[sluker]

How is that statement a "knock" on the DS? Please elaborate.

 

[Magick Man]

 Yeah but in a way you kind of did.  Not to put words in your mouth but.  Old school tech vs. the best of modern tech and it sounds like the DS just won by a nose.  

Which very well could be a an accurate statement.

 

[moodyrn]

Quote:

I for one have never heard a great sounding vintage receivers or a new receiver that can come close to what a proper headphone amp can do with the HE6's.
 
I am sure a good vintage amp is out there for the HE6's, but you should understand the downside of a vintage receiver.
1. They are old, and being old you can run into a lot of problems with performance and usability.
2. They are very heavy and cumbersome, so shipping is very expensive for these vintage receivers.
3. Some of these guys have gone through many vintage receiver's and Amps to get what they wanted out of the HE6, pulse in many cases these guys have done a lot of work on these amps to get the performance back to where it should be.
 

If I may ask, which vintage receivers have you tried. I know at one point you had an sx650 for a while. That particular receiver is on the very low end of what's out there. That receiver isn't even a midrange vintage receiver. So what high end vintage receiver have you tried?
 

 

[schwallman]

I use an old Pioneer SA-9500. Its amazing to me.

 

[Frank I]

Quote:

If I may ask, which vintage receivers have you tried. I know at one point you had an sx650 for a while. That particular receiver is on the very low end of what's out there. That receiver isn't even a midrange vintage receiver. So what high end vintage receiver have you tried?
 

I disagree. The SX650 may have been the lowest wattage but in many ways outperformed the SX980 I had. There was inner detail and is fully discrete and still sounds great. it beats all the ss head amps i have owned. It was a 300.00 amp in 1976 and still weighs 28 lbs and even at 35 years old it still drives the HE500 and it did drive the HE out of the headphone jack. I never used it out of the speaker terminal and may I should have but to call it not even a midrange reciever is DEAD wrong and IOM you should listen to one before you say that. The HE6 did work better out of the speaker tap on my SX980 but the SX650 out performed the Sansui G4500 and the Marantz 2220B by a wide margin and thats why it is still here. It may have been the beginning of the SX silver series but it was a very nice receiver and still is. Its the only SS amp I still own I sold all solid state headphone amps and the SX650 is a survivor. The nhHE6 sounds best with at least 15W or more going into the load and the SX980 did that and thats why I used it. The SX650 still drove it and never clipped but the SX980 power helped it more. There still are no headphone amps I know of that puts 15W into the 50 ohm load and the SX950,980 and up 1050,1080  and other all put that and more into them. Thats the best way to hear the HE6 IMO
 

 

[moodyrn]

My comment wasn't about how it sounds. I never listened to it, and based on what read about it, it performs great for what it cost. What I was saying is that it is in fact a low end receiver in pioneer's line up. Above the 650, you have 750, 850, 950, 1050, and 1250. Below it you only have 550, and 450. So it is in their lower tier of receivers. And as you go up the chain, the power supplies, and transformer gets better.

 

[moodyrn]

Also to add, I think even low end receiver from that era outperforms midfi to higher end dedicated solid state headphone amps of today. But if all he has listened to is the sx650, then there are much better choices out there, and to compare a lower end vintage receiver to one of the best and expensive dedicated amps of today leaves me scratching my head. So that's why I asked if he has listened to any totl vintage pieces. I've owned both midrange and totl vintage gear, and as good as the lower end pieces sounded, the totl were a huge leap forward.

 

[Frank I]

Quote:

Also to add, I think even low end receiver from that era outperforms midfi to higher end dedicated solid state headphone amps of today. But if all he has listened to is the sx650, then there are much better choices out there, and to compare a lower end vintage receiver to one of the best and expensive dedicated amps of today leaves me scratching my head. So that's why I asked if he has listened to any totl vintage pieces. I've owned both midrange and totl vintage gear, and as good as the lower end pieces sounded, the totl were a huge leap forward.

I agree and as I I stated the SX980 had more power and it really opened up the HE6 and believe me I regret selling that combo big time but he has only heard the SX650 . As for the Pioneer stuff much better IMo than the Sansui G4500 I had and also the Marantz  and better than all my SS head amps I sold and that was many of them. But he need to hear them on a SX950 and up in class I agree before he can state that new head amps are better. But it may give him heart failure when he see how good they can be and for less that a fraction of the price of the new stuff he owns. The thing I noticed when i owned the HE6 the more watts the more they opened up and large scale recordings were  jaw dropping good.

 

[kfscoll]

I just got my second pair of HE-6 headphones (running them off of a Schiit Lyr and an old Sony ES receiver -- both working great) and the headphones sound fantastic.  The build quality, however, just isn't quite there.  For example, the gloss black parts of the earcups have a few nicks and marks on them from uneven finishing, the texture of the earcup "yokes" is completely uneven (rough in spots, smooth in others), and the heads on the Phillips screws holding the earcups to the yokes were completely rounded out...like whoever installed the screws didn't press down hard enough and their screwdriver wound up jumping around the screw head.
 
The first pair I had to return (fortunately I got those from Amazon) because one of the cable connectors was actually jiggling around loose inside one of the earcups.  That pair also had cosmetic quality issues as well (yoke scratches, scuffs on the black gloss paint, etc).
 
