[Ron12]

   
What does that have to do with the discussion here? Those are completely different hp's. Please don't chime in with responses without personal first hand knowledge. Otherwise people who read this thread for information to make decisions will assume that you own both of these hp's and have done the grill mod for both. 

 
Grills as well as internal cup design of HE-400i/HE-560 looks very similar to HE-4s... Removing grills and its effect on sound is not rocket science, it's going to work in the same way for every Hifiman unless they change something with their design radically.

As I said, it works in a same way for LCD-2, HE-4, HE-400 and HE-500 in my experience... Please explain me why it should work differently for HE-400i or HE-560.
 
But whatever... As you can see, conquerator2 tried it and described the effect very well in my opinion. It corresponds with my personal opinion. Appreciable but subtle change at best.

 

[MattTCG]

^^ I won't belabor the point any further, as it seems pretty obvious. Please post your impressions for the grill mod for the hp's that you've actually tried it with. This is a different hp than what you've owned and tried the mod with. It just doesn't make much sense nor is it fair for the readers of this thread. I hope that you can appreciate this simple request. Thanks. 

 

[Ekul61]

If u like your he-400... is the new 400i worth the $500 up grade? I will buy them if someone convinces me...

 

[TMRaven]

If you wished the 400 was a little more linear, then the 400i is a good option.  If you like the 400 mostly for its bass, then the 400i is not a good option.

 

[MattTCG]

  If you wished the 400 was a little more linear, then the 400i is a good option.  If you like the 400 mostly for its bass, then the 400i is not a good option.

 
+1

 

[Lohb]

   
I have owned HE-4 and tried the grill mod on HE-500 and HE-400... I also performed this mod on Audeze LCD-2. I think this is more than enough, right?

How was the LCD-2 after the mod compared to that subtle widening on HFM cans....open grill or new grill ? I was going to try it out myself soon.

 

[Garraty]

To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. The HE-400i seems like an HD-650 with cleaner bass and more sparkle in the treble. Not that there's anything wrong with that and I'm sure it's a wonderful headphone that many will love its euphonic coloration for but I hoped it would be slightly less warmer and more balanced. Oh well, maybe I'll just get a HD-600 and learn to deal with its shortcomings. Regardless, kudos to HifiMAN!

 

[thug behram]

  If you wished the 400 was a little more linear, then the 400i is a good option.  If you like the 400 mostly for its bass, then the 400i is not a good option.

And if you really loved the airy sound with large soundstage.

 

[Ron12]

 
How was the LCD-2 after the mod compared to that subtle widening on HFM cans....open grill or new grill ? I was going to try it out myself soon.

 
The effect was very similar (talking about grill-removal only)... A bit more openness, slightly wider soundstage, a little bit better imaging, overall sound a bit more clear. Appreciable improvement but subtle (nowhere near lifechanging, as I already said). However, I would encourage you to remove the LCD-2 grills as well as felt discs underneath. It will look like this afterwards:
 

 
As you can see, there is no need for alternative grills - drivers are fully protected (I don't advise removing that black-coloured rectangular patch - it makes sound worse). The mod (grills AND felt disc removal) basically helped to open-up LCD-2s rev1 a lot... Vocals were more neutral (as the overall tonality was - close to neutral), treble more clean, less muddiness overall, soundstage became nice. Without this modification, LCD-2 rev1 were not on the level of my beloved HE-4 (very closed-in undimensional soundstage, muddy-sounding, quite weird nasal vocals, bass lacked definition, too dark tonality). I should add that switching to ADZ-6 cable from the old Canare one helped to finalise this 'transformation'.
 

  ^^ I won't belabor the point any further, as it seems pretty obvious. Please post your impressions for the grill mod for the hp's that you've actually tried it with. This is a different hp than what you've owned and tried the mod with. It just doesn't make much sense nor is it fair for the readers of this thread. I hope that you can appreciate this simple request. Thanks. 

 
It is not obvious to me... And you even didn't tried to explain your point of view, just requested something without any reasonable explanation. Sorry, not gonna fullfill your request as I don't see any reason why. I am simply extrapolating my experience with several Hifiman headphones and see no reason why I shouldn't do that in this specific case. Feel free to disagree... Or better, at least draw some useful arguments before criticising the others.

 

[SoAmusing777]

   
I am becoming a neutralhead... And there are people I trust a lot based on their huge experience and knowledge that call Slants one of the most neutral while musical enough (they should be like a perfected basic Paradox, better suited for audiophiles). They are supposed to be technically nice enough to satisfy even an experienced audiophile and their sense of openness should be really good for a closed-back headphone (again, improvement over the basic Paradox due to special angled pads). Whether this is going to be true or not for me, I cannot tell until I hear them myself... We will see.
 
Why not the current Hifimans?
 
