I've been trying to write a review of these headphones since September 13th, but I've been completely stuck. Simply put, I'm almost embarrassed by how much I love these headphones, and I find myself unable to write what I consider a critical assessment. My favorite reviews and reviewers on Head-fi are those that are able to strike a balance of criticism and praise. If anything is too one-sided, I lose trust in what I'm reading. So- I'm stuck...
I've had this happen before, with my main speakers, the Ohm Micro Walsh Talls. To me, they are the epitome of a mid-range speaker that can be truly end-game. I bought them as a compromise between quality and convenience, and after five years I'm still very much aware that I have no need or desire for another set of speakers. I think that the Hifiman HE-400i's are an even better value, and a better performing transducer, than my beloved Ohm's. So I guess I should toss objectivity to the wind, and tell you why.
Bass
I might as well start with the Achilles Heel of headphones: bass. I feel sorry for headphone manufacturers when it comes to this aspect of their work. The biggest problem with bass is the variety of styles and types that they are required to reproduce. There is the bowed, upright bass in classical music and the plucked upright in jazz and other genres such as bluegrass. Electric bass falls into various categories such as the Jazz Bass sound in jazz, funk, slap, and modern recordings, as opposed to the P-bass sound found in rock and blues. Yet another type of electric bass is the Rickenbacker sound of early Geddy Lee, Yes, and a diverse blend of metal and progressive music (and of course, each of the three can be found in other genres, but I'm sticking to generalizations and cliches). Then there's the effect-laden bass of dubstep and electronic music, synthesized bass, keyboard bass, sub-bass, movie soundtrack bass, explosions, and even ambience in live recordings. Bass is very, very difficult to deliver across all of these and other possibilities.
When it comes to audio, even though I'm a bass player, I'm no bass head. I need accuracy and detail in my headphone bass presentation. One of the most disappointing headphones I've owned is the Hifiman HE-5LE. Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic headphone. But after a few months, I realized that the awesome lower-octave of those cans was to the detriment of the midrange and overall balance. I found myself greatly preferring the Grado SR-225i's bass presentation, which almost completely rolls-off the bottom octave and a half. The 5LE's were great for movies and soundtracks, and were like wearing subwoofers on my head, but it overwhelmed the other stuff that I listened for, including vocals and percussion. Their replacement came with the Alpha Dogs, which extended deep, but honestly lacked the heft and weight that is present in a lot of recordings. If the mastering is perfect, the Dogs are hard to beat, but they miss something in less-than-stellar recordings (I do have them being upgraded to the Primes at the time of this writing, so I'll hear if they do a better job in a couple of weeks). The 225i's present the detail and nuance of the various types of bass, but fail to deliver sonic bombast when the recording calls for it.
The 400i's, for me, are the perfect compromise. Yes, they lack truly serious "oomph" below 40 Hz, but they do have moderate "oomph". They don't quite have the fine detail of the 225i's or the HE-560s that I auditioned. But they are very, very close. I can easily hear the difference between a Fender Jazz, Fender Precision, or the various Rickenbacker tones for electric bass. Synth bass has authority, and orchestral bass is almost perfect. The 400i's can swing from the tasteful bass in the Cowboy Junkies' Crescent Moon to Kyuss' Welcome to Sky Valley, and then all the way over the Return to Forever's Romantic Warrior. They are virtually effortless and transparent in this regard, and while they don't plumb the absolute depths like other headphones, they have yet to fail on anything I've thrown at them.
Midrange
When I think of mids, Grado comes to mind. I just love them. Models I have owned or heard over the past year include the 225i's, iGrado, RS1i, and GS1000e's. They are just so easy and casual with mids, and with the exception of the GS series, possibly the ultimate rock headphones. I'm sure many readers will disagree, but most of us can admit that a lot of rock fans love Grado, and vice versa.
The very first song I played on the 400i's as Into the Void by Black Sabbath. It's just my ultimate fuzzed-out guitar song, and the Grado's present that song perfectly. My first thought with the 400i's was "Holy *###, they sound just like the Grado's." The next couple weeks was pretty much a steady diet of hard and heavy guitar rawk, and I was never disappointed. Full, rich, saturated tone came out of these headphones, and I knew I was smitten. The 560's did not present this kind of music so naturally and effortlessly, and the 5LE's couldn't even begin to do so. The Alpha Dogs are too darn polite and restrained for me to really get my pulse moving.
If there is one minor nitpick with the 400i presentation, it's with vocals, both male and female. This is the area that reveals that they are not neutral, and that's with a slight bump I hear in the lower mids that adds a measure of thickness to voices. It's not unpleasant, but the Alpha Dogs are my choice when it comes to vocal/choral recordings. Other than that, or even because of that, the mids on the 400i's are so subjectively pleasing that I can live with just about any other shortcoming.
