[Silent One]

Since the HE-6 made its debut, the HiFiMAN Highway has been littered with runners who dropped out or got dropped by their experience..."DNF!" I narrowly escaped the same fate. A friend and true head-fier (wotts) encouraged me not to give up on the '6' and keep trying to hear it with better gears.

After witnessing many moons coming and going, the cans finally showed promise with my latest vintage purchase. I decided I'd purchase them 12 months after my newly ordered Stax SR007s. Due to Stax Japan having problems filling orders and the model became back-ordered beyond 3 months, I kindly requested a refund and bought the HiFiMAN's immediately! Still satisfied, by the way, and now enjoy them with vintage vacuum tube mono blocks and vintage solid state monster receiver.

 

[Benny-x]

The headphone world is the richer for the HE6s - I am keen to see how neutral they can be when I get the new Smyth Realiser on them. In the meantime my @dill3000
 First Watt F6 pretty much outstrips anything else I have , even my HD800 with the Trek Mod can't live with them

What's the Trek Mod? And how does it make a big difference compared to the other hot rod mods out there?

 

[Takeanidea]

It's a variant on the anaxilus mod which had way too much layers around the drivers metal ring and sounded muffled , destroying all the good things about the hd800. I put 1 thin felt/acrylic disc on and that sounds best to me
It's all on my review here on headfi, why not take a look?

 

[LarsHP]

It just struck me that one of the benefits of the Brainwavz HM5 pads over the Audeze Microsuede / "vegan" pads is - for lack of better words - the punch conducting properties: Since the HM5 pads are much stiffer (however still very comfortable since it's memory foam) than the quite soft vegan pads, the punch from drums etc. transfers from the cup to the skull much more. It's really impressive.
 
Still waiting for the angled velour HM5 pads to arrive. If those loose some of the bass qualities, then I won't hesitate to put the HM5 pleather pads back on and call it the best there is for HE-6. They benefit from putting felt on the side facing the driver though, and might also be even better if there is either micro suede or felt on the inner side to absorb treble (if you feel there is a bit too much).

 

[LarsHP]

Quote (in italics) from the HE400i impressions thread by user James Myers:
 
"So I took some measurements today of the HE400i + the HM5 pads and thought Id share.  I knew they sounded better the moment I put them on, but it was a bit surprising just how much the FR changed.  I changed back and forth between the 2 pads about 10 times just make sure I had it right.  I was using the Vali/Modi combo when making these graphs.
 
HE400i + HM5 Angled Leather Pads

 
HE400i + Focus Pads"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
While the Focus pads aren't used by many here, I thought it might be worthwhile posting the graphs anayway.
 
Here's some measurements I found earlier of Focus Pads versus Audeze pads - both mounted on HE-6 in stock condition, which may relate:
 
HE-6 with Audeze pads

 
HE-6 with Focus Pads:

 
Comparing the two Focus pad graphs, it looks like James Myers didn't get a proper seal with them while the other did. However, since one is HE400i and the other is HE-6 this may not be the case. 

 

[musicinmymind]

  It just struck me that one of the benefits of the Brainwavz HM5 pads over the Audeze Microsuede / "vegan" pads is - for lack of better words - the punch conducting properties: Since the HM5 pads are much stiffer (however still very comfortable since it's memory foam) than the quite soft vegan pads, the punch from drums etc. transfers from the cup to the skull much more. It's really impressive.
 
Still waiting for the angled velour HM5 pads to arrive. If those loose some of the bass qualities, then I won't hesitate to put the HM5 pleather pads back on and call it the best there is for HE-6. They benefit from putting felt on the side facing the driver though, and might also be even better if there is either micro suede or felt on the inner side to absorb treble (if you feel there is a bit too much).

 
you are referring to HM5 Angled Leather Pads?

 

[LarsHP]

  you are referring to HM5 Angled Leather Pads?

The pads I have ATM is the standard pleather HM5. All HM5 pads are made of memory foam, but the outer fabric differs. I expect pleather and real leather to behave roughly the same in terms of sound.

