[Triggaaar]

Desktop. I bought an smsl sd 793 (combo dac-amp) but it has some background noise at higher volumes.

Well it's powerful enough, but it's portable, with a battery, so I think you can do better if you're just using it as a desktop.
 
http://headfonics.com/2015/09/the-q1-dacamp-by-fiio/2/
 
If you can stretch to $99, I'd get the Fulla 2. But the Q1 will work.

 

[Mboom]

Do you need a portable solution?

50/50.

 

[Triggaaar]

50/50.

Well here's the latest post from the Fulla 2 thread:

  Now that I have had my Fulla2 for a couple of days, I will be upgrading.  I need more power for my HE400i.  I am finding I have to turn it up to the 2o'clock position for decent volume.  On the original Fulla I was listening with the volume just about at about the same position.  I guess I keep saving for the Jotunheim.

 
The Fulla 2 gives 360 mW into 32 ohms, the Q1 has 190 mW into 32 ohms. So the Q1 will work - the 400i will 'work' from my Sony A15. But more power would be nice.

 

[Mani ATH 87]

I got my he400i yesterday morning for Christmas and have spent a few hours with them, here are my first impressions:

The build quality is nice - they feel sturdy, look good, and they are very comfortable. Compared to the original he400 these are far superior in terms of comfort especially, much lighter and the headband is great. The cable that comes with them is fine, but I dislike the right angle plug. It feels sturdy but the right angle plug will always be bent with my set up which I'm sure will shorten the lift of the connector.

In terms of sound quality, the headphones sound great. Mine are currently paired with a Schiit Asgard 2 and Modi 2 uber. I spend 99% of my time with the Sennheiser HD650's prior to grabbing these so I can compare with those. First, the he400i:

Bass sounds a bit less then the original he400, but all other areas sound like a marked improvement, especially the treble. It sounds more detailed and the harshness that plagued the originals is gone. The headphones sound surprisingly neutral to me in terms of presentation, somewhat flat across the board. The bass is a little light fresh out of the box, so not sure if these would appeal to bass heads or not. It has solid extension and detail in the bass but it definitely doesn't have the "slam" the original he400 had. Overall it's a versatile sound signature that will work across a variety of music. Sound stage seems a bit more intimate rather then spacious, but not tiny. I don't listen to a lot of music that really takes advantage of big sweeping sound stages, so I might not be the best judge of this.

vs the HD650: The first thing I notice after having listened to the 650's for so long is the detail in the highs. I know the HD650 has a reputation for being "veiled" or very relaxed. It's very apparent when you compare next to headphones with any kind of brightness. The mids are so smooth on the 650's that not many headphones really compare to them, the he400i isn't quite as smooth sounding but they get a passing mark. The 650's have a bit more mid bass, 400i has a bit more sub bass, the highs of the 400i are more detailed and brighter sounding (as mentioned previously). The he400i might have a bit wider sound stage then the 650's, again, not the best judge of this...but it does sound a little bit more spaced out to me. Definitely some solid competition with the 650's.

Overall I'm very happy with these headphones. I'll have to see how they compare after the 150 hours of burn in that's recommended by HiFiMAN, I've never been a huge believer in the burn in period really doing a lot to the sound signature, but we will see!

For the current price of these headphones, I'm not sure there is anything that compares in terms of sound quality.
 
edit: I'd heard of some quality control issues with these headphones and I have to say I did find a small issue with mine. Just on the "H" logo on the side of the headband I noticed there was a sticky black substance, maybe some kind of glue. I was able to just wipe this off with a damp cloth and some "elbow grease". Other then that the headphones seem to be in pristine shape from what I Can see, no issues with the pads or design, everything seems in order.

 

 

[AT Khan]

Ok so here we are. I've had my pair of the He400i for about a week now.

Absolutely adored the packaging. However some QC issues did occur. One side stitching on the band is off crease. The focus pads... are different. One has different kind of velour fiber from the other. I also felt some channel imbalance... not sure if it was of that but I could feel that certain lower frequencies were deeper on one side. But read on...

Out of the box... they sounded meh. I don't know if this was burn in or cuz I didn't have a good amp. Comfort was bliss. Then I played around. My Hidizs AP100 DAP which runs all the rest of my gear with much dominance... felt sloppy and not powerful enough. The bass was thin too. I paired that with a fiiO e07k in the chain and well... things did get better.

I had to pump the bass to +6 on the fiiO to get some decent punch. Overall they would distort beyond a certain level... say +12 gain and bass, and after 80% volume which would still not be ear bleeding enough, I'd get distortion.

