Have had my He1000's for about a month now and all I can say is Wow!
I did this review for another music forum I subscribe to so a lot of what I say will be preaching to the converted, I realise that but it may help some who are dithering and havnt yet committed to buying a pair? The guys and girls on that forum are not into their Headphones half as much as I am so they needed educating!
Anyway here goes with my thoughts and impressions..... and also some thoughts on the amp I have now paired the HE1000's with...the Violectric V281.....having previously been a Taurus MK2 user.
Hifiman's new flagship headphone, the HE1000 is quite stupendous in all aspects of performance. Not only have they made my Audeze LCD-X's obsolete and gathering dust they leave the likes of Sennheisers flagship the HD800 trailing way behind too. In a nutshell they have the best attributes of the Audeze LCD range like bass, depth and musicality and combine that with the clarity and soundstaging abilities of the HD800's. A winning and potent combination in my view! The perfect headphone? You bet they are!!
A lot of reviews I have read say they are even better than Stax SR-009 Electrostatic Earspeakers having a more potent bass reproduction. If you combine the cost of the energiser /amp you need to buy to drive the Stax headphones then the HE 1000 and Violectric amp combination appears to be a bit of a bargain!
The Hifiman HE1000 are a Planar Magnetic over the ear open backed headphone that employs technology featuring newly designed oblong drivers sporting an incredibly thin diaphragm and a two sided magnet structure utilising nanotechnologies in the development of the new drivers and, in particular, the diaphragm material which is specified as being “nanometer grade” in thickness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzyDw9o0pzQ
This technology and its implementation into the HE1000 equates to what sounds to my ears to be the nearest yet I have come to listening to a top quality hi end pair of speakers from a set of headphones.
And I can definately speak from experience here having owned a lot of esoteric high end headphones, past and present, like the Sennheiser HD800's, HD600's, HD650's and the Audeze LCD-X, Denon D7000 and D7001 and the Fostex TH900's. Believe me when I say the HE1000's have raised the bar so high they have taken headphone listening to a whole new level of magnificence!!
They are not that difficult to drive but really come alive when driven by a powerful headphone amplifier like the Violectric.
Looks wise they are just stunning.....not a hint of plastic anywhere here......They are constructed of all metal, leather and wood and their appearance and build quality really adds to their premium flagship status I must say. They look simply amazing and they are really comfortable to wear for long hours on your ears.
As I alluded to previously, listening to them is akin to listening to a pair of high end speakers. Highs sound really airy and fast, with tons of detail and no grating edge. Mids and vocals are reproduced with a lush quality that doesn't mask any of the finer details of a performance. Listening to vocalists, male or female, is highly addictive and unlike some headphones which come to life with certain types of music but not others, the HE1000's sound just as good with classical, Rock, Pop, acoustic, Jazz, electronic and Choral genres of music. Bass notes are reproduced with real authority and impact while not getting bloated or overly heavy as well. I have never heard a headphone that produces such amazing sub bass as these either. They thump two previous headphones I have owned that were considered to be the kings of Bass reproduction...namely the closed backed Fostex TH900's and also my old Denon D7000's both of which sound decidedly 'Tubby' by comparison.
I would say they are the new benchmark by which all other headphones will be judged and the fact that only the top Stax models can hold a candle to them means that the others have some catching up to do!
The Violectric V281 amp is a solid state ball of muscle and sinew and will drive any headphone to its maximum without breaking into a sweat.
Handbuilt in Germany by 'Lake People' electronics, the Violectric brand is their high end arm of the business. The designer is a very affable German guy called Fried Reim and with the new V281 he has basically taken two of the companies previous top model headphone amps,the V200, and piggybacked them together into one box so you have double the power. Its more complicated and there is far more to it than that but that is the essence of where the V281 gets its enormous power from.
The most noticeable thing when you first listen to the V281 is the totally silent background between notes. Not a hint of noise or background hiss even with power hungry little low impedance earphones or high impedance flagship headphones. There are 4 gain settings, ...more and less power... available to accommodate any impedances in any given headphone.
To take maximum advantage of the amplifiers power available you should run your headphones in balanced mode with a balanced cable...as opposed to a single ended termination one.
By doing this you utilise the full power and majesty of this superb amplifier. With regard to comparison with my previous headphone amp, the Auralic Taurus, the Violectric is simply effortless in its ability to reproduce music and drive the HE1000's. The Taurus could sometimes get a bit flustered and sound a bit muddled in complicated passages of music and could also be a bit shrill and bright in the treble as well. The violectric just sits there with a straight bat and hits everything you throw at it back at you with a tremendous power. The Taurus is an excellent amp by any standards but when directly compared to the Violectric it just comes up a little short and I personally believe that of the two ,having lived with them both, the Violectric is the better suited to extract the very best from the HE1000's. There is just something about the effortless authority of the Violectric that does it for me.
Now paired with my Auralic Vega processer Dac (which is a keep forever bit of kit by the way....its that good!!) the combination of that and the V281 working together to drive the HE1000's is mind blowing and a wonderfully rewarding experience!
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