[Louisiana]

Very clean looking setup!

Thank you.

What cable brand and type are you using?

The cable is made by a friend of mine who is also here in the forum.
If you want, I can put you in touch.
This is silver plated copper.

I'm also curious whether the HEKse will take over the place of your HEDDphone or instead complement it.

To be honest, the HEDD is not far from the HEKSE.
Let's say the HEKSE has 100 percent, then in my opinion the HEDD is 92% - great headphones, but unfortunately, as good as they are, they are just as uncomfortable, and they also need a lot of power to sound good.

I could only wear it with the ZMF pad, which I glued under the headband.

 

[hawk13]

New HEKSE owner here:


Love it out of the box.

My favorite headphone of all time (with my custom pads and cable). And I’ve owned a lot. Give em enough juice and that xbass will blow your mind. They love EQ.

Welcome to the club!!

 

[Louisiana]

Do we have HQPlayer users here?
My current settings are as follows:

In search of the perfect sound experience for myself, I've tried a lot lately, from DACs to AMPs, and of course different headphones.
For my ears this is the perfect way to play my music!
ifi Pro iCAN in Tube Mode - Sylvania Gold tubes are installed - ifi iDSD in SS Mode, and the upsampling as seen above via the HQPlayer.
Breathtaking!

 

[S Crowther]

Do we have HQPlayer users here?
My current settings are as follows:


In search of the perfect sound experience for myself, I've tried a lot lately, from DACs to AMPs, and of course different headphones.
For my ears this is the perfect way to play my music!
ifi Pro iCAN in Tube Mode - Sylvania Gold tubes are installed - ifi iDSD in SS Mode, and the upsampling as seen above via the HQPlayer.
Breathtaking!

I have HQ Player and have been using it for some time.
I find I was spending more time changing the settings than listening to the music!
I now have a Denafrips Terminator+ DAC that has up sampling built in for PCM (not DSD) with a choice of a couple of filter settings. I just use that.
My HQ Player settings were as follows :

 

[Louisiana]

I find I was spending more time changing the settings than listening to the music!

I only tried a lot during the honeymoon period.
Since I found my optimal setting, I use it only for some special albums, or when I have new headphones.

My HQ Player settings were as follows :

Thank you, i will give them a try.

 

[trevorlane]

Was looking for an upgrade. I've already sold them...

I was the buyer for this pair, it took a little work to get the sound right but I found it.
I went from the HE6se and LCD-2 to this and it feels like I can use this as my primary

 

[migo]

i was using neutral/warm dac too and v280 and taurus amps. The top end does lose a bit of its sharpness over a bit of time.

I could even not bear to use my norne silver draug cable initially but to my surprise 3 or 4 months later I had no such issue.
I am guessing that would have been 50-100 hours of use...but that is a guess

be patient and you may be rewarded

having said that..i know what you mean re the treble

Thank you, you were right. After 210h on pink noise HEkSE sounds much better, but still not my taste. They are too forward sounding and staging nicely from L to R but not so good in front to my ears.

Susvara arrived today I understund now why do you have moved from HEkSE...

 

[Spawn300Z]

Thank you, you were right. After 210h on pink noise HEkSE sounds much better, but still not my taste. They are too forward sounding and staging nicely from L to R but not so good in front to my ears.

Susvara arrived today I understund now why do you have moved from HEkSE...

Did you try copper cables?

 

[migo]

Did you try copper cables?

yes, but only my 2xXLR DIY OFC made from speaker wires 8*0.75mm2 Was not better Susvara is better from first hour. But that is only me... I liked more Arya V2 stage-ing more than HEkSE. IDK

 

[Spawn300Z]

yes, but only my 2xXLR DIY OFC made from speaker wires 8*0.75mm2 Was not better Susvara is better from first hour. But that is only me... I liked more Arya V2 stage-ing more than HEkSE. IDK

Yes, Susvara is very capable but the HEKSE is no slouch either. So surprised you didn’t like it. Especially with copper cable.

 

[thecrow]

Thank you, you were right. After 210h on pink noise HEkSE sounds much better, but still not my taste. They are too forward sounding and staging nicely from L to R but not so good in front to my ears.

Susvara arrived today I understund now why do you have moved from HEkSE...

your next step will be to start assessing your current amp and considering if/when you may need to change it so as to get more out of your susvaras

 

[migo]

Yes, Susvara ia nor capable but the HEKSE is no slouch either. So surprised you didn’t like it. Especially with copper cable.

It is matter of taste IMO, I like HEkSE a lot with some songs but some song were not listenable for me It has great dynamics and punch, brutal amount of details but adds glare to all "steel" instruments. I think a small amount of EQ could solve it, but this it not for me...

On opposite side Susvara is delicate sounding, very smooth, relaxing and transparent to recording. All from HEkSE is there but in very balanced way and all instruments sound unbelievable real without any coloration. In my setup it has a bit less punch at matched volumes, but I can listen to Susvara at a higher volume levels without fatigue due its tuning that compensates that.

I can live with booth of these cans, they are both great! But Susvara is more universal to music genres and I prefer not to collect HP and keep only one, best one I can get.

One thing I miss is comfort of those huge earcaps, I'm big fun of these.

 

[migo]

your next step will be to start assessing your current amp and considering if/when you may need to change it so as to get more out of your susvaras

I've tried H20 in high gain and it was nice experience. Bass punch was not so strong as with HEkSE but stage-ing was nice and overall sound was delicate. I need to try speaker taps from my speaker amp to see how will it perform. I'm thinking of building CFA3 myself or something similar...

 

[migo]

One Xmas question for owners of Susvara and HEkSE: can Susvara punch so hard as HEkSE in your setup? That is my only complain against Susvara that is holding me to keep it.

HEkSE is punching like champ on my setup, IDK if it is caused by great synergy with my AMP or it is standard HEkSE feature. Susvara is almost as soft like AryaV2, so I'm missing that punch. I've tried my speaker amp (Onkyo A8850) from speaker taps - stageing was a bit different and presentation too, but punch was still missing = on the same level as my H20. I'm puzzled.

My 7day trial period for Susvara is nearing to the end, and I must to decide me what to keep. Thank you for suggestions/experiences?

 

[TheAttorney]

My 7day trial period for Susvara is nearing to the end, and I must to decide me what to keep. Thank you for suggestions/experiences?

I can't tell you what you like or what to buy, but if you decide to keep the SE, then a free-ish solution to your forwardness issue is the Felian3 port mod and goldilocks height adjustment (as I posted recently). The port mod will also increase punch. This could possibly benefit the Susvara as well, but that appears to have different pad clip design, so I'm not sure if the same mod will work for Susvara.

Edit: EQ will of course also help if you can find one that doesn't impact transparency.

The solution to SE's L-R panning issue is a good cross-feed, as I've previously posted.

The solution to Susvara's punch issue is a more powerful amp (in particular, ones that have high Instantaneous Current Delivery).

Personally, I'm biased against the Susvara because, as a downsizer, I don't like its amp constraints. And I don't like Fang's blatant, cynical, over-charging of this model (compared to the cost of parts). Yes, all high-end has high markups, but I feel Fang took it to new heights (lows?) with this model. But if neither of these points bother you, then most people would say that the Susvara is fundamentally the better sounding headphone and will scale the highest with better upstream components. The SE will also scale well with better upstream components - it doesn't need a powerful amp, but it will reward better quality everything upstream.