marshallmole
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2013
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As a starter on head-fi journey I'd like to try to share a little of my experience of these two, which are both highly appreciated headphones here. I have studied playing piano since the age of 6, but has gone relatively rusty since college, and have been to many live concerts (mainly classical) in different cities. The Krannert Center here in Urbana is very nice and affordable. I mainly listen to classical works, but also lots of electronic and jazz, and occasionally metal, rock and pop songs. In my younger days I had a period with rap music as well (wow).
I've owned the HE-5LE for about 6 months, and the T1s 2 months. Total usage of T1s are around 150 hours, I modded the stock cable with 4pin XLR termination. The 5LE were acquired second-hand, I believe they are fully burned in, and they are the earlier 'Rev 1' version with varnished plastic housing. They are aftermarket recabled in 4pin XLR as well, and modded with Beyer EDT990VB pads (the same as T1 pads) and removed cloth on the grill.
My current system is Foobar via ASIO->Audio-gd DI-DSP (with battery power supply)->NFB10ES->Bottlehead S.E.X with C4S. Most connections are generic cables, nothing fancy here. I guess I'm not yet on the stage of playing with cables.
Here's my comparison. I begin with a few words on wearing comfort, then proceed with listening impressions on different albums, and conclude with some overall remarks.
----------------------------------------
Wearing Comfort
T1 in general is better. They feel (and are) lighter, slightly less clamping force. The HE-5LEs are just a little behind because of their own weight--but I could easily wear either for an entire 2 hour session. The one problem I have with T1s are that the bottom part of ear pads seem to bear more pressure than the upper part, which leads to more pressure in the bottom of pads, this effect has grown visible in recent days. Of course this may be due to the shape of my head. No such issue with the 5LEs though.
Album Impressions
Duke Ellington--Blues in Orbit (16/44)
--a classic big band jazz album. I have a tendency to favor complex music works. Jazz for me is relatively unfamiliar and purely for enjoyment. I often find myself tapping my fingers to the rythm over night.
5LE: slight softness in sound suits slow-paced music well. very musical. presentation is fairly accurate, instrument separation could be better. Soundstage very large. Piano has very nice higher harmonics, while still have solid body and cohesiveness. Winds are very slightly muffled, making them more smooth sounding. Cymbals are not harsh at any moment. Bass still has good detail. Drums seem to be slightly softened, but has nice presence and weight.
T1: very realistic sounding. Soundstage a bit smaller, but very accurate instrument placement. Piano sounds very solid and cohesive, slightly less glow in upper harmonics, but greater presence. Similarly winds and cymbals has a realistic brightness/detail. Very solid controled bass and high detail retrieval on bass. Presentation is more 'front-projecting', has better depth and height, though less width.
Infected Mushroom--Legend of the Black Shawarma (16/44)
--one of my favorite psych-trance albums. Again, this is relative complex electronic music, with a significant amount of eletrical guitar, and also much high frequency sounds, relatively challenging to gears.
T1: very well defined and extended bass, with 'neutral' quantity. Electrical guitars sounds very correctly distorted. Very capable in delineating all the 'instruments'. Can track each of them with good clarity in complicated passages. Maybe a little fatigueing to some people (since the amount of high freq is relatively high on this album). Very energetic. Exposes harshness in some vocal passages (which I believe is in the voice itself).
5LE: A bit easier to listen to. A bit more bass quantity, and a bit more 'meaty' drum beats. 'Wet'. Upper glare is there still, but limited to some frequency range. Distorted voice is indeed very 'eletrical' (which is good for this genre). Eletrical guitars' highest distortion is a little bit understated (helps with fatigue but perhaps less accurate). Distinction of instruments is very good, but in complex scenes, some background sounds lose their clarity a bit (less such effect on T1).
J.S.Bach-Trio for Flute, Violin, Cello, Cembalo (24/192)
--a great sounding recording that excels in transparency IMO. Very enjoyable while demanding for instrument reproduction and detail retrieval.