 

[Clemmaster]

How do you fit the plastic ring inside? It didn't work for me.

 

[LarsHP]

How do you fit the plastic ring inside? It didn't work for me.

I did it by stretching the pads "lip" and bending the ring - both carefully.
You can cut some of the lip off in order to make the hole bigger, since the inner diameter of the lips is a bit narrow for the ring to get in there, but I didn't need to to it - it just makes it easier. Start by cutting off something like 3 or 4 millimetres of the lip.

 

[heart banger-97]

Since the HE-6 made its debut, the HiFiMAN Highway has been littered with runners who dropped out or got dropped by their experience..."DNF!" I narrowly escaped the same fate. A friend and true head-fier (wotts) encouraged me not to give up on the '6' and keep trying to hear it with better gears.

After witnessing many moons coming and going, the cans finally showed promise with my latest vintage purchase. I decided I'd purchase them 12 months after my newly ordered Stax SR007s. Due to Stax Japan having problems filling orders and the model became back-ordered beyond 3 months, I kindly requested a refund and bought the HiFiMAN's immediately! Still satisfied, by the way, and now enjoy them with vintage vacuum tube mono blocks and vintage solid state monster receiver.

Good explanation,
But I don't still get it, why a headphone which has a flat impedance and phase response, should be so sensitive to  headphone amp and not speaker amp? I'm sure that my amp has enough power, I don't even need to use higher gain on my amp. I just don't get the hype about power, I know it has been discussed widely on this forum and I see no benefits in igniting that fire again. I hope that some day I would find that magical speaker amp too, before it's too late. At the moment, I', just experiencing a little more engaging presentation and lower bass notes of he6 in comparison of T1, on the other hand, I'm loosing some of euphonic characteristics of T1.

 

[LarsHP]

I think the best answer I know of is that the best amps capable of delivering the needed power are speaker amps. Why? There's no technical answer, it's just how it is - unless push-pull theoretically could be better than single ended. In the end it's about matching. Different speaker amps will sound different too.

 

[Happy Camper]

I think the best answer I know of is that the best amps capable of delivering the needed power are speaker amps. Why? There's no technical answer, it's just how it is - unless push-pull theoretically could be better than single ended. In the end it's about matching. Different speaker amps will sound different too.

I believe it's the larger components for speaker loads. The headphone amps don't have the reserves or delivery capabilities at the levels speaker amps offer. The better amps have larger components and better performance. IMO Amps like the Simaudio Moon 600i are monoblocks with separate power supplies using balanced signal inputs. This particular amp is the best I've heard the 6s on. Not saying lesser amps won't do good but the better the amp, the better the sound.

 

[LarsHP]

I think we agree on the last one: the better the amp, the better sound with HE-6.

At 50 Ohms there is about one tenth current draw compared to a relatively difficult speaker load, which in addition will have a driver resonance making it even more difficult to control. The speaker will also need much, much more power to reach a certain listening SPL. Taking impedance and power requirements into account HE-6 needs much less than a hundredth of current compared to the speaker. In other words, a speaker amp will usually be way overkill from a theoretical standpoint.

And as I noted earlier, the built in balanced amp card in my HiFiMan HM901S delivers better bass and no extra treble compared to my Norwegian DIY headphone amp which does 5W in class A. This tells me that it's NOT about extra power.

Several in this thread have also recommended the First Watt F1J which is only 10W in 8 Ohm and many have recommended other First Watt amps which are all low power speaker amps. I also recall user preproman preferring the 30W class A over the 150W class A/B Pass Labs amp he bought first.

So, in short I can't see any good reason to use powerful speaker amps with HE-6 except that the particular amp in hand is a perfect match and of high end quality.

 

[cocolinho]

As always the best to do is to make the experience yourself.
I did .
I don't have a headphone amp anymore.

 

[LarsHP]

As always the best to do is to make the experience yourself.
I did .
I don't have a headphone amp anymore.

Exactly. It's about the amps you have at hand and then deciding which sounds better. In most cases the best for HE-6 has been a high end speaker amp, but why it is so is difficult to say from a theoretical standpoint.