[cute]

 

Could this be the cause of the "tizz", type vibration that I hear sometimes with certain vocals at a little higher volume?  I hear this in the treble though....it would be my only complaint about the sound of the HE-560. and a few others mentioned this as well in the review thread.  I was hoping this would go away with more burn in.  Voices such as Linda Ronstadt, Loreena McKinnet, Allison Krause, as examples. male vocal Brendan Perry.  Certain treble frequencies seem to resonate slightly.  Can be repeated at the same point of the song!

Can you share what exact tracks and locations you hear the "tizz" so we also can test and see if our copies have the same problem? I've listened to a couple of Allison's albums with HE560, but I didn't hear the "tizz" you talked about.

On a quick listen of "Paper Airplane", 24/96 flac recording, the song "Dimming of the Day", multiple times throughout the track when Allison sings the word "need you", or the word "need", she gets breathy/shouty/tizz, when she increases the volume of her voice inflection, during that word, I hear what I was trying to describe on the HE-560, but not on my other phones, DT880, etc!  I would need to listen, and do some digging in some of my other tracks to pinpoint that same thing, but that is pretty much the distraction right there!

 

[jerg]

 
On a quick listen of "Paper Airplane", 24/96 flac recording, the song "Dimming of the Day", multiple times throughout the track when Allison sings the word "need you", or the word "need", she gets breathy/shouty/tizz, when she increases the volume of her voice inflection, during that word, I hear what I was trying to describe on the HE-560, but not on my other phones, DT880, etc!  I would need to listen, and do some digging in some of my other tracks to pinpoint that same thing, but that is pretty much the distraction right there!

Personally to my ears the tuning with the test prototype HE560 in the upper treble was emphasized enough to be extremely airy ~ a bit tizzy, but production HE560's treble is just right I feel, maximizing airiness but not quite to being tizzy.
 
There are poorly-recorded/mastered vocal music that have over-emphasized 10-14kHz region, especially with certain female vocals. Those tracks are naturally tizzy and any headphone with linear extension past 10kHz would sound tizzy there. It's actually one of the primary reasons why headphones rolled off past 10kHz (e.g. HE500) are described as being very forgiving, means their roll-offs "cancel out" the tizz in tizzy music.
 
But obviously if you want to hear all the details in the >10kHz region of treble, i.e. realistic rendering of airiness/ambience as well as the shimmer of instruments and material-contact, that extension needs to be there.

 

[cute]

 

 
On a quick listen of "Paper Airplane", 24/96 flac recording, the song "Dimming of the Day", multiple times throughout the track when Allison sings the word "need you", or the word "need", she gets breathy/shouty/tizz, when she increases the volume of her voice inflection, during that word, I hear what I was trying to describe on the HE-560, but not on my other phones, DT880, etc!  I would need to listen, and do some digging in some of my other tracks to pinpoint that same thing, but that is pretty much the distraction right there!

Personally to my ears the tuning with the test prototype HE560 in the upper treble was emphasized enough to be extremely airy ~ a bit tizzy, but production HE560's treble is just right I feel, maximizing airiness but not quite to being tizzy.
 
There are poorly-recorded/mastered vocal music that have over-emphasized 10-14kHz region, especially with certain female vocals. Those tracks are naturally tizzy and any headphone with linear extension past 10kHz would sound tizzy there. It's actually one of the primary reasons why headphones rolled off past 10kHz (e.g. HE500) are described as being very forgiving, means their roll-offs "cancel out" the tizz in tizzy music.
 
But obviously if you want to hear all the details in the >10kHz region of treble, i.e. realistic rendering of airiness/ambience as well as the shimmer of instruments and material-contact, that extension needs to be there.

Watching my frequency analyzer in the track that I identified above, the breathy, shouty  tizzy sound is under 10,000 hz, centered at 9,000 from what I can tell, cant understand why I don't notice it there with my DT880, and I didn't expect to on the PM-1 either.  So it must just be the nature of the tuning with the HE-560, I just need to reduce the volume there to avoid the annoyance!  I have too many tizzy tracks.  I notice a lot of what you described with many tracks that have a chorus, notorious are the Tallis Schollars, other music where there are old chants, religious music, each headphone to various degrees.  PM's with @analogsurviver, brought my attention to Tallis Schollars, which no headphone either one of us have heard can handle without similar distortion!

 

[jerg]

 
Watching my frequency analyzer in the track that I identified above, the breathy, shouty  tizzy sound is under 10,000 hz, centered at 9,000 from what I can tell, cant understand why I don't notice it there with my DT880, and I didn't expect to on the PM-1 either.  So it must just be the nature of the tuning with the HE-560, I just need to reduce the volume there to avoid the annoyance!  I have too many tizzy tracks.  I notice a lot of what you described with many tracks that have a chorus, notorious are the Tallis Schollars, other music where there are old chants, religious music, each headphone to various degrees.  PM's with @analogsurviver, brought my attention to Tallis Schollars, which no headphone either one of us have heard can handle without similar distortion!