5LE: Flute sounds marvelous. Highly transparent and musical. Cembalo very well depicted, perhaps slightly tamed its 'initial glare' (which actually is a good thing with most cembalo recordings). Violin is also almost perfect. Only problem is with the cello. It feels slightly muffled due to loss of highest freq details (for a cello), although still very musical and full-bodied. No problem with instrument placement, and very clearly separated. No problem with detail retrieval. Turning of score pages and breathes quite accurate. Overall extremely enjoyable.
T1: Flute is even more transparent, perhaps a bit less musical. Violin has a more significant airiness and transparency. Cembalo is very accurate, probably the closest to real cembalo I've heard (in a museum in Munich). Timbre of cello is also more accurate than the 5LE. The overal tonal balance is again slightly brighter, which if played for long hours might be a drawback for someone.
Shostakovich-Symphony No.15-J.Darlington/Duisburger Philharmoniker (24/192)
--my new found gem among Shostakovich's works, which are often more complex than most classical symphonies, with many exotic instruments and strange sonic effects.
T1: clear portrait of the whole music picture and accurate details. With this kind of quality source file, you really don't have to worry about treble harshness. True that cymbals and percussions sound bright, but in a 'right' way. Each group of instruments has its own position in the soundstage, although the angular distance between adjacent ones are quite small, they are still very well separated and articulated. Each group doesn't occupy a large 'space', but has very solid body and 'density'. Peculiar details like a cello solo passage, extreme percussion sounds (sorry not sure its name) are perhaps emphasized a bit.
5LE: Lows are a bit more powerful/impactful. Overall a softer tone, shown in mellower highs (though still on the bright side of neutral, but not far away). Very similar in timbre reproduction and detail retrieval, only that sounds in the centre of stage seem to be less 'focused' or articulated than T1.
Chopin-Ballade in G-moll, Scherzo in B-moll, etc.-A.Michelangeli (24/96)
--my reference album on Chopin.
T1: The entire frequency spectrum of the piano is very precise. Very articulate in the variety of timbre and 'touch' showcased by the master Michelangeli. The first time I heard Op 23 in this album through the T1s made me realize just how great this performance and recording is, as well as helped me understand how to play this piece (Op.23) better (of course to achieve this I'll need a much better piano, and much much more practice. )
5LE: The high notes on the piano sounds very gorgeous. Lower notes, however, sounds a little bit boomier than real. The timbre reproduction, while very good in its own, is one league behind the T1s'. In forte passages the 5LEs sounds good enough (e.g., opening sentences of Op 31), but in piano passages (sostenuto in op 31, largo in op 23) the lack of minute details is more evident. I likely did not notice many of these flaws until I heard the T1s.
Mahler-Des Knaben Wunderhorn-Fischer-Dieskau/Schwarzkopf/Szell (16/44)
--Mahler is my favorite composer so far. This work, albeit not his best, is probably the most 'original' mahler, thus I've recently grown more and more fond of it. It is a piece for soprano and baritone with full orchestra.
5LE: Fischer-Dieskau's voice sounds very good. The orchestra overall has a surrounding feeling, while the singers stand in the center. Elizabeth's voice is especially charming. Overall better suited for pure enjoyment than T1.
T1: Treble in human voices are definitely more present, though not offending. A very distinct advantage in T1 is that the feeling of distance is very precisely created, by the contrast of distant, muffled drum beats and clear, detailed voices. Instruments in the center feels more front-projected. Both headphones have the right human voice placement for me--pretty much neutral.
Overall Remarks
Soundstage, imaging:
The soundstage of T1 is almost a circle, lacking the part at the extreme back of your head, with very good height and depth. Pure width is a little less than 5LE. The shape of 5LE soundstage is more of an ellipse, width is more elongated than depth and height. The depth of 5LE is probably about average in the headphones I've heard, but the width is definitely stellar.
In terms of imaging and instrument placement, I think the T1s have the upper hand here. They just give everything its own correct place, as I've said above, 'Each group of instruments has its own position in the soundstage, although the angular distance between adjacent ones are quite small, they are still very well separated and articulated'. The 5LEs sometimes make bass instruments larger than accurate, sometimes instruments in the center stage feels less well delineated, and is more like in your head, rather than in front of you. Ultimately the T1s will be better for serious listening to orchestral works.
