From Senn HD 555 to Hifiman HE400... not impressed - Page 6

I would simply not settle with the HE-400 and an e17, but thats me

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Originally Posted by h4mm3r 0f th0r 

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Originally Posted by aiacuone 

Hello to all, new here but ill get straight into it

 

Lerked these forums for a bit because i was interested in an upgrade from my HD555 (had them for around 3-4 years) and was looking for something with a bit more bass and grunt.

 

Did the "upgrade" from a 555 to a 595, wasnt tooooooo impressed but i was still surprised at how much louder my headphones were. I was originally going to get a set of Denon 2K's but stock finished and i wasnt really up for someones hand me downs so i thought ill get a set of HE400's. Ive been using them for around 3 hours now and i have to say despite the reviews.... these headphones arent much "IN COMPARISON" to the HD555 (or 95)

 

Let me put it this way, if i went straight from just your average in ear hp's to the 400s i would be impressed but i paid 150 for the sennys, i just paid 420 for the HE400s and the difference... especially in treble is almost negligible.

 

Admittingly i dont have an amp, but due to its low impedance i thought that it wouldnt matter that much, especially seeing as though my research has told me that it only increases volume not quality.

 

WHAT AM I MISSING GUYS?!?! ok it sounds better, but not $270 better. Are my 555s good or are my 400s ****? Or do i need an amp?

 

Thankyou

 

no amp/dac and no burn in... no wonder... it takes atleast one full week of long listening sessions to get used to a headphone... and the difference from a 20$ headphone is always subtle when upgrading from good to better than pathetic to great etc... you need both and amp and a dac... a dac more importantly as the he400 is not that hard to drive... get something like a fiio e17... it will drive them very well and have a good dac for the price... the trick to notice a great amount of difference from your previous gear is pretty simple... use the e17 and he400 combo for a month(let them burn in properly and let yourself get used to the sound)... after that change back to your old headphones with your original laptop source... you will hear the difference as night and day which are aren't hearing right now... sometimes downgrading can have an effect rather than upgrading to understand the difference properly... it happened to me when i started watching movies on blurays and i thought it was an overrated format as a solid dvdrip is almost as as good... but after a while when i switched back to dvd viewing or a while, it was mind boggling, the dvdrip looked like pixelated pile of crap...

Burn in is total bullschiit. Any changes you think you're hearing is your ears adjusting to the sound. My ears adjust to different headphones constantly, including ones I already owned, when I switch between them. It's the same every time.

And stop trailing off your statements with "...". It's annoying. Learn to type while you're at it.

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Originally Posted by takato14 

Burn in is total bullschiit.

And you have proof of that, of course.

Ok, I have to disagree with the the power requirements (or more current) being needed for this headphone.  

If you genuinely don't like how it sounds, more power won't get you any improvements.  Unless you are looking for a certain sound signature you want imparted on how the he-400 already sounds.

The HE-400 is much more efficient than the other planars, at 92.5dB @ 1mw.  For example, to drive an he-400 to 110dB SPL, you would need 10^((110-92.5)/10) = ~56.2mW.

HE-400 has a driver impedance of 35ohms.  This means you hit the 110dB peak at ~1.4Vrms or 40mA.

These are levels which a Fiio e17 can produce.  You're not missing out on much (power wise) if you use an e17 other than different sound signatures at which point we might as well be discussing getting a different set of cans.  Just my opinion.

TL;DR: It's highly unlikely it's an underpowering issue.

So the OP didn't go through with the amp purchase and settled on some EQ'ing?!   I was really rooting for him.....

Quote:

Originally Posted by takato14 

Burn in is total bullschiit. Any changes you think you're hearing is your ears adjusting to the sound. My ears adjust to different headphones constantly, including ones I already owned, when I switch between them. It's the same every time.

 

And stop trailing off your statements with "...". It's annoying. Learn to type while you're at it.

well that is true for some headphones... some headphones are designed to be good out of the box... but even with them i see a change in a few hours.. e.g i tried the xb500s for the first time thinking the bass would be mind blowing compared to my previous xb1000, in terms of quantity... but the impact was very week even with powerful amping... only in a few hours that changed but it did change for sure as i was checking headphones back and forth... when i bought the hd650s though, i didn't feel any change from burn in as they were great right off the bat... maybe burn in is more for your ears than for your headphone... doesn't matter, downgrading shows more quality difference than upgrading to an untrained ear... and plz stop commenting on people's typing skills, it is convenient for me as it is blazing quick to type and i don't care much about grammar as long as my point gets across...don't read if it is hard...

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Originally Posted by pp312 

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Originally Posted by takato14 

Burn in is total bullschiit.

 

 

And you have proof of that, of course.

Burn-in has no proof. Ears adjusting to equipment is proven. Your argument is invalid.

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Originally Posted by h4mm3r 0f th0r 

Quote:

Originally Posted by takato14 

Burn in is total bullschiit. Any changes you think you're hearing is your ears adjusting to the sound. My ears adjust to different headphones constantly, including ones I already owned, when I switch between them. It's the same every time.

 

And stop trailing off your statements with "...". It's annoying. Learn to type while you're at it.