Things around 9kHz are closer to sibilants rather than tizziness (semantics, I know). That's odd considering I don't really detect any emphasis around that area with HE560 via tone sweeps.

 

[purrin]

  ^^ I thought Purrin was on some kinda break/hiatus??

I'm back from the dead and my measurement rig isn't expected to be back up for at least a month. In the meantime, Ultrabike is taking good measurements. Similar rig to mine with minor differences (I think I manage a better seal than his rig, so higher bass readings.)
 
In a nutshell, the PM-1 stock and PM-1 modded, both sounded like poo. Just different flavors of poo, either poo from the green peas or poo from the applesauce. And what I mean by poo is low-mid fidelity suckyness. The FR of the PM-1 is actually pretty good. But FR, while a huge priority for me, still isn't everything.
 
With the HE-560, there was some stridency with certain tracks and when the volume was turned up, but I found it quite amazingly good. Will need more analysis (measurements) and more marginal recording test for me to definitively confirm that it's amazingly good. Loved the comfort too. Quite resolving which was a nice surprise - the HE-560 will scale with better quality amping. The HE-560 is definitely mid-high fidelity, which fits right into its asking price range. A definite overall improvement over the HE-500 and HE-500 with jerg pads.
 
Differences of course may come down to other components in the chain. If running from an OBJ2 amp for example, PM-1 and HE-560 probably sound the same or close.

 

[cute]

Maybe what @purrin stated in his post is what I am hearing with the HE-560....."With the HE-560, there was some stridency with certain tracks and when the volume was turned up".  That would explain what I experience!  It will be interesting to see the measurements.

 

[MattTCG]

 
I'm back from the dead and my measurement rig isn't expected to be back up for at least a month. In the meantime, Ultrabike is taking good measurements. Similar rig to mine with minor differences (I think I manage a better seal than his rig, so higher bass readings.)
 
In a nutshell, the PM-1 stock and PM-1 modded, both sounded like poo. Just different flavors of poo, either poo from the green peas or poo from the applesauce. And what I mean by poo is low-mid fidelity suckyness. The FR of the PM-1 is actually pretty good. But FR, while a huge priority for me, still isn't everything.
 
With the HE-560, there was some stridency with certain tracks and when the volume was turned up, but I found it quite amazingly good. Will need more analysis (measurements) and more marginal recording test for me to definitively confirm that it's amazingly good. Loved the comfort too. Quite resolving which was a nice surprise - the HE-560 will scale with better quality amping. The HE-560 is definitely mid-high fidelity, which fits right into its asking price range. A definite overall improvement over the HE-500 and HE-500 with jerg pads.
 
Differences of course may come down to other components in the chain. If running from an OBJ2 amp for example, PM-1 and HE-560 probably sound the same or close.

 
Good to see you around and thanks for the poo poo clarification. Quoted and bolded the above to preserve it for arguments that will arise later. 

 

[StanD]

   
Good to see you around and thanks for the poo poo clarification. Quoted and bolded the above to preserve it for arguments that will arise later. 

He doesn't hold any Schiit back.

 

[cute]

I just listened to my "Paper Airplane", "Dimming of the Day", by Allison Krause again, but this time I pushed the wooden cups/ear pads, as tight as I could while listening to this track.  With them pushed up tight, I heard a clean clear sound, with the "need you" vocal. So, maybe there is validity in the ear pad seal, relating to what I hear.  But, I can't sit and listen for very long applying that kind of pressure to my head with the pads.  The "strident" sound maybe has something to do with sound leakage?  I really like these phones, and still hope it is just my pair, but these are my impressions!

 

[ThurstonX]

@jerg  
This is your friendly one-month reminder, referencing:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/711824/hifiman-he-560-impressions-discussion-thread/1245#post_10455578
 

 

[MattTCG]

  @jerg  
This is your friendly one-month reminder, referencing:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/711824/hifiman-he-560-impressions-discussion-thread/1245#post_10455578
 

 
haha...he gotcha. Now fess up...let's hear it. .
 

 

[jerg]

Not gonna lie, I did forget about this. It was a promising mod that dead-ended.

 

[MattTCG]

Boo booooo...**throws rotton tomato**

 

[tuna47]

Hifiman when when new improved version be shipped to dealers

 

[Faithless]

Message received from HIFIMAN...
 
" Sorry for the troubles we brought to you! There is some HE-560 in stock. But we have made the new plan about the shipping for HE-560. Some American people say the earpads should be bigger due to their bigger ears. So we decide to make the bigger size earpads and ship the HE-560 with new earpads to USA or European pre-orders later. Since the factory need to make and make other improvements, we now do not have the exact shipping date. We believe it is worthy for us to wait for it! "
 
Bad for me... More time to wait for a new toy.
Anyone know some about this "new earpads and other improvements" ????