1) I sense several revisions... I am not going to invest in a product that is not the final and best version. I don't want to be an early adopter.
2) I strongly dislike FocusPad and FocusPad-A pads... And there are no impressions or measurements of HE-400i or HE-560 with any other pads, unfortunately.
3) Both HE-400i and HE-560 do not look more neutral than Paradox/Paradox Slant (a speculation based on HE-560's measurements and some impressions about HE-400i released so far). Again, we will see in the future when more measurements, impressions etc. will be released...
 
So maybe, after a year, I will be giving them a chance... I am certainly still interested.

Ha, me too. I believe I always have been though. Yeah, I've heard nothing but amazing things for them, even concerning the bass. Soundstage can be large if the recording calls for it from what I've read as well as the detail/micro-detail being wonderful. So excited. They should be end game for me.

I sense the same thing, and yeah, the 560 I believe would be the more neutral of the two, but the slants still edge it out. I'm getting the starving student version for $550. They were $525 but Luis has put in lambskin leather now, upping the price $25. Even after a year for me, I still won't be interested.

 

[conquerator2]

Ok, the controlled listening for the grill on/off/switch for the 560 was a very mixed result.
 
I was consistently able to tell when the grills were on and off, without much problems - about 90% - so theoretical difference is there, indeed!
In practice, however, the difference is smaller. I listened to 8 instrumental and one vocal track.
In 6/8, I was mostly guessing and the correct/wrong ratio never really went over 50%, so in these songs, the difference was either too small or it did not affect it to a desirable margin.
In the other two instrumentals, I fared a bit better - somewhere around 70% of success so there seemed to be a distinguishable difference, but I really had to strain my ears hard to hear it. A bit more air to it slightly better imaging, though the stage did not seem much wider... about 5%, probably.
With the vocals, the 8 - 9khz dropped seems to help by reducing slight sibilance from very little to less than very little... and the vocals did sound a bit more open... and with more instruments, they seemed to image a bit better and stretch a bit wider... The consistency was around 80% and the difference might have been a bit more obvious, say 10% with vocals and somewhere north of 5% with instruments.
It's worth mentioning that I chose 30 second segments of each track, which I thought would be desirable for this particular task.
 
I'll probably modify it next time to longer, like 60 seconds, segments and either with, without or half with/without to give a more reasonable chance to my ears to pick the differences. I'll do more controlled tests this week.
 
I'll be also doing the grill mod on the 560 and 400i tomorrow [mostly because it is a possibility] and compare it to without the grills and with the modded grills against the stock grills  on the pink-noise track, where the difference is biggest now... Then I'll be using both headphones with modded grills for a week and then switch back to stock.
 
So far the difference really is very small though and it is easily the least effective modification I've done so far.

 

[MattTCG]

The effect was very similar (talking about grill-removal only)... A bit more openness, slightly wider soundstage, a little bit better imaging, overall sound a bit more clear. Appreciable improvement but subtle (nowhere near lifechanging, as I already said). However, I would encourage you to remove the LCD-2 grills as well as felt discs underneath. It will look like this afterwards:




As you can see, there is no need for alternative grills - drivers are fully protected (I don't advise removing that black-coloured rectangular patch - it makes sound worse). The mod (grills AND felt disc removal) basically helped to open-up LCD-2s rev1 a lot... Vocals were more neutral (as the overall tonality was - close to neutral), treble more clean, less muddiness overall, soundstage became nice. Without this modification, LCD-2 rev1 were not on the level of my beloved HE-4 (very closed-in undimensional soundstage, muddy-sounding, quite weird nasal vocals, bass lacked definition, too dark tonality). I should add that switching to ADZ-6 cable from the old Canare one helped to finalise this 'transformation'.

I'll take this to pm at this point.


It is not obvious to me... And you even didn't tried to explain your point of view, just requested something without any reasonable explanation. Sorry, not gonna fullfill your request as I don't see any reason why. I am simply extrapolating my experience with several Hifiman headphones and see no reason why I shouldn't do that in this specific case. Feel free to disagree... Or better, at least draw some useful arguments before criticising the others.

 

[reddog]

Do to my Dad sudden illness my review of the great HE-400I'S will be delayed to later this week. Also I have finally ordered the telefunken E88CC tubes from Upscale and see how those tubes will effect the HE-400i's as well as my alpha dogs. Please have a good one listening to great jams on some good cans.

 

[new reformation]

Do to my Dad sudden illness my review of the great HE-400I'S will be delayed to later this week. Also I have finally ordered the telefunken E88CC tubes from Upscale and see how those tubes will effect the HE-400i's as well as my alpha dogs. Please have a good one listening to great jams on some good cans.

 
 
I will pray that the Lord may minister to your father in this time of hardship.  Looking forward to the review later on! 

 

[reddog]

Thanks I do truly appreciate it. Take care.