[john777]

You must have excellent hearing. Don't abuse your ears like I did.

Yes, my hearing is pretty good, especially when I can hear Diana Krall fart, in tune, on Live In Paris...

How did you abuse your ears?

 

[Articnoise]

  It is fascinating how launching a (in reason) more expensive model can be so polarising, even to owners of the same brand. Maybe like cars, it brings the 'panic' emotion that they have to find a way too buy it as are 'missing something big' And if they can't buy it, they get super mad.
 
I think 5/6K USD for a top HP is about right. Lets face it top speakers are 50K+ on up to 200K for some people I know. I haven't heard the Ed6 so can't say it is a top tier HP, but if it is 5/6K is ok IMO.
 
It comes down to:
1. How keen an audiophile are you? (albeit personal budget constants)
2. Do you see the one you bought as a life time purchase, or are you happy to sell on a buy again?
3. Are you generally not trusting the brand?
 
The above IMO does not apply when we get to 50K HPs like the Shangri-la mind. That is a different subject.

 

Good points, panic is a suitable description lol. 

 

[zolkis]

Price grows on you. There were times when $300 could buy you a flagship. Then $1000 could do that, then the next thing we see, $1500, $2000, $5000, $10000 and now $50000. It seems world economy is doing good .

 

[tunes]

What about streaming without an iPhone?

Will the Astell&Kern AK380 Copper + AMP // High Resolution Music Player w/ AMP
$ 4,999.00 work well with the HEK 1000 and also slow use of TIDAL??

 

[jasoncd2]

I have a v2 HE-1000 incoming, and I've been looking at adding a new amp to go with it. I have a Lake People G109-a amp now and I'm thinking adding a tube amp will give me a nice variety. All my headphones are in the lower impedance range.

I see the Microzotl 2.0 mentioned as a great pairing. I see it does 1w @ 4 ohms and 0.5w @ 14 ohms and I'm surprised with that output it's a good match. I've read the HEK scales well with amps, and was thinking I'd want something with more power to drive them with authority. Just confused on that point.

Cypher Labs Sustain84 is another option, it puts out 1w @ 32 ohms. Not much discussion about this amp though.

The ifi iCan pro is on my radar too, but the $1,699 price is a little steep.

I have a balanced dac so I could also look at a balanced amp. A couple places have the Auralic Taurus mk II on sale for $1,350. It's a beautiful unit but if it is on the bright side then maybe not for me.

I could get a little crazy and sell my Gumby and G109 and get a combo amp/dac unit. Questyle has some intriguing options there.

As you can see I'm all over the place! Would love to get some thoughts on your setups, what you like/don't like, what would you get now if you were starting over, etc.

 

[doctorjazz]

Can't help you on most of the choices, been living very happily (as have others) with the ZOTL. HEK isn't HE-6, doesn't need a Krell speaker amp to drive it (good quality will make a difference, though).

 

[jasoncd2]

Can't help you on most of the choices, been living very happily (as have others) with the ZOTL. HEK isn't HE-6, doesn't need a Krell speaker amp to drive it (good quality will make a difference, though).

Someone with the Woo Fireflies had commented that they weren't enough to drive the HEK well, and they reached out to Woo and it sounded like they agreed with that thought.  That threw me for a loop since the Fireflies are putting out more power than the Microzotl, at least on paper.

 

[xxx1313]

HE1K sounds fine with AK380Cu + CuAmp (balanced)! I am still very satisfied with it. Violectric V281 (with Auralic Vega DAC) did not sound better, and this is one of the best solid-state amps available. I also have ALO CDM and use it as amp only. Also with the better Sonotone tubes it does not really sound "better" out of the AK380Cu than AK380Cu amp, just a bit different (more "tubey", but slightly less detailled in the treble).

 

[doctorjazz]

Not familiar with the Woo, but the ZOTL/HEK combo is great sounding imo.

 

[Toolman]

  Price grows on you. There were times when $300 could buy you a flagship. Then $1000 could do that, then the next thing we see, $1500, $2000, $5000, $10000 and now $50000. It seems world economy is doing good .

Yup seems world's economy are on a bull run at the moment seeing how companies are rushing to test out new pricing territory. It appeared that egos (and bank accounts) must be well massaged when you can be the first to laid claim on selling a piece of gear at a previously unheard of pricing?

I am sure some will argue that research and advancement in portable audio have been massive over the past 5 years, but so does demand & sales volume....and while price increment is inevitable, I (in my opinion) cannot justify some of the (obvious) price gouging by certain companies...and if we support and allowed this to continue, then it will be to the long term detriment to this hobby of ours, and to the industry.

Anyway I will leave this as it is and vote with my wallet, before someone comes here and accused me of being a communist 

 

[nvfan]

   

Good points, panic is a suitable description lol. 

 
200k speakers you are mostly paying for luxury furniture grade construction, design, and name recognition. Most of those speakers are using the same drivers you can find in $2000 speakers.
 
For example many 200k+ speakers use RAAL ribbon tweeters, the 140-15D or 70-20XR. You can find the same driver in $2000, $3000 speakers that don't look as good. You can find the same Accuton mids in these 200k speakers that you can also find in $3000 speakers that look like a grey accordion box.
 
The wide range of prices in the speaker industry is mostly about brand prestige or furniture grade build quality versus a monkey coffin with the same drivers, and also about the power of economies of scale of mass manufacturing versus a small number of hand-made and finished speakers.
 
The problem with this 6K Hifiman ED6 is it's clearly not going to outperform the Focal Utopia in driver performance (THD, impulse response, etc) due to basic materials science realities, nor will it compare to it terms of build quality. So we're talking about Ultrasone level price awareness here.

 

[bosiemoncrieff]

Naming conventions question: I always assumed that "HE" stood for "Hifiman Edition," thus making HE-6 the "Hifiman Edition 6" and "HE-1000" the "Hifiman Edition 1000." 
 
Is the Edition 6 just a clever Orpheus-successor-esque way of accomplishing the same end?

 

[Thenewguy007]

I have a balanced dac so I could also look at a balanced amp. A couple places have the Auralic Taurus mk II on sale for $1,350. It's a beautiful unit but if it is on the bright side then maybe not for me.
.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/828368/auralic-taurus-mkii-headphone-amplifier#post_13093885

He is selling one for $900, if no one bought it yet.

 

[chowmein83]

  Naming conventions question: I always assumed that "HE" stood for "Hifiman Edition," thus making HE-6 the "Hifiman Edition 6" and "HE-1000" the "Hifiman Edition 1000." 
 
Is the Edition 6 just a clever Orpheus-successor-esque way of accomplishing the same end?

 
I'm not sure where I heard this (I believe it was one of the seminars at one of the CanJams), but I believe Hifiman mentioned that "He" was the last name of the designer who made Hifiman's earlier planar headphones.

 

[Blueswyh]

 
 
The problem with this 6K Hifiman ED6 is it's clearly not going to outperform the Focal Utopia in driver performance (THD, impulse response, etc) due to basic materials science realities, nor will it compare to it terms of build quality. So we're talking about Ultrasone level price awareness here.

Not sure how do you get this conclusion, did you already have the ED6 in hand? how is the sound compared to Utopia?