Besides these cosmetic issues on the headphones themselves, the case the 'phones shipped in had a big glob of glue in it that I can't remove and the case holding my HE-Adapter was completely missing two of the four screws that hold the latch assembly on.  What's worse -- Head-Direct.com is making me pay to return the defective cases to them -- even though they were defective right out of the shipping container!!
 
I know I don't buy headphones to look at, but I guess for $1300 I expected a little more attention to detail.  The fit-and-finish of my $300 Beyerdynamic DT-880 and DT-990 headphones (not to mention the T1, HD598, and HD800 I had briefly) are leaps and bounds ahead of the Hifiman headphones buid quality-wise.  If it weren't for the fact that the HE-6s sounded so great, I'd have moved on to something else until they get their manufacturing tolerances a little more under control.
 
Anyway, I just thought I'd vent a little.  These nit-picks don't affect the way the headphones sound so I can live with them...it's just frustrating.  The minor paint nicks I can touch-up with a paint pen, I actually have screws that are the same diameter, length, and thread pitch as the ones that are damaged, and I can use an orbital polisher to fix the texture issues on my yokes...but I shouldn't have to.  I guess I should've set my expectations a little lower after I decided to buy an expensive item from a small, independent, "boutique" manufacturer. 
 
**Follow-up**  I just read through some of the older posts in this thread and I see that I'm far from the first person who's had cosmetic (and other) issues with Hifiman gear.  I guess as long as my HE-6s keep on working I'll be happy! 

 

[Magick Man]

I wish you hadn't posted that, now I'm paranoid. If these aren't functionally and cosmetically right I'm sending them back. Period. $1300 is too damned much for headphones that are assembled and finished in a half-assed manner.

 

[kfscoll]

Quote:

I wish you hadn't posted that, now I'm paranoid. If these aren't functionally and cosmetically right I'm sending them back. Period. $1300 is too damned much for headphones that are assembled and finished in a half-assed manner.

I'm not sure I'd call assembly half-assed, but I do get the impression that it's done by hand and (at least on the external components) lacks the precision and repeatability that one would expect from a larger operation (a la Sennheiser, AKG, Beyer, etc).  It's also entirely possible that all of the issues I found (well, except for the weird paint texture) are from the long trip all the way from Hong Kong. 
 
The way I describe the issues probably makes them sound worse than they are.  Gloss black is just going to magnify every imperfection, no matter how small.   For example, the part of the black paint that needs touched up is on the upper edge of one of the drivers and is only a couple of white dots.  I'd never have noticed if not for the fact that I inspected the phones closely under fluorescent lighting.  Same goes for the the micro-scratches I've found -- which are akin to swirl marks in the paint of a black car -- they're probably unavoidable.  However, the paint on the metal yokes seems like it came out of a rattle-can (I'd actually be surprised if it didn't).  If I could figure out how to remove the yokes from the headband I'd probably just repaint them myself.  In fact, I'll probably remove the earcups and try to polish the yokes this weekend.  If that doesn't fix the issue and if it continues to bug me I imagine I could just get a new headband; right now it's just not worth the hassle.
 
Still, these are minor niggles, and in my mind, acceptable for the phones' performance.  I just didn't like the sound signature of the T1 or the HD800, but the HE-6 is perfect to my ears, so I pretty much will have to live with imperfections since otherwise these are what I want.  It's funny; I ordered my T1s and HE-6s at the same time and I was really hoping I'd prefer the T1s since I thought it likely I'd be faced with QC issues with the Hifiman headphones.  Having said that, I certainly don't intend to go through exchange after exchange (which I've done before) trying to chase cosmetic perfection when all indications are that it won't currently be found.

 

[moodyrn]

I believe that's why this is a 1300 can instead of a 1500-2000.00 can as the sound is right up there with the best of them. IMO of course.

Same could also be said about he500. 699.00 is a bargain compared to other costlier cans. So I don't mine the minor imperfections when the sound is this good.

 

[gurus]

Quote:

I believe that's why this is a 1300 can instead of a 1500-2000.00 can as the sound is right up there with the best of them. IMO of course.
Same could also be said about he500. 699.00 is a bargain compared to other costlier cans. So I don't mine the minor imperfections when the sound is this good.

+1.
 
Also most of the cosmetic issues are I believe because of the tool die to form the ear cups.
 

 

[Happy Camper]

These are hand built so the consistency isn't there like the standard industry cans. The Audeze have had similar issues during their growth. That's the pains of start up companies introducing new products. As they build their base, the assembly processes will work themselves out or the co. will continue to be a start up and never grow past their limited capabilities. I've had the original issued 6s, second generation 6s, 500s and they all had one or two minor issues. But that sound can't be found by the perfectly made manufacturers, so that's the tradeoff unless you want to wait until they work out the imperfections in the processes,.....

 

[drez]

IMO though Hifiman have used the same flawed industrial design for numerous models since the HE-6, there was HE-4, HE-500, HE-300, HE-400 all sharing the same housing/cable design flaws.  Audez'e actually fix their design flaws as they come across them, and have better industrial design to begin with.  I mean the HE-X industrial design works, just barely, but it's really not ideal at all and fails in several areas commonly while just being mediocre in others.  Doesn't really look like as much care and attention was paid to the industrial design, which is a real shame as the sound quality is incredible.  Props to hifiman for the fix to the earpads though - but this needs to go further IME as Audez'e vegan pads just blow the OEM pads out of the water when used on the HE-6.
 
But, at least Hifiman drivers haven't been blowing up, so cheers to HifiMan for the incredible drivers.