[TMRaven]

Looks like variation between wood, and not two types of finish.

 

[ThurstonX]

 

I got both the vali and lyr2.

The vali is definitely under-amping the 560. You can hear the body is less full, the high is not getting enough power and a bit congested, and the bass is weaken and not deep and bouncy like the one under lyr2. It is still comfortable to listen under vali since the treble is not harsh that the thinner body will not give you a bad feeling like an unamp k701.

 
I think that the additional Body in the Lyr is a result of it being a tube amp while the Vali is a solid state amp. They are designed to have different flavors,

 
Except the Vali has tubes inside.

 

[ZackRahn1986]

 
Except the Vali has tubes inside.

 


OOPS! I don't know schiit...

 

[Eric_C]

Vali and Lyr are both hybrid amps. Says so on the product pages.
For a full tube amp by Schiit, you'd have to get a Valhalla.

 

[Sonic Defender]

  Looks like variation between wood, and not two types of finish.

Ditto.

 

[allets]

  By the way, here's what my more refined subjective perception of the HE560 FR is, superimposed over an actual FR measurement by ultrabike of Jergpad modded HE500s
 
 

 
Anyone who is even remotely familiar with reading frequency response plots should be able to imagine the sound signature. Really the main points of interest are the <50 Hz region, the 2kHz region, 4-6kHz region, 10kHz, and ~12kHz region.
 
Keep in mind ofc this is still purely subjective and by-ear (with some tone-sweep testing and comparisons), it's how it sounds to my ears, and the ups and downs are qualitative rather than quantitative.

That blue line looks perfect. I'd like to see some more readings of these... could be my holy grail. 11-12khz is where the pleasant sparkle is for me. The delicious 4-6khz region and a smooth flat mid and lows. I get eeky when I see headphones with the 9-10khz spike. Get rid of it!!!!!! GET RID OF IT. DO IT RIGHT LIKE THE BLUES

 

[Yeswecan]

Looking forward to reading a comparison between HE-560 and T1. Anybody?

 

[ThePianoMan]

Those are some beautiful measurements! They do sound quite.

I did listen to a T1 a few weeks back and had a little in the way of notes (I'll see if I can dig them up) comparing it to the 560.
As I recall, the 560 was more liquid in sound, while the T1 was a little but more separated and punchy. YMMV obviously.

 

[allets]

Those are some beautiful measurements! They do sound quite.

I did listen to a T1 a few weeks back and had a little in the way of notes (I'll see if I can dig them up) comparing it to the 560.
As I recall, the 560 was more liquid in sound, while the T1 was a little but more separated and punchy. YMMV obviously.

That would be lovely sir. Especially coming from a musician. Thank you in advance. Perhaps we could even become friends and you could record me some french horn lines for my unfinished symphony... woah.. too soon..

 

[maricius]

Those are some beautiful measurements! They do sound quite.

I did listen to a T1 a few weeks back and had a little in the way of notes (I'll see if I can dig them up) comparing it to the 560.
As I recall, the 560 was more liquid in sound, while the T1 was a little but more separated and punchy. YMMV obviously.

 
Which would you find to have a brighter sound/thinner presentation? Would the 560 being more liquid indicate it being thicker/warmer?

 

[ThePianoMan]

That would be lovely sir. Especially coming from a musician. Thank you in advance. Perhaps we could even become friends and you could record me some french horn lines for my unfinished symphony... woah.. too soon..

Hahaha, I'll think about it ^_^

I would say the T1 was thinner and the 560 a little thicker.
The T1 was quite lean through the midrange, while the 560 felt fuller. I enjoyed both - a very good demonstration of the differences between Planar and dynamic cans. The planets always seem to have slightly rounder edges to attacks. The dynamics are very sharp, defined attacks. Still, similar cans I thought, and both very nice. At the sub-$1000 prices you can find the T1 for, I think it's a good deal. At full retail price for both, I'd take the 560.

 

[grizzlybeast]

bass seems light on some songs. Then I played one song and it rattled my skull. So the bass is mix dependent but the treble so far is consistently strong.

How does it compare in your memory to the HE-6?

