I blind-bought the HE-500 as a student for $700 a few years ago from a store coming from a Bayer DT-880 and various Senns. It was love at first listen. Years later, after having been to headphone shows and having listened to almost all flagship dynamic, planar magnetic and electostatic headphones including the Orpheus I can safely say that for my personal tastes nothing beats the fun, engaging representation of planars, no matter if Hifiman or Audeze or Oppo. Given that I have heard many worse lacklustre speakers at 4x its price, I still think the HE-500 is a fantastic deal.
This should probably sum things up.
Also, to the untrained ear, it would take D scale of improvements to determine something is "night and day", but to trained ears improvements smaller than A scale is considered "night and day".
We can argue about it, but I like the customisability of the headphone, for me its part of the hobby and curiosity. Its not like its a terrible headphone out of the box, at $500 you are definitely getting more than your money's worth, but it's nice being able to tweak a headphone to a sound signature that you prefer and scoring some sound gains for what are relatively simple modifications. The stock pleather pads sound terrible to me, but I'm sure they have their fans. The velour pads were great for a long while, but the Focus Pads are quite an improvement in bass but bright sounding with the stock cable. The release of the Focus Pads was directly attributed to some terrific research and experimentation that was done by Jerg here on the forum, even Hifiman acknowledged that they found this input very useful in their follow up models. My mods have only been done in the last 3 months, so I have been blissfully happy with the HE-500s for close to 3 years in stock form.
The fact is that no headphone maker really gets a headphone perfectly right out of the box. If they spent forever tweaking the design, they would never release a product, its part of the engineering game. There are even popular mods for the Sennheiser HD800 which is undoubtably one, if not the most, engineering driven headphone effort so far and Sennheiser has a long history in the headphone game. Are those tweaks necessary, nope. We also forget that companies like Hifiman haven't been around for very long, they are also learning and getting better at the game as they go along. That new guys like Audeze and Hifiman have been able to give some of the established players a serious run for their money in a short space of time is a great achievement.
The customisation can be a great reward too on the wallet even on entry level cans, for example, the well known Sennheiser HD555 to HD595 mod, after realising that Sennheiser essentially used the same design for both headphones, but taped up a couple of tuning ports to give it a different sound. I also had the Sennheiser HD580s that was easily modded to HD600s, minus the more precise driver matching, if you bought the improved driver grills and if you really wanted to you could completely rebuild it into a HD600 as all the parts are replaceable.
Many headphone makers are trying to exploit the customisation bit by offering bass tuning ports and offering it as a feature. Even with IEMs there can be a tremendous amount of experimentation through using different nozzles and ear tips. The Westone W4s I had were some of the most sensitive IEMs I've ever owned. They could sound very different depending on what tips you were using. Westone has released their star tips that allows you to personalise the sound to your taste. There are just as many headphones out there where you have no choice at all. My Philips Fidelio L1s don't even have replaceable ear pads!
I understand what you are saying but in my opinion once you start getting into that $400-500 range, you should not have to change things to get the best out of the headphones. They should not sound mediocre until you mod them, change cables, swap earpads....they should should as good as they can right out of the box
Okay, I am noticing a number of assumptions here are blocking the argument from progressing to the next level.
First, these are not "$500" headphones, so to categorically label them as such is imprecise. They were $700 for years, after dropping from their original price of $900. In one year from now, they may be less than $500. The accurate answer is that they are none of the above. Without boring with you semantics, what we are doing when we reduce a physical object to a market value is called "reification." You might want to look up the word for further exploration, but I won't bother on a head-fi forum.
Second, these do not require any modification to sound good, and for a long time nobody knew what modifications to perform on them, while still enjoying them. One of the earliest things people noted about these headphones was that they gave the LCD-2 a run for their money at a lesser price point, with some preferring the almost flat frequency response of the HE-500s to the relatively treble-shy LCD-2.2. Even at $900, the HiFiMAN's were less than the $1200 (at the time) Audezes, and for the first time, people could launch unto the upper tiers of planar dynamics for under $1000. At their current price point, the HE-500s are a good (read outstanding) deal, even today, with other headphones on the market.
To further expand on this point, I believe a few modifications improve my experience of the HE-500, but the changes are not revolutionary as some make out. The grill-mod, fuzzor mod, and new pads make them better headphones, in my opinion, but that does not mean that you have to go through with the mods to find amazing experiences with them. How do I know this? Because for the first 6 months, I was in awe listening through my collection without having any mods at all.
Thus, I propose we should move beyond the assumption that these require modification to sound good and that they are only tantamount to whatever the market says they are.
My original post on the subject was in reference to a post where it was suggested that the HE-500 needed certain mods to sound good. Not better but good. My response was simply stating that at a $500+ price point a headphone should not need any modifications to sound good.
Yes, it is, because (obviously) what one person finds "good" might not be "good" to someone else and they may want to start modifying it to make it suit their tastes.
I gotten the HE-500 like a month ago and been running them thru a Asgard 2 which I got around the same time I paid like $479 for my HE-500 tho I was lucky enough to find it for that much.I been enjoying them since I moved away from a T90 that I was using prior with a tube amp. Like some one mentioned already different people will like and dislike different things as well depending on what setup they have paired with the headphones.
I gotten the HE-500 like a month ago and been running them thru a Asgard 2 which I got around the same time I paid like $479 for my HE-500 tho I was lucky enough to find it for that much.I been enjoying them since I moved away from a T90 that I was using prior with a tube amp. Like some one mentioned already different people will like and dislike different things as well depending on what setup they have paired with the headphones.
