[Sonic Defender]

  That's what I was thinking. If HifiMAN knows about the limitations of their design then they should let customers know about this in a max dB number or whatever. This headphone is sold at a premium price and if I want to listen to my music loud I don't want to worry about it clipping. My HD600 doesn't do this and nor do any of my other more cheap headphones.

I listen to mine quite loud and have never experienced anything remotely like you are experiencing. Unless I am mistaken, this is the first such report of this problem.

 

[jerg]

 
I listen to mine quite loud and have never experienced anything remotely like you are experiencing. Unless I am mistaken, this is the first such report of this problem.

I'm fairly certain that the gist of this whole ordeal is that HE560 drivers have a somewhat average power-handling capacity in the extremely low frequency range UNLESS a full seal between the driver, the earpad, and the wearer's head is achieved, in which case the drivers have no issues with power-handling.
 
Lots of headphones have their own power-handling issues, and often not fixable by simply improving the earpad seal.
 
Most dynamic drivers (even the more expensive ones), for instance, simply wobble at <50 Hz and you get massive harmonic distortion instead of pure tones.
 
With a good seal, HE560s extend in the sub-bass even better than previous Hifiman planars with hardly any distortion; with a perfect seal (ala one of my HE560 modding steps) the extension competes with Audezes, which incidentally use the exact same "perfecting the seal" trick to boost their sub-bass extension.

 

[Sonic Defender]

  I'm fairly certain that the gist of this whole ordeal is that HE560 drivers have a somewhat average power-handling capacity in the extremely low frequency range UNLESS a full seal between the driver, the earpad, and the wearer's head is achieved, in which case the drivers have no issues with power-handling.
 
Lots of headphones have their own power-handling issues, and often not fixable by simply improving the earpad seal.
 
Most dynamic drivers (even the more expensive ones), for instance, simply wobble at <50 Hz and you get massive harmonic distortion instead of pure tones.
 
With a good seal, HE560s extend in the sub-bass even better than previous Hifiman planars with hardly any distortion; with a perfect seal (ala one of my HE560 modding steps) the extension competes with Audezes, which incidentally use the exact same "perfecting the seal" trick to boost their sub-bass extension.

Makes sense, I must be lucky and get a great seal (which I believe to be the case). I think you have, and others as well, well noted that there will always be an impact of design decisions such as this. In order to deliver the overall stellar performance of the 560 at a reasonable price (compared against insane $1500 - $2000+ flagship models) the design has to have limitations. All designs do, and if this is indeed a technical reality for the 560, then there it is. For the OP who is experiencing this issue it should be considered that perhaps there is a mismatch with his/her head shape and the pads and simply getting the same headphone design replaced may never overcome the issue. Hopefully that isn't the case.

 

[ThurstonX]

I played that test WAV and experienced the telltale clicking with the Lyr at about noon.  When I pressed the pads tighter it went away.  I've never experienced it while listening to music, and I did test with my go to low end track after listening to the test WAV.  I'm pretty sure it's due to my DIY pads, which use the stiffer foam from the older HFM pads, and thus don't seal as well as the FocusPads.
 
This has pushed me to thinking about how to make hybrid pads using trimmed down old foam for the base (i.e., against the mounting rings), with the softer blue foam from the FocusPads (probably with a slightly widened opening) on the ear side.  I'm pretty sure that blue foam will help with the seal and make them more comfortable.  It'll all be wrapped in microsuede, which is easily the best cover I've experienced.

 

[jerg]

  I played that test WAV and experienced the telltale clicking with the Lyr at about noon.  When I pressed the pads tighter it went away.  I've never experienced it while listening to music, and I did test with my go to low end track after listening to the test WAV.  I'm pretty sure it's due to my DIY pads, which use the stiffer foam from the older HFM pads, and thus don't seal as well as the FocusPads.
 
This has pushed me to thinking about how to make hybrid pads using trimmed down old foam for the base (i.e., against the mounting rings), with the softer blue foam from the FocusPads (probably with a slightly widened opening) on the ear side.  I'm pretty sure that blue foam will help with the seal and make them more comfortable.  It'll all be wrapped in microsuede, which is easily the best cover I've experienced.

That sounds like a ridiculously thick pair of DIY earpads. You know another material you could try for the cover though? Alcantara.

 

[hifimanrookie]

I played that test WAV and experienced the telltale clicking with the Lyr at about noon.  When I pressed the pads tighter it went away.  I've never experienced it while listening to music, and I did test with my go to low end track after listening to the test WAV.  I'm pretty sure it's due to my DIY pads, which use the stiffer foam from the older HFM pads, and thus don't seal as well as the FocusPads.