Tonal Balance:
My feeling is that while these two are actually quite close, T1s are closer to neutral. However I'd keep things in relative terms and avoid absolute assessment of neutrality and naturality.
In comparison, the 5LEs have a slightly juicier, stronger bass, that can sound boomy on some classical tracks, similar to the bass character of HD650s but not as evident. Pure bass extension is perhaps on par (I'm never good at distinguishing those sub-bass things). I suspect this bass character is also related to the mids lushness of the 5LEs, which is I believe characteristic to Hifiman and planar headphones in general. But the lushness is nothing overdone.
T1's bass and mids are relatively linear, with only a touch of warmth, barely noticeable--perhaps not there after all. What's really characteristic of T1's tonal signature is the energetic voice IMO. I guess the treble and high freq on T1s must be something very special. But even that couldn't entirely describe and explain the 'energy' in the sound.
One thing that's sometimes a problem for me is that the HE-5LEs probably have deliberately tuned down a part of lower treble (a wild guess would be somewhere near 7-8 kHz). This sometimes muffles out high freq details of cellos (which I personally emphasize) and reduces some fullness of violins, but perhaps also helps with many pop singer's voice (makes them less harsh).
The extreme highs of both headphones are very good and probably on par, but still not in the electrostatic territory.
Side note: the T1s are almost always more sensitive to noise floor in the amp (which, in the case of my amp, is usually lower then noise in recording).
I guess it's safe to say that T1 is the overall technically better headphone, but many could prefer the 5LE, if they have a certain preference in tonal balance, or a preference for certain music genres.
------------------------------
This comparison took me two nights to complete, switching headphones on the same album but different tracks (well, I'm just not that kind of guy who can endure listening to the same track immediately twice and not get bored). I matched the volume by referring to their official sensitivity rating, and found that T1 are about 13 db more than the 5LE if I'm not mistaken. As it turns out, the high gain on my DAC is +10db and low gain is 0db, thus I ventured to use low gain with T1 and high gain with 5LE, and turn the amp volume a bit up for 5LE.
I've owned the HE-5LE for about 6 months, and the T1s 2 months. Total usage of T1s are around 150 hours, I modded the stock cable with 4pin XLR termination. The 5LE were acquired second-hand, I believe they are fully burned in, and they are the earlier 'Rev 1' version with varnished plastic housing. They are aftermarket recabled in 4pin XLR as well, and modded with Beyer EDT990VB pads (the same as T1 pads) and removed cloth on the grill.
My current system is Foobar via ASIO->Audio-gd DI-DSP (with battery power supply)->NFB10ES->Bottlehead S.E.X with C4S. Most connections are generic cables, nothing fancy here. I guess I'm not yet on the stage of playing with cables.
Here's my comparison. I begin with a few words on wearing comfort, then proceed with listening impressions on different albums, and conclude with some overall remarks.
----------------------------------------
Wearing Comfort
T1 in general is better. They feel (and are) lighter, slightly less clamping force. The HE-5LEs are just a little behind because of their own weight--but I could easily wear either for an entire 2 hour session. The one problem I have with T1s are that the bottom part of ear pads seem to bear more pressure than the upper part, which leads to more pressure in the bottom of pads, this effect has grown visible in recent days. Of course this may be due to the shape of my head. No such issue with the 5LEs though.
Album Impressions
Duke Ellington--Blues in Orbit (16/44)
--a classic big band jazz album. I have a tendency to favor complex music works. Jazz for me is relatively unfamiliar and purely for enjoyment. I often find myself tapping my fingers to the rythm over night.
5LE: slight softness in sound suits slow-paced music well. very musical. presentation is fairly accurate, instrument separation could be better. Soundstage very large. Piano has very nice higher harmonics, while still have solid body and cohesiveness. Winds are very slightly muffled, making them more smooth sounding. Cymbals are not harsh at any moment. Bass still has good detail. Drums seem to be slightly softened, but has nice presence and weight.