I'm on the west coast audition list so I'll have it side by side vs my HE-6 soon.........

I find the he6 to have the individual instruments more dense including the bass, but a little less balanced in the mids. I think my choice would be the he6.

 

[Maxx134]

No way vali can push the 560 to max maybe loud enough but needs more power

I have noticed after burn in that the he560 sounded slightly more sensitive and fuller or easier to drive on an O2 from when I first tried.
So with burn in I believe the he560 gets easier to drive by a slight margin.
Also since the Vali sounded nice with previous poster,
I would recommend saving money to skip over all mid tier equipment and buy save up for something like a HA-1 that approach top tier level at mid teir pricing.

Today I received the HiFiman HE-560 headphones. I've been listening for the past hr or so and they sound great. I'm using the WOO Fireflies along with the Wa7 tube power supply. I'm a Grado fan and these sound really good. Clear and full sound with just enough bass as well as a clear defined high end. My young impression is they are a keeper. Even using the free Spotify my play list sounds great.

Gary

You stumbled upon what I feel is one of he560 best synergy, as that wa7&wa7tp combo increases low end and is more dynamic than wa7 alone plus having tube sweetness, so would be very impressive sound with a broken in he560. .

 

[AgentXXL]

Hi all - for the last week or so I've been pretty content just listening to my HE-560s on my Mac/CLAS-dB/Intruder setup, but I decided to see if I had anything that was more 'powerful'. Admittedly the Intruder in balanced mode is very impressive but having spent some time a week ago with the Bryston BHA-1 I wondered if I had anything in my arsenal of electronics that might do a similar job. While digging through the storage room I came across an older Parasound Zamp 2 channel solid state amp. It's an older model - the current revision is a Zamp.3:
 
http://www.parasound.com/ParasoundZ/zampv3.php
 
Here are some pics of my 1st gen unit:
 

 

 
I can't find the specs on their website anymore but from what I remember it's from pre-2000 and outputs 30wpc into 8 ohms (on the 5 way speaker posts). The headphone output is a 6.3mm (1/4") jack and the only specs on it are 'a high current output that will drive any headphone over 8 ohms with ease'. That's a quote from a Parasound support rep after I tried to find more info about the headphone stage. One unique thing about the Zamp - it has an audio detect circuit built in and powers itself up automatically when it detects audio. Otherwise it goes into a standby mode to preserve power. Nice little feature for sure, and I seem to remember that's why I picked it up - for a second zone in my old house. Now that I'm in a smaller condo, it's been sitting in storage for probably 15 years. 
 
In any case I opened it up and cleaned out the dust, added some Super PPE to the volume level pots and gave them a good back and forth tweaking for 2 minutes. After that I closed it up and powered it up with my X3 feeding the dual RCA input with a 3.5mm to dual RCA adapter. I was immediately impressed.... absolutely no hiss or ground floor noise that I could discern. I pressed play on the X3 (with my HE-560s attached to the headphone output of the Zamp) and WOW! It definitely has some serious power! Everything I listened to was clean, 'authorative', and I was pleasantly surprised at the width of the soundstage. Bass, mid-range and treble were all well represented whether the X3 was playing 44KHz/16 bit .m4a or 192KHz/24 bit FLAC. Amazing that some of this older gear sounds so great!
 
Now I'm really tempted to go ahead and build a cable to use the speaker taps. Based on how great it sounds out of the headphone output, I'm certainly not in any hurry though. Anyone else tried anything similar? What kind of results did you get? I'm still waiting for some Paracord to get delivered so I can finish my 15' cable for the HE-560s. Then I'll give them a try on the headphone output of my Denon AVR-4308, although I don't expect anywhere as good of a result as I got with the Parasound Zamp. If anyone else has one of these, I seriously recommend giving it a try! First time I've heard single-ended output that rivaled my balanced output config.
 
Time to go listen some more...
 
Dale

 

[moshen]

 
Ditto.

The difference is larger than what the photos make it appear, it's definitely a different type of wood finish and beyond a natural variation. I think they had both types when they previewed the headphones pre shipment and was deciding between the two.