[lukeap69]

I've heard the LCD-X, I prefer the HE-6. I missed 2 chances to hear the HE1k. One day...

 

[isquirrel]

  Can't listen to both, not in the US, unless I buy them both.
​
The fabric touching your ear thing is not nice..had that with previous headphones and I didn't like it.


Also, @ LCD 3 being heavy, it may be, but it never bothered me at all, I actually find the LCD3 comfortable lol. The most comfortable I've worn is probably the Senn HD650 though.

Then the Abyss is for you.

 

[FangJoker]

  hope you get a chance to try it! I don't think it is as suitable for classical or acoustic, but for rock, metal, and jazz I think it is a very good choice.

 
Hard rock, metal, and 80s music is what I listen to.  Perhaps I should give the audeze range of cans a try as well?  At least people know what amps/dacs go well with them.  I feel like many of us posting are still trying to find the magic combo before buying and quite a bit of owners are still searching for their dream combo and only a few have found it.
 
Anyone try the hek with a master 9 and master 7 combo? alo audio studio six?

 

[SpherE22]

Hard rock, metal, and 80s music is what I listen to.  Perhaps I should give the audeze range of cans a try as well?  At least people know what amps/dacs go well with them.  I feel like many of us posting are still trying to find the magic combo before buying and quite a bit of owners are still searching for their dream combo and only a few have found it.

Listened to the entire LCD range of audeze headphones, and personally, i felt that the bass was a tad overwhelming to me. But if you want an endgame amp i've heard that the darkstar is a good choice.

 

[FangJoker]

Listened to the entire LCD range of audeze headphones, and personally, i felt that the bass was a tad overwhelming to me. But if you want an endgame amp i've heard that the darkstar is a good choice.

 
I've owned a couple of rsa usb amps for use with my phone and they worked well even though I was never told what dac chip was used (a minor annoyance) and found that at least for those little amps they had a lot of punchy bass so I could see the darkstar being a good choice.  One thing that I do not like is emailing ray.  He comes off as a very arrogant person and pushes the sale on you.  e.g. If you ask if it will work with an android phone he will say yes and tell you the price and his paypal info in a very direct way.  I'm in high end real estate sales and no matter how bad I want a sale, I'm always pushing the person to make sure that they have looked at everything they want to look at and to think about it deeply am not pushy at all.  Then again a home is a bigger purchase than headphone gear.   Well my girlfriend thinks buying this stuff is crazier than buying a home or other car stuff as she's happy with 99 dollar IEMs with her phone and no portable amp.

 

[FangJoker]

   
Definitely. But for Metal, I'd probably choose a LCD3. more impactful & thick/dense.  I'd probably choose the HEK for pop music where the forgiving nature of the HE1000 really does wonder in my experience. 

 
 
Stop giving me other choices! j/k

 

[doctorjazz]

Well, don't listen to Death Metal, Black Metal, Abuse Metal, Kick-The-Crap-Out-Of-You Metal, smiley , do like Punk-Pop, particularly All Time Low, who are deliberately badly recorded as well, a compressed wall of congealed sound. Love listening to them on the HEK, can finally HEAR a bad line, pick out guitar arpeggios, hear some space...Somewhere In Neverland had gotten a kazillion plays. Of course, well recorded jazz, roots music, classical sound better.

 

[NZtechfreak]

For metal get the HE-6, or the Abyss if the budget extends.

 

[matthewhypolite]

   
I've owned a couple of rsa usb amps for use with my phone and they worked well even though I was never told what dac chip was used (a minor annoyance) and found that at least for those little amps they had a lot of punchy bass so I could see the darkstar being a good choice.  One thing that I do not like is emailing ray.  He comes off as a very arrogant person and pushes the sale on you.  e.g. If you ask if it will work with an android phone he will say yes and tell you the price and his paypal info in a very direct way.  I'm in high end real estate sales and no matter how bad I want a sale, I'm always pushing the person to make sure that they have looked at everything they want to look at and to think about it deeply am not pushy at all.  Then again a home is a bigger purchase than headphone gear.   Well my girlfriend thinks buying this stuff is crazier than buying a home or other car stuff as she's happy with 99 dollar IEMs with her phone and no portable amp.

