[daltonlanny]

I bought a used pair of the HE-500 with the grill mod, silver colored cable, and velour ear pads off Headfi, and I am VERY impressed with them!
Blown away actually.
Excellent dynamics, deep, punchy bass, smooth, very slightly warm, detailed mids, great soundstage, imaging, and very detailed highs.
I think I actually prefer their sonic signature more than the HE-560, Sennheiser HD 650, and Philips Fidelio X2.
These suit my tastes to a T.
I love these headphones.
The only downsides so far, is the weight, and a slight brightness on some recordings. Otherwise they are an A+ in my book!
Has anyone tried the HE-560 cable with their HE-500?
If so, what are your thoughts on it vs the stock silver coated copper cable?
Thanks.

 

[ThurstonX]

I bought a used pair of the HE-500 with the grill mod, silver colored cable, and velour ear pads off Headfi, and I am VERY impressed with them!
Blown away actually.
Excellent dynamics, deep, punchy bass, smooth, very slightly warm, detailed mids, great soundstage, imaging, and very detailed highs.
I think I actually prefer their sonic signature more than the HE-560, Sennheiser HD 650, and Philips Fidelio X2.
These suit my tastes to a T.
I love these headphones.
The only downsides so far, is the weight, and a slight brightness on some recordings. Otherwise they are an A+ in my book!
Has anyone tried the HE-560 cable with their HE-500?
If so, what are your thoughts on it vs the stock silver coated copper cable?
Thanks.

 
Congrats on a good deal.  I preferred the HE-560 stock cable to the HE-500 stock cable.  But then I think I'd prefer @StanD's famous zip wire (lamp cord?) to the HE-500 stock cable.  I still prefer my DIY cables, but no doubt I'm incredibly biased.
 
Since we're talking about sibilants, when I was comparing all the aforementioned cables, I had at least one song where the sibilants were rather pronounced.  They were very bad with the stock HE-500 cable, whereas the stock HE-560 cable seemed to smooth them.  I repeated the test three times to be sure, and heard the same thing every time.  YMMV, of course.
 
If you have the stock HE-560 cable, do a comparison on the HE-500s and post your impressions.

 

[zoso86]

I ordered a Schiit Vali folks. Did I do wrong?

 

[StanD]

  I get the impression you prefer to be argumentative for the sake of being so. Unlike you (Obviously) I have had to go through life experimenting with audio gear in order to achieve my desired results this has led me to superb equipment and poor equipment, I rarely take numbers / measurements / and manufacturer claims into consideration. I judge my purchases on actual user reviews. 
 
To answer your question I suppose I have been guilty of owning some offensive gear over the years, We can not all be perfect and get the perfect piece of gear right off the bat some of us plod our way through till we find the end
 
Cheers

I'm not being argumentative, nor do I have to agree with you. I'm providing a balance of information.
I'll ask you, what characteristic or property of an amp can give it the "ability to bring sibilance forward?"
Sibilance is usually a significant peak in the FR, many times around 6 kHz or so or some sort of significant elevation it the treble with a narrow peak. Amps do not do that. I'd look elsewhere in the chain to find the cause.

 

[amigastar]

  I ordered a Schiit Vali folks. Did I do wrong?

That i would also interest me since i have the HE-500 and wanted to buy the Vali.

 

[elwappo99]

  I ordered a Schiit Vali folks. Did I do wrong?

 
Nope. Sometimes I'll swap my HE-500 over from my emotiva or burson soloist. It should have enough juice for most music (aside from orchestral music and other quieter songs). Apart from that, stellar sounding amplifier. I think it's well worth the money and easily competes with the Soloist SL I have. 

 

[joespride]

  I'm not being argumentative, nor do I have to agree with you. I'm providing a balance of information.
I'll ask you, what characteristic or property of an amp can give it the "ability to bring sibilance forward?"
Sibilance is usually a significant peak in the FR, many times around 6 kHz or so or some sort of significant elevation it the treble with a narrow peak. Amps do not do that. I'd look elsewhere in the chain to find the cause.