Treble
These are not the most extended, transparent, or "airy" headphones out there, not by a long shot. However, like the HE-560's, they seem to walk the fine-line between too much and a slight veil. Somehow, the zing of a cymbal crash, the slight squeal in some female vocals, and the piercing wail of a guitar solo are all presented fully without harshness or added sibilance. Like the bass, this is a Holy Grail of headphone listening for me. I simply don't need to change volume like I do with other cans if things get too bright, and I don't need to turn them up to hunt for detail. The word that comes to mind is 'balance'.
Image/soundstage/depth
I don't really expect much of the above factors from headphones. It could be one of the reasons I am rarely disappointed, and I consider myself lucky for that. Still, I am aware of them, and as far as I can tell for the most part the 400i's are perfectly average for these, with one exception. The depth presented with the 400i's is amazing to me, and I don't know how to account for it. The Alpha Dogs are also good for this, but the 400i's kick it up a notch. One of my favorite recordings for depth is Kill the King from the first album from the Masters of Reality. It is a very layered and detailed recording, and the image out of the them was so good, I thought I had my main rig on. I had to take off the headphones to verify that I was just listening to headphones. The Alpha Dogs might have more detail, but for some reason the 400i's come across to me as holographic if the recording calls for it. That's why I can tolerate the mids in vocals, because singers usually come across as right in front of me in a way I have not experienced since I hard Magnepan 20's about 15 years ago, or Apogee Scintilla's. But honestly, ever since I heard and owned Ohm F speakers, soundstage has never been a serious concern for me, because I don't think anything can throw an image like an amazing omni-speaker like that. I don't even try...
The Real Reason
Everything I've written is well and good, but none of that combined is the real reason I gush over these headphones. I gush because these observations and experiences are based on listening to them with the HP out of my Toshiba Satellite laptop using JRiver MC 20, Spotify, and recently, Tidal. If for whatever reason I need more volume than the Toshiba can supply, I use the FiiO E10. In both cases, the experiences meets or exceeds my subjective experience with a Burson amp with either a Shiit Bifrost Uber or the DAC straight out of my Oppo BDP-103, and combined with the Alpha Dogs, HE-560, HE-5LE, GS1000e, SR-225i, or the RS1i. Additionally, the 400i also bests the Sennheiser PX-100II and the iGrado with the same laptop. The mere idea that a $500 planar can do that with such a humble rig blows my mind.
I can't explain it. My degree isn't in engineering, it's in addiction psychology. I admit, it could be due to various biases, including expectation. In the end, I don't really care, since I don't listen to headphones for any professional reason. All I know is that the Burson is complete overkill for the 400i's, as is the Schiit Magni. I also cannot discern one objective difference in anything between either of them and the laptop/FiiO combination: vocals, percussion, basses, soundstage, imaging, or anything. Believe me, I'm not trying to state that anyone else will have the same experience as I do with such a low-power, seemingly low-resolution rig. The fact that I do is insane enough...
Postscript
One last thing, in the interest of full disclosure. When it comes to amps, dacs, cables, and modifications, I'm pretty much on the objectivist side of things. I don't ascribe to hardware modifications in headphones aside from the tape mod with my 225i's. To compensate for loudness contours and personal preference, I rely an EQ, both graphic and parametric (but not at the same time, of course.) My adjustments are 3 db or less (mostly), and involve cutting rather than boosting frequencies depending on the volume I'm listening at or the 'signature' of the headphone. It's just how I like to do things.
Update 3/31/16
Wow, as it really been almost a year and a half? My, how things change. I've added new gear like the Cavalli Liquid Carbon, ventured into balanced-cable land, and tried a few more headphones. I thought the Meze Classic 99's might un-seat the 400i's as my favorite all-around headphone, but that fear was short-lived.
I am still every bit as enthusiastic about these cans as I was back then. In fact, even more so. The Primes continue to best them in absolute clarity, detail, and transparency. But for me, the 400i's hit that razor-thin line between mid-fi and Summit-fi.
No headphone or IEM has come all that close to supplanting the 400i's on my personal "Wall of Awesome". One thing changed though: I have heard a difference in balanced configuration, with a high quality amp such as the LC, which causes me to revise my earlier statement about scalability. They do scale, and mightily so. I also am not so enamored with them out of an iPhone or other low-power source. They sound good, but not great, especially compared to the Meze.
Next up, I ordered the new Sennheiser HD-800S's. It will not be a fair fight, I know that. I do not expect them to hold up to TOTL dynamics like the Senns. But it will be an interesting experience...