 
I have the Dark Star and LCD3 currently, great pairing. Dark Star is a monster, loads of power. Sounds great. I've ordered an LAu though, with intention of pairing with an Abyss as I heard that's also a really good pairing. HEK was released though, so put a spanner in the works with choice of headphones, but from what I'm reading here, I should probably just stick with the abyss, may grab an HEK later on.
 
 
 

   
As someone who also listens a lot to metal, and I own a lot of albums from Disturbed, SOAD, Within Temptation, and Killswitch Engage too, I can't help but feel that you're potentially barking up the wrong tree with the HE-1000. Now admittedly I haven't heard the HE-1000 yet, but generally metal music does not sound good on hi-fi/high-end headphones because the recording quality tends to be very bad. The vast majority of metal albums tend to have tons of dynamic compression applied to them so they effectively become completely "brickwalled," and I've never heard a single brickwalled album that sounded good on flagship headphones. Plus, some metal albums/genres also have an intentional "lo-fi" sound to them (particularly black metal, if you listen to that) that just sounds terrible on any decent headphones.
 
In fact, on my previous Stax OII MKI w/ BHSE high-end system, which I'd guess would be at least somewhat comparable to the HE-1000, it was totally unforgiving-sounding and there were extremely few metal albums that I could tolerate it with—pretty much only the MFSL-mastered version of Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction, In Flames' early albums like The Jester Race and Lunar Strain, and Machine Head's Through The Ashes Of Empires.
 
You need forgiving-sounding headphones for metal music, which the Audeze headphones are great examples of, in my opinion, and I honestly can't think of any better headphones other than the LCD models for that kind of music (I previously owned the LCD-2 and LCD-3, and briefly had the LCD-X too).

​
Yes, I know what you mean with the dynamic compression, in some albums it is apparent, Newer stuff seems recorded at a higher quality though., Unfortunately I'm one of those who's had multiple LCD3 failures, so I'm giving Audeze a rest for the moment. HEK/Abyss for me.

 

[maverickronin]

Maybe I'm an outlier, but I almost always enjoy more transparent and revealing headphones even when the source material isn't the best quality.  You might hear defects you didn't hear before in a track, but you'll also hear more detail in the music as well.
 
My primary genre is metal with my main subgenres being death, symphonic, and power and my primary headphones are a modded pair of Stax Lambda normal bias.  Other genres I listen to often include Jpop and various electronic genres from chiptune to lolicore.  Even with those kinds genres, which aren't exactly knows for their fidelity, I still prefer the SR-009 to anything else I've had a chance to hear.

 

[LouisArmstrong]

How to tell whether my set is beta or production? Mine was bought almost a month ago. It came with the pretty box and a nice booklet inside though.

 

[moedawg140]

How to tell whether my set is beta or production? Mine was bought almost a month ago. It came with the pretty box and a nice booklet inside though.

Yours would most likely be the production version since yours came with the nice booklet (the beta version did not come with a nice booklet). Also, my production version did not come with the black cable bag, but my beta version did.

 

[goldendarko]

What are the changes in the production version? I have the beta currently and am considering shipping it back for the production version, but the cost is prohibitive for me since it's so much to ship it to China.

From what I've seen the only confirmed change is the headband length which is not really an issue for me and not worth the cost and wait time time of shipping it back.

I've also read the EarPads may have changed, but this doesn't seem to be confirmed and I'm not really sure that's enough reason to ship it back either. Anything else I may have missed in terms of changes to the production version?

 

[ruthieandjohn]

What are the changes in the production version? I have the beta currently and am considering shipping it back for the production version, but the cost is prohibitive for me since it's so much to ship it to China.

From what I've seen the only confirmed change is the headband length which is not really an issue for me and not worth the cost and wait time time of shipping it back.

I've also read the EarPads may have changed, but this doesn't seem to be confirmed and I'm not really sure that's enough reason to ship it back either. Anything else I may have missed in terms of changes to the production version?

At least for me in the US, HiFiMAN accepted return of my beta HE1000s to their Delaware (US) facility, not China.

 

[goldendarko]

Ok good to know. Any word on the changes though?