[paulybatz]

^ Entirely different flavors of ice cream. A properly powered planar HE-6 delivers more/better bass and sub-bass on a smaller sound stage--just for starters. I love the Senn HD 800 (+/- S), Focal Clear & Utopia and the HE-6. Yet each has a significantly different sound signature from the others.

So...I’m so confused by it all...lol

Should’ve went to CANjam

 

[dleblanc343]

How do these stand up against what’s around today??

If you want a single headphone I’d say a Focal Clear is a better all arounder. I still own an HE6 cause it’s a classic, but recently sold my Clears despite thinking it’s the best bang for your buck out there.(which replaced my HD800, but have one of those on the way again. Lol).

Clear has a more technical tuning, more reference tuned but does not have the visceral and textured bass of HE6 (not much does). Treble is in a way emphasized on both, but HE6 is less controled frequency response wise, but perhaps not always as clean tonally.

I personally prefer HE6, but realistically the Focal is a bunch more polished and reliable product, and a safer investment

 

[Armaegis]

How do these stand up against what’s around today??

As a longtime owner of an HE-6 who's run the gamut of ludicrousness and is currently sitting on a Schiit Wyrd -> Prism Lyra -> SPL Phonitor 2 -> dual mono Benchmark AHB2 -> ridiculously modded 4-screw HE-6... are you really prepared for the rabbit hole and neuroses this headphone entails? Or would you rather NOT have a 50 lbs stack of boxes on your desk and just plug in a nice set of headphones into gear that costs a quarter the price and simply enjoy yourself at being 98% of the way there?

 

[paulybatz]

Gosh...it feels that way indeed after coming back to all this after 7-8 years too

 

[sennfan83261]

So...I’m so confused by it all...lol

Should’ve went to CANjam

If you were in the Los Angeles area, there was a mini-meet at the SourceAV last weekend, where some of us brought our gear. Interestingly, there was an HE-6 mini-meet of sorts in one of the rooms with the HE-6 prototype (mine), 4-screw, and 6-screw editions there (all modded) hooked up to a Cayin stack. Furthermore, there were a ton of other headphones including the entire lineup of Focal (sans Elex) and Audeze cans, so any one could have A/B'ed any of the cans against each other across different gear. It was a ton of fun but a little bit overwhelming (in a good way).

 

[paulybatz]

Too coolness

 

[Silent One]

curious about the life of drivers...looking at some
Older phones and then had an epiphany about this.

My HiFiMAN HE-6: The Tale of Two Cities

As of Sunday night, I recorded 2,841 dedicated hours inside the listening room with the storied HE-6. Mating the cans to speaker taps on my monster receiver (1978 Sansui G-22000) is a bit like Godzilla mashing its way through Tokyo or a Dominatrix having her way in the Hollywood Hills. Both with little regard. While driver failure is certainly possible (pilot error?), it’s not something I’m concerned with.

 

[paulybatz]

Loves that!!!

 

[AlanHell]

You haven't even broke them in. 200 hours. And yeah, they do make a difference.

I have been using them quite a lot now. But given how much stuff I have to rotate, it will took another half a year to get the 200 hour done.
I daily driver is still HD800s

 

[AlanHell]

seriously??!!! $50,000??

I think there are always going to be 2 groups of HiFI people: one been High Fidelity to the sound; the other been High Fidelity to the music.
I respect both side, and understand that most of time, the "in house sound" of some high end system does make many music enjoyable.
However, I consider myself to be the group that want my system sound as transparent as possible.
Given that, as long as the amp is powerful enough to drive the headphone, most of them sounds very similar to each other if they measured linear.
Hence the claim that the gap between some very expensive amp V.S. some of the THX AAA amp is not as big as the price indicate.

but this i believe and can agree with:

 

[sennfan83261]

For running these from speaker taps, how high of a DC offset is too high? For my Crest CA2, I measured a DC offset of 2.5mV from one of the channel's output. For the other channel, it fluctuates around 0 and 0.x mV. For my D75-A, it fluctuates around 0mV on both channels, and my HE-6 works perfectly with it. I think I read somewhere that a DC offset of 85mV or higher would place 8ohm speakers in jeopardy. I don't think 2.5mV would be too much of a danger to the HE-6, anybody can confirm?

 

[Dobrescu George]

I posted one in-depth review, about the headponhe I always rant about, HE6SE!

I don't think it is perfect, and in fact, I found the time to complain about a lot of stuff, but I liked quite a few parts of their experience

https://www.audiophile-heaven.com/2020/03/hifiman-he6se-review-star-is-here.html

 

[auvgeek]

So I have an old Threshold Stasis s/150 ii, purchased as per this thread. As the rest of my chain has gotten more resolving, I find myself desiring a lower noise floor. Has anyone tried the HE-6 with a Schiit Aegir?

 

[cskippy]

Only read impressions, but Vidar is said to pair much better than Aegir with far better grip on the drivers. Maybe Aegir in monoblock configuration would best a single Vidar but I'm not certain.

 

[Tacanacy]

Someone recommended using the mesh from this as a grill, and I've seen several other people using a very similar mesh. How did you cut it?