In the meantime, I still stand by my 5-stars.
(Oh, and I turned in my 'objectivist card' as soon as I heard the Liquid Carbon. Just an FYI...)
I've had this happen before, with my main speakers, the Ohm Micro Walsh Talls. To me, they are the epitome of a mid-range speaker that can be truly end-game. I bought them as a compromise between quality and convenience, and after five years I'm still very much aware that I have no need or desire for another set of speakers. I think that the Hifiman HE-400i's are an even better value, and a better performing transducer, than my beloved Ohm's. So I guess I should toss objectivity to the wind, and tell you why.
Bass
I might as well start with the Achilles Heel of headphones: bass. I feel sorry for headphone manufacturers when it comes to this aspect of their work. The biggest problem with bass is the variety of styles and types that they are required to reproduce. There is the bowed, upright bass in classical music and the plucked upright in jazz and other genres such as bluegrass. Electric bass falls into various categories such as the Jazz Bass sound in jazz, funk, slap, and modern recordings, as opposed to the P-bass sound found in rock and blues. Yet another type of electric bass is the Rickenbacker sound of early Geddy Lee, Yes, and a diverse blend of metal and progressive music (and of course, each of the three can be found in other genres, but I'm sticking to generalizations and cliches). Then there's the effect-laden bass of dubstep and electronic music, synthesized bass, keyboard bass, sub-bass, movie soundtrack bass, explosions, and even ambience in live recordings. Bass is very, very difficult to deliver across all of these and other possibilities.
When it comes to audio, even though I'm a bass player, I'm no bass head. I need accuracy and detail in my headphone bass presentation. One of the most disappointing headphones I've owned is the Hifiman HE-5LE. Don't get me wrong, it was a fantastic headphone. But after a few months, I realized that the awesome lower-octave of those cans was to the detriment of the midrange and overall balance. I found myself greatly preferring the Grado SR-225i's bass presentation, which almost completely rolls-off the bottom octave and a half. The 5LE's were great for movies and soundtracks, and were like wearing subwoofers on my head, but it overwhelmed the other stuff that I listened for, including vocals and percussion. Their replacement came with the Alpha Dogs, which extended deep, but honestly lacked the heft and weight that is present in a lot of recordings. If the mastering is perfect, the Dogs are hard to beat, but they miss something in less-than-stellar recordings (I do have them being upgraded to the Primes at the time of this writing, so I'll hear if they do a better job in a couple of weeks). The 225i's present the detail and nuance of the various types of bass, but fail to deliver sonic bombast when the recording calls for it.
The 400i's, for me, are the perfect compromise. Yes, they lack truly serious "oomph" below 40 Hz, but they do have moderate "oomph". They don't quite have the fine detail of the 225i's or the HE-560s that I auditioned. But they are very, very close. I can easily hear the difference between a Fender Jazz, Fender Precision, or the various Rickenbacker tones for electric bass. Synth bass has authority, and orchestral bass is almost perfect. The 400i's can swing from the tasteful bass in the Cowboy Junkies' Crescent Moon to Kyuss' Welcome to Sky Valley, and then all the way over the Return to Forever's Romantic Warrior. They are virtually effortless and transparent in this regard, and while they don't plumb the absolute depths like other headphones, they have yet to fail on anything I've thrown at them.
Midrange
When I think of mids, Grado comes to mind. I just love them. Models I have owned or heard over the past year include the 225i's, iGrado, RS1i, and GS1000e's. They are just so easy and casual with mids, and with the exception of the GS series, possibly the ultimate rock headphones. I'm sure many readers will disagree, but most of us can admit that a lot of rock fans love Grado, and vice versa.
The very first song I played on the 400i's as Into the Void by Black Sabbath. It's just my ultimate fuzzed-out guitar song, and the Grado's present that song perfectly. My first thought with the 400i's was "Holy *###, they sound just like the Grado's." The next couple weeks was pretty much a steady diet of hard and heavy guitar rawk, and I was never disappointed. Full, rich, saturated tone came out of these headphones, and I knew I was smitten. The 560's did not present this kind of music so naturally and effortlessly, and the 5LE's couldn't even begin to do so. The Alpha Dogs are too darn polite and restrained for me to really get my pulse moving.
If there is one minor nitpick with the 400i presentation, it's with vocals, both male and female. This is the area that reveals that they are not neutral, and that's with a slight bump I hear in the lower mids that adds a measure of thickness to voices. It's not unpleasant, but the Alpha Dogs are my choice when it comes to vocal/choral recordings. Other than that, or even because of that, the mids on the 400i's are so subjectively pleasing that I can live with just about any other shortcoming.