Am a huge fan of the T90 - but I totally agree, getting the correct chain is very important, it's such a picky headphone. I found the pairing with Schiit stuff always sub-par, though I really like their DACs and Amps usually a lot. The thing that made me love the T90 was listening to it with the Bottlehead Crack with Speedball - absolute bliss combo. It needs to have at least one warm sounding "module" in the chain to tame the highs and bring out the amazing bass, it's capable of such nice sound if driven "right". I do understand that is the cause for a lot of frustration, especially when you have other headphones that can be paired so much easier with a wider variety of DACs/Amps...
My original post on the subject was in reference to a post where it was suggested that the HE-500 needed certain mods to sound good. Not better but good. My response was simply stating that at a $500+ price point a headphone should not need any modifications to sound good.
Yep, I understand that. My post was sort of responding indirectly to other posts I have read recently too. I agree that to pay that amount of money, a headphone should sound good to one's ears in order to justify keeping it.
Honestly, I wanted to say this earlier, but half of the arguments on this thread are more directed at it's provocative title--that this phone is a waste of money--rather than what the original post said. I clearly, as you can tell, take issue with what the title claims rather with the op actually explained, which was relatively well- reasoned as he posted back with updates.
My original post on the subject was in reference to a post where it was suggested that the HE-500 needed certain mods to sound good. Not better but good. My response was simply stating that at a $500+ price point a headphone should not need any modifications to sound good.
People have already hammered the subjectivity of the hobby and what sound is "good". I am going to go a slightly different route.
Headphones are marketed for a large segment of the hi-fi population. For example, Grado is famous for having a sound signature that is quite different from many of its competitors. I tried the 225i ( I know it's not in the price range we are talking about). I did not like what I was hearing. I did not even bother trying out different pads for the Grados, or even trying out Senn-Grados. I had/have a strong feeling that I won't enjoy it. A similar concept can be drawn for the headphones in the higher brackets. In fact, I would even venture to say that the higher pricepoint headphones are even more sensitive to sound profiles.
Now, if you do not enjoy the base headphone, chances are you will not enjoy the headphone after modifications. Now, what if you are in love with the base model? Well, what do you love about it? Maybe making a modification here and there brings out the sub bass that you really crave. Are these mods necessary? No, of course not. But, they are purely for personal preference.
In the case that you did not enjoy the base model, why was it? The real question here is this: Can you see someone else really enjoying this headphone?
Going back to my example, I did not like my Grados, but I can definitely see how some people can really enjoy them. They are very lively, and had a different type of punch that I wanted. That being said, one of my friends loved them and ended up with a pair of 80i's.
tl;dr: Headphones at that price range are catered to specific audiences. Just because you do not necessarily like the sound, ask yourself: Can you see someone else really enjoying this headphone?
Thus, I propose we should move beyond the assumption that these require modification to sound good and that they are only tantamount to whatever the market says they are.
I agree with all of your points completely, but I've also felt exactly the same as OP since day 1 that I've had the HE-500s. I too started with the M-50s, then the Momentums, then jumped to the Hifimans for under $500 and was immediately and continually underwhelmed, even considering the great deal that they were, both at the time and now. My impression of the HE-500 is that it has so much potential that is unrealized, and although some may be happy with its stock sound, I think enough people have done enough different mods to it to prove that my impression isn't by any means unique. I think the time and attention that has gone into modding these and sharing the results is a great thing for our community, and if we can go in just a couple years from $900 phones that initially rivaled phones costing 50-100% more to ~$500 phones that can be modded to sound even better than that, then we should be pretty happy with the progress we are making both from the producers' and consumers' standpoints.
To the OP: at this point, what (if any) mods have you done? And how much burn-in do they have?
Edit: I just realized the quote I took also had a bold emphasized word in it so I'd like to clarify that my similar usage was done in exactly the same manner and not with any intention of being sarcastic, condescending, or anything like that.
IMO the he-500 doesn't NEED any modification.
The 500's garnered plenty of praise from professional reviewers in their stock form - and in comparison to far more expensive HF's.
I don't think it would be news to anyone that the members of this forum are quite obsessive and often fixate on certain qualities, perhaps to the detriment of others.
I use the 500's in stock form with the standard velour pads. FWIW, I much preferred the velour to the stock pleathers. I did buy the newer Focus pads, but while they're softer/more comfortable I found them a sonic downgrade.
In stock form the 500's are a wonderfully natural sounding headphone and allow listening for hours without fatigue (IME).
That said they don't sound that impressive without an amp. I thought they sounded lackluster from an Auzen PC soundcard (which manages to drive the Q701's quite well).
While I thought they sounded great with my Grace 903 dac/amp - I got a big improvement in refinement, detail, soundstaging and realistic tone/timbre adding the Violectric V281 HF amp (yeah, I know that's expensive - but that's not the HF's fault
In one sense, nothing needs modification. On the other hand, I found them so uncomfortable without modification that I ended up boxing them back up for several months until I decided to change the pads and add a suspension band. They're still one of the most uncomfortable headphones I've ever used, but at least now they're actually being used, and I hope that after doing more mods toward improving the sound quality they will continue to get even more use.
So, in many cases people are fine with the stock product; in many others, not so much. If modding improves satisfaction, even if at the detriment of some qualities, then why not?
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