[Whitigir]

Interesting. It might be personal taste, or may be your exposure to big bass HPs such as LCD4 or Abyss? So maybe your expectations are higher than mine in the bass department.
I dunno. But for me, modern dance and trance music, house music, all with pumping deep bass really is something on the 009. I compare it to my big speakers and it is on par IMO, and I have 12 inch woofers and a Velodyne sub. In some HPs particularly cheaper versions of IEM they have an exaggerated bass response, a happy V shaped EQ. It is passable I guess in those on the move IEMs but if that sound was scaled up into a good speaker setup, it would drown out the rest of the music and become a house shaking boom box IMO. I am personally convinced electrostatic HPs get close to reality, and in that way, won't have the response that would exaggerate huge amounts of bass energy. Makers of budget IEMs are playing to the market expectations on possibly younger buyers (huge generalisation, but you get me drift).

Interestingly, and IMO, a single drive speaker or HP will always struggle to do big bass energy and still maintain mid range detail and treble transparency. The energy in the bass can 'overload' the HP and simply reduce back any decay and transparency that electrostatics major on. This is my opinion anyway. The 009 driven well gets to my close ideal of the best of both worlds. In fact, to me, until I left the Lambda range for the 007 and 009, I was under the impression stats couldn't 'do' bass.

Going back to the HE-1 I would say from your impressions it is a superb HP, possibly the best ever made. But maybe isn't or shouldn't be a negative mark against it if it is not a bass head if it is balanced like the 009 for example. I will hear it on Saturday, can't wait....

You have KGSSHV Carbon....and Stax 009 is Stax Flagship, so no surprises. I have 009 with Grounded Grid, and as much a basshead as I am, 009 has plenty of "true bass dynamic". It is very satisfying. KG and his designs are awesome, and then we have KG T2....I can't wait to see what Stax will release in the futures, but I am sure having a KG amp, it will continuously make any future Stax headphones a "performer"......Future Proof!......unless you want an upgrade ! Or KG release T3 lol!

 

[astrostar59]

You have KGSSHV Carbon....and Stax 009 is Stax Flagship, so no surprises. I have 009 with Grounded Grid, and as much a basshead as I am, 009 has plenty of "true bass dynamic". It is very satisfying. KG and his designs are awesome, and then we have KG T2....I can't wait to see what Stax will release in the futures, but I am sure having a KG amp, it will continuously make any future Stax headphones a "performer"......Future Proof!......unless you want an upgrade ! Or KG release T3 lol!

Whitigir
I will get to hear the Stax T8000 tomorrow and 009s, see how far the Stax amps have got to nibbling away at KG designs. I won't have my DAC but i will use some key tracks I know really well for a blast, see what gives. The T8000 at £3.8K needs to be on par really or close. Still, it's cheaper than a BHSE.

 

[bmichels]

does someone know where I can purchase the Sennheiser HE1 demo disk ? It is a 2 CD set with great test music...

 

[up late]

i think it's safe to say that it wouldn't be available from anywhere other than sennheiser and it's for the purpose of demonstrating the he 1

 

[bmichels]

anyone has a contact at Sennheiser to who I could ask for the CD ?

 

[up late]

you could try sending them an email enquiry or give them a call

 

[Deftone]

you could try sending them an email enquiry or give them a call

id go with this.

 

[Deftone]

Im a bit confused at why (foo fighters - all my life) is on their "demonstraition" CD, i have the album containing that song 'One By One' it is one of the worst CDs i have ever heard for sound quality next to death magnetic, its a great album but i rarely listen to it for said reason. Unless there is another master but cant find any information on it.

 

[raypin]

Mmm...more impressions. After logging about 25 hours of quality listening in the absolute best possible setting that I can manage (my headphone space/23 degrees celsius/recliner seat/12 to 2 am/no distraction/alone/scented candles as the only light source), one thing that strikes me about the HE 1 is the dead-quiet space between musical notes. It is listening in the vacuum of outer space. Each musical instrument, each vocal and each note just have this wonderful space to breathe, effortlessly allowing me to zoom in and enjoy. I have read that Sennheiser was obsessed in reducing distortion to the absolute lowest level and maintaining the lowest possible noise floor. I can confidently confirm that. No hiss. No artifact. Just pure audio to enjoy.

Misc.: I almost forgot.The tubes/valves lasts 15,000 minutes or 250 hours playing time before replacement (all 8 needs to be replaced at the same time).

 

[dadracer2]

i think it's safe to say that it wouldn't be available from anywhere other than sennheiser and it's for the purpose of demonstrating the he 1

I wonder if it has been been done by Stockfisch as a sampler for the HE1. They did the samplers for the HD800 and 700s........might be worth contacting them also?

 

[mulder01]

Probably easiest to just buy an Orpheus - then it's free

 

[Dobrescu George]

Mmm...more impressions. After logging about 25 hours of quality listening in the absolute best possible setting that I can manage (my headphone space/23 degrees celsius/recliner seat/12 to 2 am/no distraction/alone/scented candles as the only light source), one thing that strikes me about the HE 1 is the dead-quiet space between musical notes. It is listening in the vacuum of outer space. Each musical instrument, each vocal and each note just have this wonderful space to breathe, effortlessly allowing me to zoom in and enjoy. I have read that Sennheiser was obsessed in reducing distortion to the absolute lowest level and maintaining the lowest possible noise floor. I can confidently confirm that. No hiss. No artifact. Just pure audio to enjoy.

Misc.: I almost forgot.The tubes/valves lasts 15,000 minutes or 250 hours playing time before replacement (all 8 needs to be replaced at the same time).

Woah... 250 Hours is quite something for the tubes

 

[mulder01]

250 hrs?

I thought tubes lasted thousands of hours?

 

[Oscar-HiFi]

Woah... 250 Hours is quite something for the tubes

Yeah, that is nothing :/ who pays for replacements?

Most small tubes have a life span of 5000-10000 hours...

 

[raypin]

Mm...owner pays. Don't ask for the price of the valve set.... . All I can say is.....I need to use the HE 1 for selected albums only. The rest can be played through my lesser headphones. The manual does state that even if the tube or tubes need to be replaced (as indicated by the status light on the volume pot), the unit can still be used although there may be some degredation in SQ. What that degree of degredation is I guess I will find out sometime in the future.