OK. I received my loaner pair last night. They were sent to Fang instead of directly to me in error. It was just a really good excuse to see Fang's beautiful wife once again.
Out of the box impressions (since then I have been running them for 18 hours straight): The Bass is definitely stronger and deeper than the 5LE's.
They also have more detail and the highs are a bit bright out of the box, which should tame down with some time on them, but have a realism about them that bests the HE-5LE's. The detail is beautiful.
I was listing to Hiromi for piano and Jane Monheit for female vocals and I was extremely impressed.
They are covered in brown leather (I guess Head-Direct was listening when people at Canjam said that the HE-5, He-5LE and HE-6 all look the same).
Not any more. They are noticeably heavier than the 5LE's and I asked Fang and he said they used more magnets for the bass and detail. The
surrounding metal plates are made from some sort of gold alloy. On your head, they extra heaviness is not detectable, as these headphones are as comfortable as comfortable gets. They can be worn for hours on end, and the earpads and headband are done with a touch of class. Also, included, there is another set of screws for those who want to re-cable, so you don't have to go looking for the terminations. Nice touch.
The loaner pair came with multiple connection options for playback. The cables still screw into the earpieces, with a 4 pin Neutrik termination, but in the loaner box, there were several cables, including a tinned cable for spade connections, a banana plug connection cable and a standard 1/4" termination, which all connect to the 4 pin XLR. Also, the box, instead of just being wood is encased a soft leather or pleather finish, like the HM-801's.
Right now, I am using a pair or Dared VP300b Quasi-monoblocks which output 6 watts from the speaker taps, with a beautiful pair of Sophia Princess 300B's for output and a pair of 12au7's for input that I bought from Jack Wu. This amp also has a pre-amp
built in, so they have their own volume controls.
If you are in the loaner program, please be advised that most headphone amps, even with the 1/4" adapter, will not output enough power for the HE-6's and you will need a speaker amp to supply adequate power to drive these puppies to their fullest potential.
You will also need a pre-amp, I use the EF-5 which does a lovely job when using my Adcom 100w.p.c. dedicated amp. The EF-5
acts as a wonderful pre-amp for those of you who have one.
After 18 hours, the bass tightened up nicely and the brightness of the highs subsided.
I have found that the HE-6 does a really a nice job with everything that you can through at it. From Metallica's "Reload" to Diana Kralls "Girl in the other Room"
I can't really find anything bad to say about them. They are going to priced to be competitive with the LCD-2's and as a loyalty ownership, there will be a an additional discount to anyone who has already an HE-5 or 5LE but I don't know what that discount is going to be.
Perhaps Fang can chime in on the pricing structure,
After a week, the loaner pair is going to go to baka1969 and then another gentleman in Philly (close by Baka1969) and then to DannyB. After that it will go to Warp08 in Virginia (shipping logistics) and then Fang will make a list of the other 10 people based on shorter shipping distances.
In the west, after HeadphoneAddict, it will probably go to ASR (another Colorado resident), and then over to nonsexual and make it's way through the west (whichever has the shortest shipping time, so everyone will get it in the shortest time possible.
More impressions to follow after 100 hours.