Then it hit me. I had to change pads, I told myself.

The focus pads are just absurdly put together btw. Glued on? Who glues pads onto removable discs that are needed in case of a pad swap? And what a flimsy, stupid little disc of the pads. It's so stupid how I had to, in part, destroy the focus pads while having to take them off to try differn5 breed of pads. And man... you have to be careful not to break it or well... get ready to 3d print them if all is lost.

Anyhow, I pulled of the discs and put them inside my Hm5 angled sheepskin pads. Oh yes, things improved a lot.

With some marginal loss of openness, the bass was very different. I'm a bassophile and coming from my EMU Ebony cans, I just could not miss out on that sweet low end and that punch.

I have to say, apart from some discomfort, the hm5 pads put the basshead in the cans... no not super bass, but certainly enough.

Now... I went further. I had some spare SteelSeries Siberia pleather pads lying around. Good thing is, these pads have self adhesive behind them so I just stick them on the cups (no discs involved) and Vala!

Wow. Just wow. These pads are comfy, sure, but they bring back the passive openness the focus pads had. AND... they still have that bass. Sweet low end. AND... they're not angled so the sound is now closer, and louder. Channel imbalance removed now (most probably were unmatched/ different focus pads).

Now my amp isn't distorting. Don't get me wrong - contrary to popular belief, these cans DO need an amp, and surely not the cheapest ones. People say you don't... well they just lie. Unmoded He400i are a real pain to drive.

Anyhow, I'm having such a great bassophile experience with these... they're almost up there with my EMU, I mean the closest they could be, really.

These are one of the best basshead solutions you can apply. And no other mods involved, but I have to tell you... these sound just fantastic now.

Not my endgame... but very close now. Very. Bassheadness... is a go. Even though the low end has always been there for such open back cans, its on a whole nother level now.

 

[BookerDeWitt]

______________________________________

"Ok so here we are. I've had my pair of the He400i for about a week now."...
...
"I'm a bassophile and coming from my EMU Ebony cans....."
...
"Anyhow, I'm having such a great bassophile experience with these... they're almost up there with my EMU, I mean the closest they could be, really."...
...
"Not my endgame... but very close now."

______________________________________


Thanks for the useful impressions dude,and sorry for my weird quoting style, I've never been big on forums, but anyway.

I've teen needing little bits of info like this to help me decide. I've got info-gathering-OCD trying to validate my next purchase, a major upgrade over the next 6 months of cans+amp+dac up to $500 per component, so the HE400i and TH-X00 ebony have been some of the highest on my considerations list., the X00 being a first cousin to the EMu Ebony - if the EMU came up on massdrop I would sing with delight, but the x00 ebony seems extremely in the ball park of what to expect, ie, brilliance at that price...

Though frankly, and just to back it up a sec, I was still just 99% hell bent on planar as my next driver type, I was about to buy a HE400i but then suddenly..
BOOM! *Surprise mother %#¥*?£!!*
- the seemingly great value TH-X00 Mahogany comes and sideswipes me, literally derailed everything with their "biodynamic drivers"... (which are just normal drivers right? Just really nice Foster 443742 derived ones...?). I keep trying to settle my mind and buy me some 400i's or a T50RP derivative like mayflower but every time I think I've considered everything another X00 variant comes alone, right now there's Purple Hearts and ebony available...

Anyway apologise for getting off topic here, but back to HE400i vs TH-X00, how do you compare the mids, crispness and speed from low to miss, upper detail retrieval, honesty of vocal tones, how tight,... stuff like that, I could sit here for an hour trying to think of aspects I'm curious about, but put simply, all the stuff people rave about and attribute to planar magnetic drivers, all the common traits said to be generally better with planar, how would you say these aspects compare to your Emu Ebony?

Or how drastically different/better are these aspects specifically? Also what content use do you find suits each one?
Thanks

 

[fjrabon]

Now my amp isn't distorting. Don't get me wrong - contrary to popular belief, these cans DO need an amp, and surely not the cheapest ones. People say you don't... well they just lie. Unmoded He400i are a real pain to drive.

People aren't necessarily lying. They probably just don't listen as loudly as you do and/or don't use as much (or any) bass boost.

On my iPhone I listen to these at about 2/3 volume. But if you want a bass boost, or listen above 85dB, you definitely need an amp. Monitoring power input, I very rarely push more than 50 mW into these.

I've been to enough meets to know that the volume that people listen at varies wildly. I'd say at a meet people very by as much as 20 db in how loudly they listen. Did you know that 20 dB difference in listening volume means the higher volume listener needs 125 times more power. So, for example, a person who listens at 73 dB might only need 20 mW on the HE400i. A person who listens at 93dB would need 2,500 mW. People on head-fi don't seem to ever recognize that amp needs much more depends on the listener's listening level than the headphone.

