[conquerator2]

Quote:

Mal,
You think I may have overshot with the little DA 75wpc amp I ordered?
 
On another note, got them in today.  Packaging was really, really damn nice.  I love the new cable Fang is shipping with them.  About 5 feet, silver, no sleeving at all.  Trying to power them out of my EF2A is a joke.  I mean, I can only turn it up to about 10 o'clock before it gets too loud to deal with, but clipping is painfully evident and bass presence is...well, mostly not.  That said, mids are smooth, lovely, and there's enough top-end sparkle to make me smile.  Piano is just beautiful.
 
They're extremely comfortable.  Dunno what the fuss is about--anyone who thinks these things are uncomfortable have clearly never tried to work a 12 hour shift in PRO900s.
 
I'll let you guys know how it goes when I get the DA in.  Should be just another day or two.  I've got banana plugs on the way, too...I'll have one of our electronics techs here solder them onto the stock cable for me.  Cuz, you know, I'm cheap, and I don't have any intention of ever powering these out of a headphone amp.

 
I feel the pain too... After wearing the Pro 900 for a while they can get very uncomfotable. I will also be upgrading to the HIFIman, but to the Mini-X/HE-5LE
 
I will post impressions too when I get them, but that will take some time.
 
Looking forward to your impressions!

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

Mal,
You think I may have overshot with the little DA 75wpc amp I ordered?
 
On another note, got them in today.  Packaging was really, really damn nice.  I love the new cable Fang is shipping with them.  About 5 feet, silver, no sleeving at all.  Trying to power them out of my EF2A is a joke.  I mean, I can only turn it up to about 10 o'clock before it gets too loud to deal with, but clipping is painfully evident and bass presence is...well, mostly not.  That said, mids are smooth, lovely, and there's enough top-end sparkle to make me smile.  Piano is just beautiful.
 
They're extremely comfortable.  Dunno what the fuss is about--anyone who thinks these things are uncomfortable have clearly never tried to work a 12 hour shift in PRO900s.
 
I'll let you guys know how it goes when I get the DA in.  Should be just another day or two.  I've got banana plugs on the way, too...I'll have one of our electronics techs here solder them onto the stock cable for me.  Cuz, you know, I'm cheap, and I don't have any intention of ever powering these out of a headphone amp.

 
Heya,
 
It may be too much, but you can solve that by adding a small pre-amp in between the DAC and your speaker amp. With the pre-amp, drop the volume. I do this with my NFB12, and I'm able to drop it's volume to the point where I can turn my speaker amp with the HE-500 attached to full throttle without any distortion, weird sound, hiss, nothing. And nothing has caught fire, melted, or started sparking.... yet. Heh heh heh. I'm actually planning on getting a tube amp to use as an intermediate, something to power certain headphones that would die from the speaker amp, but also to serve as a tube pre-amp to my Emotiva so I can see what kind of effects it will have on it.
 
Or, if you don't do something like that, assuming the 75w is too much, you can have your techs solder some 10ohm or 25ohm resistors onto the speaker taps.
 
Very best,

 

[Odd IO]

Quote:

 
Heya,
 
It works similar, but it works. The 4 plugs on the back are the input, and you connect via XLR. It has resistors in place to introduce dummy load.
 
It's $100 + shipping.
 
You can get an adapter made for like $40.
 
Very best,

Can you recommend anyone who can build something like this?
 
And does it matter which headphone connector you use? A single balanced connector (like the HiFiMan), a single ended connector or two balanced left/right connectors? I have a 100 watt/channel receiver and a five channel 250w amplifier that I might like to try with my LCD 2 without damaging them by feeding them too much current.

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

Can you recommend anyone who can build something like this?
 
And does it matter which headphone connector you use? A single balanced connector (like the HiFiMan), a single ended connector or two balanced left/right connectors? I have a 100 watt/channel receiver and a five channel 250w amplifier that I might like to try with my LCD 2 without damaging them by feeding them too much current.

 
Heya,
 
Brian over at BTG Audio did mine. Just check him out and email him, he's absolutely professional and does excellent work for very fair prices.
 
The connectors you use don't matter; all that matters is that it terminates into something that can work with a speaker amp (spades, banana plugs, etc) and connects to a cable that connects to your headphones.
 
Very best,

 

[pp312]

Quote:

Can you recommend anyone who can build something like this?
 
And does it matter which headphone connector you use? A single balanced connector (like the HiFiMan), a single ended connector or two balanced left/right connectors? I have a 100 watt/channel receiver and a five channel 250w amplifier that I might like to try with my LCD 2 without damaging them by feeding them too much current.

 
Can someone clarify for me what the difference is between using an adaptor off the speaker outs with series/parallel resistors and using the straight headphone jack, which generally comes off the power amp through series/parallel resistors? I seem to be missing something.
 
I'm currently using my HE-500 through an Onkyo SR-502 HT amp (the headphone jack, that is) and getting great results.  What am I missing in not using an adaptor?

 

[pp312]

Quote:

They're extremely comfortable.  Dunno what the fuss is about--anyone who thinks these things are uncomfortable have clearly never tried to work a 12 hour shift in PRO900s.
 
.

 
 
Comfort is a tricky thing to make judgements about as it's so individual. I find the HE-500 quite uncomfortable, as it squeezes too hard and the pads are not quite large enough for my Dumbo ears.  That's with the pleather pads. The velour pads are even less comfortable, as they're rather harder and seem to have a slightly smaller opening. I'd really like someone to address this question with some aftermarket pads, softer and with larger openings.
 
