would be hard for her, someone who doesn't care for high-quality audio, to nail. She can work with all of the materials discussed so far.

 

I'm excited! Once she has a few prototypes so to speak, I'd love to send it to a couple of you who are into pad-fi (Jerg for sure) to get some thoughts to help her refine them.

Cool cool. Looking forward to it!

pad-fi, I love that term :D

Thanks again Jerg.

Honored to be the first to try this in the wee hours of the night. Took me about an hour I want to say.

I like velour more than stock pleather, but I was craving something that was a blend. This so far seems to have fullfilled it.

Even though I'm not sure I won't put nylon mesh on it sometime, I do like the look of the naked driver. Plus I kinda don't want to deal with the ring-clip thing again unless it's glued together (the pad and ring). It was too tricky.

As a relative newbie to full-size headphones, I'm not very clear on the wattage/voltage/impedance relationships and how to evaluate different amps for my HE-400s.  I currently feed my cans from an Emotiva XDA-2 DAC/digital preamp, which has the following output from its headphone jack:

1.9 VRMS max into 10 Ohms @ 

< 0.02% THD (360 mW)
2.25 VRMS max into 47 Ohms @ 
< 0.015% THD (100 mW)
2.25 VRMS max into 100 Ohms @ 
< 0.01% THD (50 mW)

I'm assuming the output at the 35 ohm impedance of the HE-400 is going to be somewhere around 2 or 2.1 vrms.  I played with a spreadsheet from apexhifi.com and tried to make the relationships between VRMS, p-p voltage, impedance, and wattage all make sense.  The Schiit Lyr, for example, is rated at 40V P-P at 32 ohms, and my calculator says that corresponds to 6200mw - right at the 6 watts claimed by Schiit, so I think I'm not screwing this up too badly.  Using that calculator, the 2.1 vrms at 35 ohms is only 126mw.  That's twice what I need to drive the HE-400 to 110dB (not that I want to, just using 110 as point of reference).  However, if the Asgard is putting out 20V P-P at 32 ohm (the Schiit site doesn't say 32 ohms, but that is what they quote for the Lyr voltage measurement), that's 1562mw - more than ten times the current output of the XDA-2!  I've heard class A amps output about 10% of the power draw.  The Asgard draws up to 30 watts, so 1.5 is only 5% but in the ballpark.

I have no idea if that difference in current matters or not, but I'm hoping someone can help confirm that these calculations sound reasonable.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Quote:

Originally Posted by merkil 


Which pad mod? J$ pads or jerg pleather hole?

Hopefully, that doesn't represent anything similar to a "Glory Hole." 

New thread topic: Jerg's hole

Quote:

Originally Posted by ninjames 

My friend who is making me the fleece cover for the Brainwavz stand is going to make a few different sets of pads to try out with the HE-400. I recommended she read this thread to get some ideas for material and what everyone thinks is the best. I'll have her look into Jerg's mod because I imagine damping is one of the key characteristics that would be hard for her, someone who doesn't care for high-quality audio, to nail. She can work with all of the materials discussed so far.

 

I'm excited! Once she has a few prototypes so to speak, I'd love to send it to a couple of you who are into pad-fi (Jerg for sure) to get some thoughts to help her refine them.

Be careful, my friend.  You don't want to become associated with the MOT tribe. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wje 

 

Be careful, my friend.  You don't want to become associated with the MOT tribe. 

Well, I'll admit, I did tell her that if she made them very well, that audiophiles are horrible with their money and would likely pay for them :]