gunting
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2005
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Question: How do you save a lot of cash and have great sonic performance from the original Hifiman HE-5 headphones?
Answer: Save the money you would spend on a powerful headphone amp and buy: the Emotiva mini 100 x ($180), the replacement headphone Hifiman cable ($150) which provides a balanced XLR jack, a pair of speaker cables (price varies - e.g., Signal Cable 6 foot about $70), and the Hifiman speaker box adapter ($100). If your amplifier is beneath 50 watts per channel you may consider the speaker adapter box an optional link in this chain.
Using this headphone speaker tap approach provides significant sonic benefit at a very reasonable price. This information is available in bits and pieces across several threads on Headfi but I thought I would bring it together in one post. This approach can also be used with the other Hifiman low efficiency models (e.g., HE-6). Driving the HE-5 from a speaker amp really opened up these cans.
Answer: Save the money you would spend on a powerful headphone amp and buy: the Emotiva mini 100 x ($180), the replacement headphone Hifiman cable ($150) which provides a balanced XLR jack, a pair of speaker cables (price varies - e.g., Signal Cable 6 foot about $70), and the Hifiman speaker box adapter ($100). If your amplifier is beneath 50 watts per channel you may consider the speaker adapter box an optional link in this chain.
Using this headphone speaker tap approach provides significant sonic benefit at a very reasonable price. This information is available in bits and pieces across several threads on Headfi but I thought I would bring it together in one post. This approach can also be used with the other Hifiman low efficiency models (e.g., HE-6). Driving the HE-5 from a speaker amp really opened up these cans.