Treble
These are not the most extended, transparent, or "airy" headphones out there, not by a long shot. However, like the HE-560's, they seem to walk the fine-line between too much and a slight veil. Somehow, the zing of a cymbal crash, the slight squeal in some female vocals, and the piercing wail of a guitar solo are all presented fully without harshness or added sibilance. Like the bass, this is a Holy Grail of headphone listening for me. I simply don't need to change volume like I do with other cans if things get too bright, and I don't need to turn them up to hunt for detail. The word that comes to mind is 'balance'.
Image/soundstage/depth
I don't really expect much of the above factors from headphones. It could be one of the reasons I am rarely disappointed, and I consider myself lucky for that. Still, I am aware of them, and as far as I can tell for the most part the 400i's are perfectly average for these, with one exception. The depth presented with the 400i's is amazing to me, and I don't know how to account for it. The Alpha Dogs are also good for this, but the 400i's kick it up a notch. One of my favorite recordings for depth is Kill the King from the first album from the Masters of Reality. It is a very layered and detailed recording, and the image out of the them was so good, I thought I had my main rig on. I had to take off the headphones to verify that I was just listening to headphones. The Alpha Dogs might have more detail, but for some reason the 400i's come across to me as holographic if the recording calls for it. That's why I can tolerate the mids in vocals, because singers usually come across as right in front of me in a way I have not experienced since I hard Magnepan 20's about 15 years ago, or Apogee Scintilla's. But honestly, ever since I heard and owned Ohm F speakers, soundstage has never been a serious concern for me, because I don't think anything can throw an image like an amazing omni-speaker like that. I don't even try...
The Real Reason
Everything I've written is well and good, but none of that combined is the real reason I gush over these headphones. I gush because these observations and experiences are based on listening to them with the HP out of my Toshiba Satellite laptop using JRiver MC 20, Spotify, and recently, Tidal. If for whatever reason I need more volume than the Toshiba can supply, I use the FiiO E10. In both cases, the experiences meets or exceeds my subjective experience with a Burson amp with either a Shiit Bifrost Uber or the DAC straight out of my Oppo BDP-103, and combined with the Alpha Dogs, HE-560, HE-5LE, GS1000e, SR-225i, or the RS1i. Additionally, the 400i also bests the Sennheiser PX-100II and the iGrado with the same laptop. The mere idea that a $500 planar can do that with such a humble rig blows my mind.
I can't explain it. My degree isn't in engineering, it's in addiction psychology. I admit, it could be due to various biases, including expectation. In the end, I don't really care, since I don't listen to headphones for any professional reason. All I know is that the Burson is complete overkill for the 400i's, as is the Schiit Magni. I also cannot discern one objective difference in anything between either of them and the laptop/FiiO combination: vocals, percussion, basses, soundstage, imaging, or anything. Believe me, I'm not trying to state that anyone else will have the same experience as I do with such a low-power, seemingly low-resolution rig. The fact that I do is insane enough...
Postscript
One last thing, in the interest of full disclosure. When it comes to amps, dacs, cables, and modifications, I'm pretty much on the objectivist side of things. I don't ascribe to hardware modifications in headphones aside from the tape mod with my 225i's. To compensate for loudness contours and personal preference, I rely an EQ, both graphic and parametric (but not at the same time, of course.) My adjustments are 3 db or less (mostly), and involve cutting rather than boosting frequencies depending on the volume I'm listening at or the 'signature' of the headphone. It's just how I like to do things.
Update 3/31/16
Wow, as it really been almost a year and a half? My, how things change. I've added new gear like the Cavalli Liquid Carbon, ventured into balanced-cable land, and tried a few more headphones. I thought the Meze Classic 99's might un-seat the 400i's as my favorite all-around headphone, but that fear was short-lived.
I am still every bit as enthusiastic about these cans as I was back then. In fact, even more so. The Primes continue to best them in absolute clarity, detail, and transparency. But for me, the 400i's hit that razor-thin line between mid-fi and Summit-fi.
No headphone or IEM has come all that close to supplanting the 400i's on my personal "Wall of Awesome". One thing changed though: I have heard a difference in balanced configuration, with a high quality amp such as the LC, which causes me to revise my earlier statement about scalability. They do scale, and mightily so. I also am not so enamored with them out of an iPhone or other low-power source. They sound good, but not great, especially compared to the Meze.
Next up, I ordered the new Sennheiser HD-800S's. It will not be a fair fight, I know that. I do not expect them to hold up to TOTL dynamics like the Senns. But it will be an interesting experience...
In the meantime, I still stand by my 5-stars.
(Oh, and I turned in my 'objectivist card' as soon as I heard the Liquid Carbon. Just an FYI...)