My HiFiman HE-500s came yesterday. Mind you, these are very early impressions. For now I am using them with my Woo Audio WA2, but I have an Emotiva Mini-X A-100 on the way. The cable that comes with the phones is terrible. I would have preferred that HiFiman include the same cable that comes with the HE-400 instead of the microphonic piece of junk that comes with the HE-500. So anyone buying these should factor in the cost of good after market cable when planning your purchase. I ordered mine from BGT Audio this morning.
Now that my cable rant is out of the way. I listened to three albums last night: one jazz, one classical, and one rock.
The jazz LP was Ben Webster Meets Oscar Peterson on a minty Verve stereo LP. The bass was a little pronounced, but overall the sound quality was fantastic. It was easily the best this LP has sounded on a set of headphones (and I have tried a lot). The classical LP was a recording of some outtakes of Bizet's Carmen with Ruggerio Ricci as the featured soloist on a Decca SXL wideband stereo LP. I was left with the impression that the HE-500 is not particularly good for classical music, at least for large ensemble and orchestral works. Powerful passages with the orchestra fully engaged seems to lack body and heft. I swapped out the HE-500 for my Sennheiser HD598s and the latter yielded a much more satisfying listen on this LP. I will have to do more listening with classical so the jury is still out. Next up was the Peter Gabriel album So, on 200g vinyl reissued by Classic Records. Like jazz, the sound was pretty lively and engaging. Loved it.
For the most part, I think the HE-500s are deserving of all of the praise they get. My first exposure to them suggest they are outstanding for jazz and rock, and less so for classical music. I bought mine after a pretty disappointing experience with the HE-400s, which to my ears sounded very dark, muddy, and closed in with awful treble response. So my suggestion to someone considering the HE-400 would be to save your pennies and get the HE-500 instead. You'll be glad you did.
--Jerome