 

well that is true for some headphones... some headphones are designed to be good out of the box... but even with them i see a change in a few hours.. e.g i tried the xb500s for the first time thinking the bass would be mind blowing compared to my previous xb1000, in terms of quantity... but the impact was very week even with powerful amping... only in a few hours that changed but it did change for sure as i was checking headphones back and forth... when i bought the hd650s though, i didn't feel any change from burn in as they were great right off the bat... maybe burn in is more for your ears than for your headphone... doesn't matter, downgrading shows more quality difference than upgrading to an untrained ear... and plz stop commenting on people's typing skills, it is convenient for me as it is blazing quick to type and i don't care much about grammar as long as my point gets across...don't read if it is hard...

Um, the XB1000 has FAR more bass (and far better bass) than the XB500, of course the difference wasn't "mind-blowing". The perceived difference is your brain tricking your ears. I guarantee if you went back to your XB1000 right now after listening to the XB500, you'd hear a major difference in the low end. As far as the HD650s goes, they're a similar tonal balance to the XB500, which is why you only noticed that they're ridiculously better than the XB500, and your ears didn't have any adjusting to do.

Guess what? I type fast too, doesn't mean that I can't use proper grammar while doing so. And, just so you know, you don't get your point across when you're too lazy to take the extra minute it would take to punctuate your writing. It significantly reduces how "smart" you appear to the reader and they won't take you seriously. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by takato14 

Um, the XB1000 has FAR more bass (and far better bass) than the XB500, of course the difference wasn't "mind-blowing". The perceived difference is your brain tricking your ears. I guarantee if you went back to your XB1000 right now after listening to the XB500, you'd hear a major difference in the low end. As far as the HD650s goes, they're a similar tonal balance to the XB500, which is why you only noticed that they're ridiculously better than the XB500, and your ears didn't have any adjusting to do.

 

Guess what? I type fast too, doesn't mean that I can't use proper grammar while doing so. And, just so you know, you don't get your point across when you're too lazy to take the extra minute it would take to punctuate your writing. It significantly reduces how "smart" you appear to the reader and they won't take you seriously. 

Okay, for your sake i will try and make proper sentences so i  get my point across better. The xb1000 has less bass than the xb500, especially in the mid bass region. What i meant was that the xb500 had less mid bass hump when i heard it for the first time(thinner and less impactful than the xb1000), but after a couple of hours the mid-bass grew more powerful and bigger than my older xb1000. And concerning the hd650s, i bought them after my hd598 which was before getting the sony xb series headphones. And no, the hd650s are nowhere anything similar to the xb500s or even my denon d2ks. My actual point is that to the untrained ears, the difference in upgrading is not that much(unless there is a huge sonic difference). You would appreciate the headphone more after you downgrade for a day or two to actually realize what you are missing. The "getting used to" period maybe what some people call burn-in, but i am fairly confident that atleast a few hours of burn-in is required(not talking about the crazy 50-100 hours of burn-in).

Lets get this over and move on.

Takato already finished himself.  XB500 sounds nothing like HD650.

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Originally Posted by TMRaven 

Takato already finished himself.  XB500 sounds nothing like HD650.

Emphasized low end? I'd call that similar. The HD650 just does it leagues better than the XB500 does.

Anyways my point stands. While burn-in may not have anything disproving it, it doesn't have anything that proves it, and the way our ears are designed allows them to adjust to different sounds over time. This is proven science. I think that while the components on a moving device (such as a headphone driver) could loosen up or change slightly over time, it cannot equate to a noticeable difference in sound. Claimed burn-in with equipment like tube amps and DACs with no moving parts is complete nonsense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by takato14 

Emphasized low end? I'd call that similar. The HD650 just does it leagues better than the XB500 does.

 

Anyways my point stands. While burn-in may not have anything disproving it, it doesn't have anything that proves it, and the way our ears are designed allows them to adjust to different sounds over time. This is proven science. I think that while the components on a moving device (such as a headphone driver) could loosen up or change slightly over time, it cannot equate to a noticeable difference in sound. Claimed burn-in with equipment like tube amps and DACs with no moving parts is complete nonsense.

but tyll actaully heared difference between a new Q701 and a burned in Q701, though the differences were minor he scored well in his blindtest.
its when people carry these burn in logic to anything else audio related then it becomes just absurdly stupid. (like amps and dacs stated above, but maybe except the tubes warming up[that's not really burn in anyway])

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Originally Posted by streetdragon 

but tyll actaully heared difference between a new Q701 and a burned in Q701, though the differences were minor he scored well in his blindtest.
its when people carry these burn in logic to anything else audio related then it becomes just absurdly stupid. (like amps and dacs stated above, but maybe except the tubes warming up[that's not really burn in anyway])

Yeah, I like how the sound of my tubes change over 2-3 hours before stabilizing xD

Quote:

Originally Posted by takato14 

Burn-in has no proof. Ears adjusting to equipment is proven. Your argument is invalid.

My "argument" was more a question, which you appear to have answered in the negative.

Quote:

Originally Posted by takato14 

Anyways my point stands. While burn-in may not have anything disproving it, it doesn't have anything that proves it, and the way our ears are designed allows them to adjust to different sounds over time.

 The argument about ears adjusting over time assumes that one burns in while listening, when many people, myself included, burn in without listening. I usually play pink noise overnight and next day then have a five minute listen in the evening. If I hear no change I continue burn in. If I seem to detect a difference I investigate with further listening. It's certainly true, as many report, that some components appear to change sound significantly and others little or not at all, which to me indicates that this is not self-delusion or else we'd be hearing differences in all components on each and every occasion. Science, I might add, does not have the last word as its terms of reference and parameters are constantly changing.