T1: very realistic sounding. Soundstage a bit smaller, but very accurate instrument placement. Piano sounds very solid and cohesive, slightly less glow in upper harmonics, but greater presence. Similarly winds and cymbals has a realistic brightness/detail. Very solid controled bass and high detail retrieval on bass. Presentation is more 'front-projecting', has better depth and height, though less width.
Infected Mushroom--Legend of the Black Shawarma (16/44)
--one of my favorite psych-trance albums. Again, this is relative complex electronic music, with a significant amount of eletrical guitar, and also much high frequency sounds, relatively challenging to gears.
T1: very well defined and extended bass, with 'neutral' quantity. Electrical guitars sounds very correctly distorted. Very capable in delineating all the 'instruments'. Can track each of them with good clarity in complicated passages. Maybe a little fatigueing to some people (since the amount of high freq is relatively high on this album). Very energetic. Exposes harshness in some vocal passages (which I believe is in the voice itself).
5LE: A bit easier to listen to. A bit more bass quantity, and a bit more 'meaty' drum beats. 'Wet'. Upper glare is there still, but limited to some frequency range. Distorted voice is indeed very 'eletrical' (which is good for this genre). Eletrical guitars' highest distortion is a little bit understated (helps with fatigue but perhaps less accurate). Distinction of instruments is very good, but in complex scenes, some background sounds lose their clarity a bit (less such effect on T1).
J.S.Bach-Trio for Flute, Violin, Cello, Cembalo (24/192)
--a great sounding recording that excels in transparency IMO. Very enjoyable while demanding for instrument reproduction and detail retrieval.
5LE: Flute sounds marvelous. Highly transparent and musical. Cembalo very well depicted, perhaps slightly tamed its 'initial glare' (which actually is a good thing with most cembalo recordings). Violin is also almost perfect. Only problem is with the cello. It feels slightly muffled due to loss of highest freq details (for a cello), although still very musical and full-bodied. No problem with instrument placement, and very clearly separated. No problem with detail retrieval. Turning of score pages and breathes quite accurate. Overall extremely enjoyable.
T1: Flute is even more transparent, perhaps a bit less musical. Violin has a more significant airiness and transparency. Cembalo is very accurate, probably the closest to real cembalo I've heard (in a museum in Munich). Timbre of cello is also more accurate than the 5LE. The overal tonal balance is again slightly brighter, which if played for long hours might be a drawback for someone.
Shostakovich-Symphony No.15-J.Darlington/Duisburger Philharmoniker (24/192)
--my new found gem among Shostakovich's works, which are often more complex than most classical symphonies, with many exotic instruments and strange sonic effects.
T1: clear portrait of the whole music picture and accurate details. With this kind of quality source file, you really don't have to worry about treble harshness. True that cymbals and percussions sound bright, but in a 'right' way. Each group of instruments has its own position in the soundstage, although the angular distance between adjacent ones are quite small, they are still very well separated and articulated. Each group doesn't occupy a large 'space', but has very solid body and 'density'. Peculiar details like a cello solo passage, extreme percussion sounds (sorry not sure its name) are perhaps emphasized a bit.
5LE: Lows are a bit more powerful/impactful. Overall a softer tone, shown in mellower highs (though still on the bright side of neutral, but not far away). Very similar in timbre reproduction and detail retrieval, only that sounds in the centre of stage seem to be less 'focused' or articulated than T1.
Chopin-Ballade in G-moll, Scherzo in B-moll, etc.-A.Michelangeli (24/96)
--my reference album on Chopin.
T1: The entire frequency spectrum of the piano is very precise. Very articulate in the variety of timbre and 'touch' showcased by the master Michelangeli. The first time I heard Op 23 in this album through the T1s made me realize just how great this performance and recording is, as well as helped me understand how to play this piece (Op.23) better (of course to achieve this I'll need a much better piano, and much much more practice. )
5LE: The high notes on the piano sounds very gorgeous. Lower notes, however, sounds a little bit boomier than real. The timbre reproduction, while very good in its own, is one league behind the T1s'. In forte passages the 5LEs sounds good enough (e.g., opening sentences of Op 31), but in piano passages (sostenuto in op 31, largo in op 23) the lack of minute details is more evident. I likely did not notice many of these flaws until I heard the T1s.