 

[Mani ATH 87]

Ok so here we are. I've had my pair of the He400i for about a week now.

Absolutely adored the packaging. However some QC issues did occur. One side stitching on the band is off crease. The focus pads... are different. One has different kind of velour fiber from the other. I also felt some channel imbalance... not sure if it was of that but I could feel that certain lower frequencies were deeper on one side. But read on...

Out of the box... they sounded meh. I don't know if this was burn in or cuz I didn't have a good amp. Comfort was bliss. Then I played around. My Hidizs AP100 DAP which runs all the rest of my gear with much dominance... felt sloppy and not powerful enough. The bass was thin too. I paired that with a fiiO e07k in the chain and well... things did get better.

I had to pump the bass to +6 on the fiiO to get some decent punch. Overall they would distort beyond a certain level... say +12 gain and bass, and after 80% volume which would still not be ear bleeding enough, I'd get distortion.

Then it hit me. I had to change pads, I told myself.

The focus pads are just absurdly put together btw. Glued on? Who glues pads onto removable discs that are needed in case of a pad swap? And what a flimsy, stupid little disc of the pads. It's so stupid how I had to, in part, destroy the focus pads while having to take them off to try differn5 breed of pads. And man... you have to be careful not to break it or well... get ready to 3d print them if all is lost.

Anyhow, I pulled of the discs and put them inside my Hm5 angled sheepskin pads. Oh yes, things improved a lot.

With some marginal loss of openness, the bass was very different. I'm a bassophile and coming from my EMU Ebony cans, I just could not miss out on that sweet low end and that punch.

I have to say, apart from some discomfort, the hm5 pads put the basshead in the cans... no not super bass, but certainly enough.

Now... I went further. I had some spare SteelSeries Siberia pleather pads lying around. Good thing is, these pads have self adhesive behind them so I just stick them on the cups (no discs involved) and Vala!

Wow. Just wow. These pads are comfy, sure, but they bring back the passive openness the focus pads had. AND... they still have that bass. Sweet low end. AND... they're not angled so the sound is now closer, and louder. Channel imbalance removed now (most probably were unmatched/ different focus pads).

Now my amp isn't distorting. Don't get me wrong - contrary to popular belief, these cans DO need an amp, and surely not the cheapest ones. People say you don't... well they just lie. Unmoded He400i are a real pain to drive.

Anyhow, I'm having such a great bassophile experience with these... they're almost up there with my EMU, I mean the closest they could be, really.

These are one of the best basshead solutions you can apply. And no other mods involved, but I have to tell you... these sound just fantastic now.

Not my endgame... but very close now. Very. Bassheadness... is a go. Even though the low end has always been there for such open back cans, its on a whole nother level now.
 

 
Man, those are some really weird QC issues. Different material on each pad and crooked stitching? In all honesty, I probably would have exchanged them myself. I can;t believe each pad would have a different fabric! lol
 
Are the pads actually glued on? I was wondering why the pads won't rotate around like they did on the original he400. Is there a safe way to remove these if they need to be replaced? I had the focus pads on my original he400 and I actually like them, so I have no need to replace them...but if I did I'd like to believe it won't be rocket science to do it. It was a very easy process with the he400.

 

[Mr Trev]

The earpads are glued to the mounting ring - I assume to keep them falling off or something. From what I've gathered when you buy a new pair of pads, they come with the mounting rings preinstalled. Or if you'd like to try other earpads, get a $10 pair of the plain velours to sacrifice for the ring. I'm also going to assume the pads are mounted to the cups the same across all models, so if you've taken the pads off your old he400 the process for the new ones should be the same
 
My left earpad is glued a tad off centre so it bulges around the front. I'm hoping the place I bought them from can get me a replacement pair of pads rather than have to return the whole headphone

 

[fjrabon]

The earpads are glued to the mounting ring - I assume to keep them falling off or something. From what I've gathered when you buy a new pair of pads, they come with the mounting rings preinstalled. Or if you'd like to try other earpads, get a $10 pair of the plain velours to sacrifice for the ring. I'm also going to assume the pads are mounted to the cups the same across all models, so if you've taken the pads off your old he400 the process for the new ones should be the same

My left earpad is glued a tad off centre so it bulges around the front. I'm hoping the place I bought them from can get me a replacement pair of pads rather than have to return the whole headphone

They aren't glued on the velours, since the velours don't need to create a seal.