So you have never heard an amp with a tendency to the bright side ??    IE an exagerated high end !!!!

 

[Llloyd]

Agreed with the above. It seems rare to find a combination that will not work with the HE-500, so many people have posted positive impressions with wide ranges of gear.  It's a well proven headphone at this point.
 
Also in terms of sibilance, if you want to hear it with the he-500 try the ess sabre chip sometime as it's much easier to get an earful.  That's the only time out of the gear I've owned that I could say I ever heard it.  Rectified that issue thankfully.

 

[Rockcoon]

Ok. Someone heard one of these cables?http://theaudioguild.com/the-collection/#/q-cables/
Price is scarry, but if it can partially kill the sibilance, and such problem will apears with the stock cable. this may be the salvation.

 

[Llloyd]

Ok. Someone heard one of these cables?http://theaudioguild.com/the-collection/#/q-cables/
Price is scarry, but if it can partially kill the sibilance, and such problem will apears with the stock cable. this may be the salvation.

 
I have it. I like it. The adapters have broken on my but I have a tendancy to step on the cable which will obviously own it but that's MUCH better than breaking the cable itself wh.  I'm not a believer in cables or have never done comparisons.  Just wanted a nice cable and as far as build quality the Q French silk is one of the nicest I have encountered.  You can always PM @Steve Eddy for more info. 

 

[Rockcoon]

thanks. I mailed to him. And the most importain thig, they can ship their goods to my region. However, i should listen the stock cable at first, maybe it's not so bad.

 

[BobJS]

  I'm not being argumentative, nor do I have to agree with you. I'm providing a balance of information.
I'll ask you, what characteristic or property of an amp can give it the "ability to bring sibilance forward?"
Sibilance is usually a significant peak in the FR, many times around 6 kHz or so or some sort of significant elevation it the treble with a narrow peak. Amps do not do that. I'd look elsewhere in the chain to find the cause.

 
joespride : white, black, high, low, you like being argumentative. I say X.
 
StanD : black, white, low, high, I'm not being arumgentative. I don't have to agree with X.  I say Y.
 
 
How about an amp with a gently positively-sloped FR curve vs one with a gently negatively-sloped.  Possible?  Different presentation of source sibilance?  I would say so.
 
Edit:  Oh, I forgot the obligatory 

 

[StanD]

  So you have never heard an amp with a tendency to the bright side ??    IE an exagerated high end !!!!

Nope. A flat FR is easy to achieve. If an amp can't do that it's a really bad POS. As I asked before what property of an amp other than FR can do this?

 

[Tobes]

Ok. Someone heard one of these cables?http://theaudioguild.com/the-collection/#/q-cables/
Price is scarry, but if it can partially kill the sibilance, and such problem will apears with the stock cable. this may be the salvation.

 
I'm using the stock silver colored braided Hifiman cable and have no sibilance problem with either my Grace 903 amp or the Violectric v281.
I can't stand excessive sibilance and the the he-500 is blessedly free of this issue IMO.

 

[StanD]

   
joespride : white, black, high, low, you like being argumentative. I say X.
 
StanD : black, white, low, high, I'm not being arumgentative. I don't have to agree with X.  I say Y.
 
 
How about an amp with a gently positively-sloped FR curve vs one with a gently negatively-sloped.  Possible?  Different presentation of source sibilance?  I would say so.
 
Edit:  Oh, I forgot the obligatory 

Use EQ for that, I wouldn't buy an amp with an FR that was not flat. Sibilance is a peaked response not a gentle slope. For that one would need a notch filter, best achieved using a parametric EQ. If it's the headphones, then I'd toss mine out and get a good pair. I once bought a cheap pair of IEMs, $75 Kilpsch Image S4a, which had a terrible peak that caused sibilance. I was able to mostly correct that with the parametric EQ in Neutron MP on my smartphone.  I never use that IEM.
No amp comes with a notch filter perfectly tuned to the offensive frequency peak that solves the issues of all IEMS/cans. That's not realistic.
In the case of the HE-500, no such problem.