Mahler-Des Knaben Wunderhorn-Fischer-Dieskau/Schwarzkopf/Szell (16/44)
--Mahler is my favorite composer so far. This work, albeit not his best, is probably the most 'original' mahler, thus I've recently grown more and more fond of it. It is a piece for soprano and baritone with full orchestra.
5LE: Fischer-Dieskau's voice sounds very good. The orchestra overall has a surrounding feeling, while the singers stand in the center. Elizabeth's voice is especially charming. Overall better suited for pure enjoyment than T1.
T1: Treble in human voices are definitely more present, though not offending. A very distinct advantage in T1 is that the feeling of distance is very precisely created, by the contrast of distant, muffled drum beats and clear, detailed voices. Instruments in the center feels more front-projected. Both headphones have the right human voice placement for me--pretty much neutral.
Overall Remarks
Soundstage, imaging:
The soundstage of T1 is almost a circle, lacking the part at the extreme back of your head, with very good height and depth. Pure width is a little less than 5LE. The shape of 5LE soundstage is more of an ellipse, width is more elongated than depth and height. The depth of 5LE is probably about average in the headphones I've heard, but the width is definitely stellar.
In terms of imaging and instrument placement, I think the T1s have the upper hand here. They just give everything its own correct place, as I've said above, 'Each group of instruments has its own position in the soundstage, although the angular distance between adjacent ones are quite small, they are still very well separated and articulated'. The 5LEs sometimes make bass instruments larger than accurate, sometimes instruments in the center stage feels less well delineated, and is more like in your head, rather than in front of you. Ultimately the T1s will be better for serious listening to orchestral works.
Tonal Balance:
My feeling is that while these two are actually quite close, T1s are closer to neutral. However I'd keep things in relative terms and avoid absolute assessment of neutrality and naturality.
In comparison, the 5LEs have a slightly juicier, stronger bass, that can sound boomy on some classical tracks, similar to the bass character of HD650s but not as evident. Pure bass extension is perhaps on par (I'm never good at distinguishing those sub-bass things). I suspect this bass character is also related to the mids lushness of the 5LEs, which is I believe characteristic to Hifiman and planar headphones in general. But the lushness is nothing overdone.
T1's bass and mids are relatively linear, with only a touch of warmth, barely noticeable--perhaps not there after all. What's really characteristic of T1's tonal signature is the energetic voice IMO. I guess the treble and high freq on T1s must be something very special. But even that couldn't entirely describe and explain the 'energy' in the sound.
One thing that's sometimes a problem for me is that the HE-5LEs probably have deliberately tuned down a part of lower treble (a wild guess would be somewhere near 7-8 kHz). This sometimes muffles out high freq details of cellos (which I personally emphasize) and reduces some fullness of violins, but perhaps also helps with many pop singer's voice (makes them less harsh).
The extreme highs of both headphones are very good and probably on par, but still not in the electrostatic territory.
Side note: the T1s are almost always more sensitive to noise floor in the amp (which, in the case of my amp, is usually lower then noise in recording).
I guess it's safe to say that T1 is the overall technically better headphone, but many could prefer the 5LE, if they have a certain preference in tonal balance, or a preference for certain music genres.
------------------------------
This comparison took me two nights to complete, switching headphones on the same album but different tracks (well, I'm just not that kind of guy who can endure listening to the same track immediately twice and not get bored). I matched the volume by referring to their official sensitivity rating, and found that T1 are about 13 db more than the 5LE if I'm not mistaken. As it turns out, the high gain on my DAC is +10db and low gain is 0db, thus I ventured to use low gain with T1 and high gain with 5LE, and turn the amp volume a bit up for 5LE.
