I have the HE-400 (looks like rev 2 with white frames). I did the jergpad mod, and while it seems to have helped the treble a bit, I still get too much sibilance for my liking.
Has anyone EQed these down because they hate sibilance as much as I do? I'd be interested in what EQ settings you used - I don't have a lot of experience using equalizers and don't want to kill the sound quality by accident...
is the treble on the HE 400 sharp and irritating as that is something I would like to know before i buy it, I will using my fiio x3 amped with a ifi ican nano, so there is no eq in my gear, do you think I will be facing a problem with my gear powering and enjoying the HE400, as I look for a warm smooth deep bass sound
is the treble on the HE 400 sharp and irritating as that is something I would like to know before i buy it, I will using my fiio x3 amped with a ifi ican nano, so there is no eq in my gear, do you think I will be facing a problem with my gear powering and enjoying the HE400, as I look for a warm smooth deep bass sound
it seems from what i read it has harsh treble, unofrutantely i can not afford to buy things and return them so I kindly wish to know more about the treble and can it be resolved, i only use fiio x3 and ifi ican nano
it seems from what i read it has harsh treble, unofrutantely i can not afford to buy things and return them so I kindly wish to know more about the treble and can it be resolved, i only use fiio x3 and ifi ican nano
is the treble on the HE 400 sharp and irritating as that is something I would like to know before i buy it, I will using my fiio x3 amped with a ifi ican nano, so there is no eq in my gear, do you think I will be facing a problem with my gear powering and enjoying the HE400, as I look for a warm smooth deep bass sound
I found the treble to be just fine after i got the velour pads, but like ben_r_ said everyone has different ears.
I would say that around 70% of the people that have the HE-400 find its treble to be somewhat sharp so if you know that you are treble sensitive and you can't EQ the headphones i might look for something else (maybe a pair of Mad Dogs).
or you could hold off on buying them until the HE-400i comes out (it might fix the treble problems).
it seems from what i read it has harsh treble, unofrutantely i can not afford to buy things and return them so I kindly wish to know more about the treble and can it be resolved, i only use fiio x3 and ifi ican nano
If you can afford $300+ headphones you can afford the shipping back. Head-Direct is HiFiMans official online store and they offer a 30-day return policy with no restocking fee. All you have to do is pay for shipping back.
The velour pads do noticeably help the harsh treble and they are only $10, but for me the HE-400's were still too harsh and the HE-500's fixed that with the same velour pads so I ended up sticking with those.
The treble is definitely harsh on stock pleather pads. It's a lot less harsh with velour though it will still magnify the harshness of some poor/strident recordings. You could make/order Jergpad which further smoothes out the treble. The X3 also has treble adjustment if that's still not enough.
The treble isn't harsh overall, you can just hear a spike in the higher pitches in the top end of sounds that is present in varying degrees from recording to recording. On some tracks it's no problem, on others it can be really quite irritating. The Jergpads solved it 90% for me. Before that mod, I was going to get rid of them. I'm really glad I didn't and can appreciate that these headphones really can do certain things that my others can't, namely present music in such a vivid and tactile way that is most impressive with the right material.
Well, I listened to a speaker with a *downward sloping treble all day, and don't find the HE-400s all that nasty returning to them - if anything, their was still some brightness to the speaker that occasionally took a bite of my ears despite the fact that it measures very different.
The treble peak of the HE-400s is generally pretty exaggerated at this point, and not that well understood. It is more an issue of resonance than overall response. The damping of these phones is not fully optimized and that is the major design flaw.
That is also why modded pleathers or velour pads ($10 bucks) are fix #1. Fix #2 is just to trim the treble down a tad if you still think there is too much.
That's it. Hardly a big deal for what are otherwise amazing phones.
I've since reworked my iTunes balanced EQ to (sorta) match the Olive-Welti target curve. It definitely does 'lift' the HE-400 out of its laxness, in a sense-- and without adding too much tinny quality that's associated with too much 2khz (*cough* re-400 *cough*) The only downside to this is the transition from 2-4 and then 4-8khz isn't as smooth as it could be.
Edit: btw the HE-400 aren't too resonant at all. Have a look at Purrin's CSDs. About the only thing they really display is a characteristic 'ortho wall' In the upper mids.
I switch back to the pleather to see just how much different they sound compared to the velours and its like night and day to me. The pleather sounds so much more hollow and the bass has a more mid-bass to it which I don't like. Before I got these I never thought that different ear pads would make that much of a sound change.
That is why modding the pleather is also so great - they really have an overall sort of "warm" response with nothing but the spacers taken out a and a bunch of holes cut in them. The still have some resonanace / harshness this way, but it is cut rather drastically.
That said, I've still been preaching the velours. They are the best all around and easiest to just put on and enjoy.
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