 

[DavidA]

   
Man, those are some really weird QC issues. Different material on each pad and crooked stitching? In all honesty, I probably would have exchanged them myself. I can;t believe each pad would have a different fabric! lol
 
Are the pads actually glued on? I was wondering why the pads won't rotate around like they did on the original he400. Is there a safe way to remove these if they need to be replaced? I had the focus pads on my original he400 and I actually like them, so I have no need to replace them...but if I did I'd like to believe it won't be rocket science to do it. It was a very easy process with the he400.

 

  The earpads are glued to the mounting ring - I assume to keep them falling off or something. From what I've gathered when you buy a new pair of pads, they come with the mounting rings preinstalled. Or if you'd like to try other earpads, get a $10 pair of the plain velours to sacrifice for the ring. I'm also going to assume the pads are mounted to the cups the same across all models, so if you've taken the pads off your old he400 the process for the new ones should be the same
 
My left earpad is glued a tad off centre so it bulges around the front. I'm hoping the place I bought them from can get me a replacement pair of pads rather than have to return the whole headphone

The original pleather and velour pads are not glued to the mounting ring since the pads rotating on the mounting ring is not an issue.  With the newer Hifiman headphones the ear pad mounting plater on the headphone side has notches where the mounting tabs of the Focus and Focus-A pad lock in place to keep them from rotating due to the angled design of the pads there by requiring the pads to be glued on to the mounting ring to prevent them from rotating around.  If you change the plastic mounting plate of the HE-400 & HE-500 to the newer metal one it will have the notches to keep Focus style pads from rotating.
 
@AT Khan, one reason you like the pads that are just stuck on to the headphones without the mounting ring is it provides a good seal which helps the bass response, its the reason some use a little silicon glue or tape to get that good seal.

 

[drwlf]

Yeah, the official velour pads are the cheapest option for the removable rings as they're not glued. 10$.
 
The 400i does respond to EQ well. No clipping/distortion happens, if you're properly amped, and properly EQ.
Software-wise, EQ down, preamp everything down before boosting a selected frequency, or cut the frequencies down you do not wish to boost to avoid clipping. If possible, use a proper EQ software with an analysis panel to confirm this. No comments on HW bass boosts, I guess most of them are "properly" implemented e.g. do the beforementioned cutting.
 
Also, better dynamic range for the volume control bit depth-wise, for having your digital volume control at max(O/S volume)/SW players volume control at max, and let your amps pot do its thing.

 

[drwlf]

  Likely both.  Something vibrating and causing audible distortion with certain frequencies.  I've uploaded a video where you can hear it, sweep is a bit loud given the mic sensitivity & proximity..
 
15s mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_DdTf0-EHE
20s mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4YhuMovezs
 
Also I just noticed that it seems affected by the pad's pressure...  200-300hz seemed to go away, but if I push out on the headphone's pad to put some distance between it and my ear, the 300hz noise is back with a vengeance.  So likely something between the pads & drivers vibrating & causing distortion...  Oh well, replacing!

 
That's awful, a case of vibration caused by QC issue regarding the physical structure/part of the headphone. Shouldn't happen, it's probably DIY fixable, but I guess the replacement is the best option - do let us hear how the new pair functions.

 

[drwlf]

And @mahdi1234, @rgmffn, @DavidA, @fjrabon, about the regrilling of 400i.
You've probably read the http://www.head-fi.org/t/619447/hifiman-regrilling-mod -thread, personally, I thought the soundstage didn't _drastically_ improve by removing the grills (obv I tested that out before deciding of going to regrill to a more open solution, and yeah, I've got the backplateless new version where the impact of a more open solution is less drastic concerning the soundstage), I thought the treble got a bit more out of hand that I had hoped (would have to think of dampening/e.g. fuzzor solutions for that issue, the HE-6 mod threads in various places are a source of golden ideas for this), and additionally, the bass impact too a wee hit. Not worth the hassle for me. I do think the 400i is improvable, new old or old version, but you just have to experiment/do some of those "time-consuming" mods, reversable or not.
 
Also, the stock grill is a small source of "glare" caused by reflection?, if you can be arsed to peel that dust cover off (I don't really recommend this, it's "reversable", but obviously not factory-quality ), the glare is tremendously boosted. The regrill would have to address this possible issue, and perhaps the double layer of organza here helped with @rgmffn to make the 400i sound "better"?

 

[drwlf]

So, anyone considering the 400i regrill, I'd read the HFM regrilling mod first whilst picking up stuff of a possible need to further help with dampening issues, (the he-6 mod threads including the fuzzor option is a good source for these.)