Despite complaints elsewhere about comfort with the LCD-2, it's a relief to put on after the HE-500. And that's a Rev1!

 

[benzoylmethyl]

Quote:

 
Heya,
 
It may be too much, but you can solve that by adding a small pre-amp in between the DAC and your speaker amp. With the pre-amp, drop the volume. I do this with my NFB12, and I'm able to drop it's volume to the point where I can turn my speaker amp with the HE-500 attached to full throttle without any distortion, weird sound, hiss, nothing. And nothing has caught fire, melted, or started sparking.... yet. Heh heh heh. I'm actually planning on getting a tube amp to use as an intermediate, something to power certain headphones that would die from the speaker amp, but also to serve as a tube pre-amp to my Emotiva so I can see what kind of effects it will have on it.
 
Or, if you don't do something like that, assuming the 75w is too much, you can have your techs solder some 10ohm or 25ohm resistors onto the speaker taps.
 
Very best,

 
Okay.  I've got an EF2 I can use as a preamp if the speaker amp is outrageous.  I mean, it's 50% or so more power than the Emotiva, but it still calculates out to, like, 9wpc @ 32ohm.  I guess we'll see when my banana plugs get here--I got the amp in today, so they should be here tomorrow.  The EF2 makes the HE500 a little sharp to my ears, so they're currently sitting in a box making me sad.

 

[Happy Camper]

When you put a headphone on the speaker outs, be very slow to turn your volume up. The 500 takes power like any ornery ortho but not like the 6s. You'll know immediately if it's a match or not. You will have too little volume control before it gets unbearably loud. In that case, use the headphone out. If you can get it up to half throw and it sounds good, enjoy. Not using all of the amp is a waste and I don't know that I'd go out buying 100w+ amps for the 500s. But if you already have access to one, it's worth hearing. If it works, you can stop and use that for your 500s. With a headphone out, you have the rest taken care of for a lot less than trying to buy different amps for different headphones. I noticed that when I used the resistor load, the headphone didn't have the same liveliness. Having all that current available for dynamic peaks is incredible and draw only what they need so you won't fry it before going deaf.

 

[MalVeauX]

Quote:

When you put a headphone on the speaker outs, be very slow to turn your volume up. The 500 takes power like any ornery ortho but not like the 6s. You'll know immediately if it's a match or not. You will have too little volume control before it gets unbearably loud. In that case, use the headphone out. If you can get it up to half throw and it sounds good, enjoy. Not using all of the amp is a waste and I don't know that I'd go out buying 100w+ amps for the 500s. But if you already have access to one, it's worth hearing. If it works, you can stop and use that for your 500s. With a headphone out, you have the rest taken care of for a lot less than trying to buy different amps for different headphones. I noticed that when I used the resistor load, the headphone didn't have the same liveliness. Having all that current available for dynamic peaks is incredible and draw only what they need so you won't fry it before going deaf.

 
Heya,
 
When I plugged my HE-500 into my headphone out of my Pioneer VSX1121, it took a lot of volume before it was listening level, and straight loud, and it sounded quite different from the speaker taps, I want to say there was more noise floor, and the bass didn't sound as filled out. When I used the HE-500 with speaker taps on the same AVR, the VSX1121, but plugged into the speaker outputs (delivery rating of 110 watts at 8ohms), I had to turn up the volume to about the same level as my 8ohm speakers that it normally powers. The HE-500 can take a lot of voltage/current before it gets loud, even though it's really efficient. I don't think I'd get a 100+ watt good speaker amp for the HE-500, for sure, on my Emotiva setup, it's between 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock on the volume for the HE-500 depending on the recording. With my NFB acting as a pre-amp though, I can drop the line level down, and then flex the Emotiva past 12 o'clock just to test and flex it's muscles. HE-500 can definitely take more than what Hifiman is suggesting. It's no where near what the HE-6 is in terms of power handling ability, but it's definitely still able to take a ton of power even though it's relatively efficient.
 
Very best,

 

[wuwhere]

They can sink some current but I'd be careful. The voice coil is deposited on the diaphragm and they heat up as current goes up, the diaphragm can be deformed permanently from the heat.

 

[jerg]

Quote:

They can sink some current but I'd be careful. The voice coil is deposited on the diaphragm and they heat up as current goes up, the diaphragm can be deformed permanently from the heat.

Now wouldn't it be (stupid but) cool if too much juice is being pumped through the drivers and the tracings start glowing in the dark? 

 

[wuwhere]

Quote:

Now wouldn't it be (stupid but) cool if too much juice is being pumped through the drivers and the tracings start glowing in the dark? 

 
It doesn't have to get to that and it will never glow, I'm not sure what made you think of that, its not a filament in a light bulb.

 

[Happy Camper]

They can sink some current but I'd be careful. The voice coil is deposited on the diaphragm and they heat up as current goes up, the diaphragm can be deformed permanently from the heat.

So those of you new to HEs, don't use them as monitors. OK a couple of times so label me.......:rolleyes:

 

[jerg]

Quote:

 
It doesn't have to get to that and it will never glow, I'm not sure what made you think of that, its not a filament in a light bulb.

 
I kid, I kid.

 

[SoupRKnowva]

Quote:

 
I kid, I kid.

 On the internet???? ....no way