[Dogmatrix]

The pivot has been attached to the yoke badly on one side, certainly a manufacturing defect. I don't think you could easily fix it yourself as the pivot screw appears to be fixed. It may affect sound quality as the whole driver assembly is tilted off axis on one side. Personally I would return them, they have not been assembled or checked with the care they deserve at $700.

 

[schaaf]

Yeah, I'm going to try to exchange them. Amazon seems to make that difficult. I have to return it, wait for my refund, and then re-buy them. Kind of a P.I.T.A. 
 
Does the HE-500 require any sort of burn in to "open up?" Things sound great, but slightly muffled in the mid range. More so than I thought they would be based on all the reviews. I'm coming from Senn. HD555s. The bass on the 500's is great. The only other thing I'm not digging is the weight. They're pretty hefty. 

 

[dleblanc343]

Wow I'm surprised they turned out that bad... it's as if they didn't go through quality control. I'm glad mine were perfect, I found my pair to be very well made and robust. But I guess I kind of got lucky.
 
Hopefully you can get things switched up pretty quickly!

 

[schaaf]

There was some kind of card included with them. I would assume it was a quality control card because it had a hand written character on it. Of course the while thing was in Chinese, so I really have no idea.

For all I know it could have have been a note that says "screw this. I quit!"

S-

 

[wdahm519]

Dang that's pretty bad.  I would ask for an exchange because you apparently received a manufacturing lemon.  

 

[schaaf]

Yeah, it's a shame they were this bad. I wish Amazon made exchanging them easier than it's going to be, but there's nothing I can do about it I guess. 
 
After spending some time with the Cans that are going back in a box to Amazon tomorrow, I'm realizing that I might need to re-think my strategy on music. I have, not a ton, but quite a lot of iTunes music that has, up until this point, sounded pretty good in my 225's and 555's. That is NOT the case with the 500's. At all. 
 
I downloaded Saeglopur by Sigur Ros a long time ago. It's one of my favorite "relaxing" songs to play. It sounds like a muddled mess. There are what I can only assume to be compression artifacts clicking and popping in the background. It's not that great. It's pre iTunes + so its 128Kbps. Blah. All my Lossless ripped stuff sounds great, but man-oh-man, am I going to have a hard time finding acceptable replacements for some of the music I have downloaded. It's going to cost thousands to rebuild from a CD perspective. Ouch. 
 
S-

 

[hasanyuceer]

HE500s need burn-in and a decent amp.
 
They sound too bad out of the box.
 
Edit: Also I think the "defect" on your headphones is a shame for Hifiman. Most probably they have no quality control at all.

 

[MaZa]

Quote:

Yeah, I'm going to try to exchange them. Amazon seems to make that difficult. I have to return it, wait for my refund, and then re-buy them. Kind of a P.I.T.A. 
 
Does the HE-500 require any sort of burn in to "open up?" Things sound great, but slightly muffled in the mid range. More so than I thought they would be based on all the reviews. I'm coming from Senn. HD555s. The bass on the 500's is great. The only other thing I'm not digging is the weight. They're pretty hefty. 

 
 
Hifiman recommends 100 hour burn-in. And to my ears there has been a change in the midrange for the better, though that may have been just my ears.

 

[.Sup]

Quote:

I sold my HE-500 straight away after getting the HD800  

Hehe we all have different tastes. One is not better than the other its just a matter of preference.

 

[.Sup]

Quote:

 
Sorry It's sideways, But here you can see the cups are pretty well lined up, but the angle of the wire attachments is pretty skewed.
 

 
These do not live sideways on my computer, so I'm not sure why they do here. I can't figure out how to rotate them...
But again, you can see the right one (well top one in this case) has a vertical exit point, while the left or bottom, is skewed off at a crazy angle.
 

 
Ok here we see that the screws do not align from one cup to the next. It's like the metal gimbals or yokes are the same, and not mirrored the way they should be. The one on the right (top) is much higher.
 
I have more, but for the sake of brevity and due to the fact I do not know how to make them be the correct orientation, I'll just stop here.
 
 
So, is this acceptable on a 700 dollar pair of headphones? Am I crazy for wanting them to be better than this?
 
Has anyone else had this issue?
Should I return them?
 
Thoughts?
 
Thanks everyone-

I can position mine the same as yours but mine are fine. You have to tilt the cups to the left or right, they will align eventually. Maybe yours are stiffer but the part where you adjust the headband rotates a bit.

 

[wdahm519]

Quote:

I can position mine the same as yours but mine are fine. You have to tilt the cups to the left or right, they will align eventually. Maybe yours are stiffer but the part where you adjust the headband rotates a bit.

I was thinking about telling him this but it seems to "obvious".  However yes, you can rotate each up so the screws line up.  Just try and see if it helps because other than that they look fine.  I occasionally need to rotate mine after listening because my head makes the left one rotate a bit.
 
Also, Hasanyuceer, you have no idea if HiFiMan has QC or not so saying that they don't is pure speculation.

 

[davidgotsa]

Exactly! The HE-500 is a lot better than the HD800 when it comes to price/performance though, in my opinion. 
Quote:

Hehe we all have different tastes. One is not better than the other its just a matter of preference.

 

[schaaf]

I'll squiggle them around a bit to see if I can get them to line up. They are pretty stiff, and I think I understand what you are saying. I know they move around up there under where they attach to the headband, but they don't move that much...

 

[schaaf]

Quote:

 
 
Hifiman recommends 100 hour burn-in. And to my ears there has been a change in the midrange for the better, though that may have been just my ears.

 
 
What's the common burn-in procedure? I did a search, but I only found arguments about if burn-in is real or not. Is there something specific I should do, or just let them play... Do you use the amp too?

 

[.Sup]

Quote:

I was thinking about telling him this but it seems to "obvious".  However yes, you can rotate each up so the screws line up.  Just try and see if it helps because other than that they look fine.  I occasionally need to rotate mine after listening because my head makes the left one rotate a bit.
 
Also, Hasanyuceer, you have no idea if HiFiMan has QC or not so saying that they don't is pure speculation.

They should have QC as all Hifiman headphones I own had QC sticker on the bottom of the headband. Unfortunately that sticker doesn't mean much as the hands and minds that manually check every headphone opinionate different on what quality actually is and so my HE-4 had so much glue on the headband that I was extremely disappointed and then I realised why, partly, headphones like Sennheiser cost more as they have a proper QC.
 
Quote:

Exactly! The HE-500 is a lot better than the HD800 when it comes to price/performance though, in my opinion. 

That is true David, I agree. Although there are other factors consumers don't know as to why they cost so much more. Sennheiser's science personnel should outnumber Hifiman's 20:1 and so costs are higher which reflect on the higher product price.
 
Quote:

 
 
What's the common burn-in procedure? I did a search, but I only found arguments about if burn-in is real or not. Is there something specific I should do, or just let them play... Do you use the amp too?

Just let them play at slightly louder volume than you usually listen to. I never let them play just to burn in, I listen to them from day 1 and you will notice how they change in sound, same with the cable.