This has pushed me to thinking about how to make hybrid pads using trimmed down old foam for the base (i.e., against the mounting rings), with the softer blue foam from the FocusPads (probably with a slightly widened opening) on the ear side.  I'm pretty sure that blue foam will help with the seal and make them more comfortable.  It'll all be wrapped in microsuede, which is easily the best cover I've experienced.

Maybe u could make pads of which the touching part with ur face is of some kind of memory foam, so it forms to ur face? Is that not an idea??

 

[jerg]

Maybe u could make pads of which the touching part with ur face is of some kind of memory foam, so it forms to ur face? Is that not an idea??

Or just use Focus-A foam, that seals really darn well already IMO because the inner areas have a bit of give, so it depresses down to form against the convex contour of the head.

 

[hifimanrookie]

Or just use Focus-A foam, that seals really darn well already IMO because the inner areas have a bit of give, so it depresses down to form against the convex contour of the head.

Or just get the he500 or any other higher end dual magnet planar of hifiman...all are great in their own right

 

[jerg]

Or just get the he500 or any other higher end dual magnet planar of hifiman...all are great in their own right

HE500's bass is embarrassingly bad compared to HE560's, so no.
 
Ditto with other Hifiman cans, none I've owned or extensively auditioned achieve the overall bass quality of properly-modded HE560s.

 

[Bill-P]

Well, talking about dampening...
 
I modified Jerg's backwave damping mod a bit today, and the result... blows my mind.
 
I'd highly recommend that HE-560 owners check out his mod to take your HE-560 to the next level. It may just make the HE-560 your one and only (headphone) at home. 

 
Congrats, Jerg! I think I have a winner here. This is hands down the best headphone I have heard... in terms of everything.

 

[ThurstonX]

  That sounds like a ridiculously thick pair of DIY earpads. You know another material you could try for the cover though? Alcantara.

 
The microsuede is quite thin.  I like a fair amount of space inside, and the current pads are perfect for that.  They even fit under the HE-560's yokes, which a lot of pads don't (sadly, the uber comfortable new HM5 pads fail that test).  So I'm aware of the strictures of creating new pads for the HE-560s.  I'll only be using a portion of the old HFM foam to achieve my desired depth; probably just a single foam ring split into two, then further thinned, if that half proves too thick.  I like depth, but there can be too much.
 
Depending on the stiffer foam ring's thickness, I might even be able to angle it.  I did that with my current pair, but those were made using a full foam ring per pad, so there was plenty to trim to create a nice angle.  Just a little trimmed off could accentuate the blue foam's inherent angle a few more degrees.  It's all on the mental drawing board at the moment.  Tomorrow I'll start slicin' and dicin'.
 
So don't worry, I've got the thickness thing covered 

 
As to Alcantara, I'm not quite ready to cut up my pair of Shure's.  They're basically new, so I might sell them sometime.  It is nice material, though.  Pity about the size and sound of the pads.

 

[ThurstonX]

Maybe u could make pads of which the touching part with ur face is of some kind of memory foam, so it forms to ur face? Is that not an idea??

 
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was hinting at.  I'm not sure the blue foam inside the FocusPads qualifies as "memory foam," but it's soft enough to conform to one's face.  I do have a spare pair of pleather HM5 pads that use memory foam.  The jury's still out on them, so I'm not willing to sacrifice them just yet.  The FocusPads, OTOH, have been on the mental chopping block for a couple months now 

 

[ThurstonX]

  Or just use Focus-A foam, that seals really darn well already IMO because the inner areas have a bit of give, so it depresses down to form against the convex contour of the head.

 
From my dissection of the mismatched pair of Focus and Focus As I received with my HE-560s, the foam is identical, just cut differently (FocusPads being slightly thicker).

 

[ThurstonX]

Or just get the he500 or any other higher end dual magnet planar of hifiman...all are great in their own right

 
I have both, and the HE-500s can't really match the HE-560s for certain things.  Yes, bass is just one of them.  jerg's mods for the HE-560s really brought the bass to a new level.  I still enjoy the HE-500s, though.

 

[ThurstonX]

  Well, talking about dampening...
 
I modified Jerg's backwave damping mod a bit today, and the result... blows my mind.
 
I'd highly recommend that HE-560 owners check out his mod to take your HE-560 to the next level. It may just make the HE-560 your one and only (headphone) at home. 

 
Congrats, Jerg! I think I have a winner here. This is hands down the best headphone I have heard... in terms of everything.

 
Agreed.  They are now the one pair of cans I would keep if the Man came and took away all but one.