[SRKRAM]

You can tell by looking through the grilles—in the Stealth magnet versions the magnet is not as visible through the mesh.

Check the veneer if it's shiny or matte. Matte is stealth. Also driver should be wider at the center. HEKv2 has rectangle driver, HEK Stealth is rectangle but wider in the middle. (earpad side)

Thank you - It's good to be able to verify with a couple of different methods. I ordered them direct from Hifiman (traded up from Arya Stealths), so I was pretty sure they would have sent the correct ones, but it was good to confirm.

 

[eeagle]

still constantly amazed by the hek stealth after couple days of new gear cool off period... I have demoed susvara before and didn't really find it as memorable. LCD5 too and I remember not being that impressed either. I have yet to try utopia or some of the top end zmf stuff though. Granted I don't think I am that curious about other stuff now.
What I am interested in now is finding a better dac/amp set up for the hek stealth. Current set up is pretty basic with zen dac v2+liquid spark. Any recommendation on a dac/amp combo that can be had below $700 that's worth the upgrade? I am fine with used deals too.

The HiFiMan EF400 R2R is on sale right now for $399 and is a great way to drive power hungry planar HPs

 

[borkenarrou]

Slightly OT Schiit Mjolnir 3 is out, its fully class A now instead of tube hybrid for Mjolnir 2, should be a great pairing with HeK and Arya series if not Susvara.

 

[yolosauce]

delete

 

[srkbear]

Out of curiosity I decided to eq my SE to the harman curve and the beast has been unleashed. The bass slam and dynamics are on another level from what I've experienced in headphones before. Even if you hate the harman curve it's definitely worth bumping up the sub-bass. I've owned the Susvaras for a year and they never came close to this. I also didn't have a nuclear powerplant to drive them so there's that. The HE1000 has no limits and the fact you can buy the V2 Stealth for $1400 is insane.

This is the eq profile I used https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmctxu285nnzq92/Hifiman HE1000se.pdf?dl=0

Thanks for the feedback, I’m with ya in that I apply ASP bass boost that my amp has built in to every sets of cans I have—and when I tried to with my Susvaras, despite having 14+ watts balanced power to work with, I couldn’t listen at reasonable levels without clipping or bottoming out the diaphragms. I also use Roon, and both the convolution files and PEQ recs from Oratory have always led to big transformations—although I always need to use higher global gain settings than the recs suggest.

However I will say that my amp has four bass settings, with low shelves boosted at 120hz, 80hz, 20hz and off, and with my HEKses and Arya Stealths I always had it on the 120hz setting. When I got the new HEK Stealths, they were the first headphone I’ve ever owned where I had to cut it back to 80hz because the bass was a bit much even for my standards, with their new stock tunings—that’s the closest thing I’ve found to objective evidence of their new bass tuning! Found the same thing with the Ananda Nanos and from what I’ve been told the Arya Organics are similar in this regard. I always thought the V2 had terrific tuning but again I only tried it with my ASP engaged!

 

[gelade4000]

The HiFiMan EF400 R2R is on sale right now for $399 and is a great way to drive power hungry planar HPs

looks good to me! So apparently the cable hifiman gave me were the two single ended(1x 3.5 1x 6.35) catheter style cables that are the stock HEKV2 cables...I bought the HEK Stealth! Headphone itself I am sure it's the correct one but I am emailing them to see if I can get the correct cables sent to me. So I can use the balance output on these amps.

 

[eeagle]

looks good to me! So apparently the cable hifiman gave me were the two single ended(1x 3.5 1x 6.35) catheter style cables that are the stock HEKV2 cables...I bought the HEK Stealth! Headphone itself I am sure it's the correct one but I am emailing them to see if I can get the correct cables sent to me. So I can use the balance output on these amps.

From what I can see from the HiFiMan descriptions the HEKV2 comes with comes w/3 cables 3.5 & 6.35 SE and a 4pin XLR balanced. Many others in the lineup are provided w/SE only connection for some reason. After market balanced cables are easy to come by in all price ranges, here is a low priced balanced cable example.

 

[ddlo]

agreed. hekse is not difficult to drive to my normal listening volume with just portable players. even SUS i could enjoyed with CA1000 or m17 at over-ears mode.

sadly when i took out my beloved hekse, preparing to enjoy some music this evening, i found the left side went dead! i swapped the cable with my SUS and also changed to different players, still no luck . . . rip my hekse.

so happy finally got my hekse fixed and fitted a set of new pad by the workshop repairing it.

i asked what's broken and he vaguely explained that the conductor tracing on the planar driver was broken at some point and he took it back to a better equipped workshop to get it fixed. i doubted if he replaced the driver but he said he didn't. anyway, the lovely hekse is back to normal service. the replacement pads are still hybrid and look ok. again the repair workshop couldn't tell me the brand though . . . i thought he must be very knowledgeable about headphones when he managed to do such complicated repairing work, but turns out he couldn't explain very clearly to me.

 

[Turalyon]

Out of curiosity I decided to eq my SE to the harman curve and the beast has been unleashed. The bass slam and dynamics are on another level from what I've experienced in headphones before. Even if you hate the harman curve it's definitely worth bumping up the sub-bass. I've owned the Susvaras for a year and they never came close to this. I also didn't have a nuclear powerplant to drive them so there's that. The HE1000 has no limits and the fact you can buy the V2 Stealth for $1400 is insane.

This is the eq profile I used https://www.dropbox.com/s/wmctxu285nnzq92/Hifiman HE1000se.pdf?dl=0

Anybody made or found peq settings for the he1000 stealth? I find it difficult to make them myself.

 

[Bansaku]

Anybody made or found peq settings for the he1000 stealth? I find it difficult to make them myself.

Yes, it has been done here.

Speaking of EQing, for my HE1K stealth I tried both the Stealth and SE Harman compensations and both sound great!

HE1K SE

HE1K Stealth

Not too sure which I like more as both sound really good, though I am slightly leaning towards the HE1K SE curve.

 

[winnipegaudioenjoyer]

Thank you - It's good to be able to verify with a couple of different methods. I ordered them direct from Hifiman (traded up from Arya Stealths), so I was pretty sure they would have sent the correct ones, but it was good to confirm.

How are you finding the difference? Been curious about how much of an upgrade it is (if any) and if the extra brightness could be too much.

 

[andjar]

My simple HE1000Stealth eq preset in the good ol' Winamp player .

Not aimed at the Harman curve. I just like a bit of extra bass and a bit of warmth in the lower mids as my source is quite analytical. Also just wanting to fix that small 6k peak and slightly taming the high treble.

 

[jrjr99]

interesting review/comparison between HE1000 Stealth & Arya Organic:

https://audionotions.com/hifiman-arya-organic-he1000-stealth/

 

[andrewchoppa]

interesting review/comparison between HE1000 Stealth & Arya Organic:

https://audionotions.com/hifiman-arya-organic-he1000-stealth/

Wow-very interesting read. I think I’ve said this but recently AB’d my stealths against nutopia, lcd-5, susvara and d8000 pro. All were magnificent hps in their own right but none blew the stealths out of the water imo. I ended the day trying Arya organic and was actually blown away. I thought “well you’ve just been listening to the creme de la creme so your brain is telling you these are fantastic too”. And I left it at that. But reading this review, has cemented just how good the aryas are. Won’t be getting as I love my stealth’s but Arya organically were bloody good!!!!

 

[borkenarrou]

interesting review/comparison between HE1000 Stealth & Arya Organic:

https://audionotions.com/hifiman-arya-organic-he1000-stealth/

Nicely written review, as I thought Stealth is not a strict upgarde over the Organic more a preference, thanks for sharing this,