[toddking777]

Thanks. I have never soldered before, but I am pretty darn sure I can handle this.

 

[Bob Ley]

Tell me I'm crazy but I'm trying to decide on whether to keep the Sundara's or the HE6-SE V2. I took the grills of the later off and replaced with just panty hose to keep the dust out.
This past year I tried out/owned a lot of headphones (everything from Utopia's to Empyrean's to ZMF Verite's) and wanted to go back to the headphones that were considered the best before the law of diminishing returns starts to kick in. I had the Sundara's before and returned them but decided to give them another shot and now realize what the hype was about. The power hungry HiFiman's have always intrigued me as well and seeing the Adorama deal at $699 with a easy return policy was a no brainer.
I have to say, the HE6-SE V2 are pretty different than anything I've tried with the open, spaciousness they have but I ask myself do they feel clinical to the point of being bland?
The Sundara's will always be available for $349 max but will the HE6-SE V2's at $699?

Just thinking out loud in case anyone has opinions...

 

[WyldRage]

I had the Sundaras, but I didn't like the headband: they never felt comfortable to me. I have not tried them side -by-side, but I can say the HE-6SE is the best headphone I have heard, clearly beating the Elex (which some consider the next step after the Sundara) and the HE-560 (which seem to be the ancestor of the Sundara).

 

[Oregonian]

Thank you again for all of the advice. I wish that the cable on Ebay to connect the Hifiman headphones to the speaker taps on the McIntosh cost a little less than $160. I have a tube preamp (PrimaLuna Prologue 3) and am thinking of putting it in the signal chain. Once I do this, I will report the results here.

You can also try one of our members who makes cables - Ted @ headphone lounge is my go to choice. He's made three of these cables for me over the past few years, along with recabling multiple headphones and his pricing and service are excellent.

 

[thefitz]

Thanks. I have never soldered before, but I am pretty darn sure I can handle this.

Great! You get to solder large wires to big terminals, and the banana jacks are held on by friction anyway. Heck, you can even leave the wires bare!

 

[toddking777]

You can also try one of our members who makes cables - Ted @ headphone lounge is my go to choice. He's made three of these cables for me over the past few years, along with recabling multiple headphones and his pricing and service are excellent.

Thank you for recommending Ted to me. I contacted him and ended up ordering a cable from him.

 

[hp4fun]

Just want to add my experience to the amp discussion. Quality is subjective, so excuse me if my perception is different from yours.

I recently tried the BasX A-100, Adcom 545, and Marantz MM7025. Source is SMSL M9, a dual AK4490 dac from Tidal master.

-- All three are better than the other headphone amps I have (smsl sp200, Figaro 339i for example).
-- A-100 is not as impressive as a 30 years old Adcom 545. Both have 100 wpc, so again power is not the only thing that matters.
-- Adcom 545 is close to the Marantz MM 7025, so probably we don't need more power than 100wpc.
-- Maybe Adcom 545 has passed its prime age, it sounds narrower (in orchestra), slightly dryer (solo, jazz) than the MM 7025. Bass is not as strong (tight, I don't mean booming), and it is less clear. But could this be the 140 wpc vs 100 wpc? I think a Adcom 555 can give a better conclusion.

MM7025 is one of the recent amps that are still powerful and 2 channel. There are some other "current production" options within $1k ranges. I believe you need to go for Macintosh to go to the next level.

So if you can get a vintage 2-channel speaker amp at a reasonable price, it is already good enough for you to enjoy the HE6SE at about $800 cost.

 

[Happy Camper]

Hey HP, good to see people "try it for themselves". The quality of the power supply is what makes the difference. More wattage works because of the ability of the power supply to handle the load, not because of the wattage. Power supplies need good components and the better you provide, the better the sound. IMO

 

[hp4fun]

Hey HP, good to see people "try it for themselves". The quality of the power supply is what makes the difference. More wattage works because of the ability of the power supply to handle the load, not because of the wattage. Power supplies need good components and the better you provide, the better the sound. IMO

Yeah agreed. It is just Adcom 545 has a higher ranking / reputation than Marantz 7025 IMHO. I know I am comparing apple to orange.

 

[Ohman]

Even at $699 for the HE6e I'd still go for the Sundara. The 6e is just way to inefficient and finicky.

 

[Nimzerz]

Even at $699 for the HE6e I'd still go for the Sundara. The 6e is just way to inefficient and finicky.

The inefficiency can be a pro for those that have speaker amps/setups already, like those that mentioned earlier that they are powering the headphones from their McIntosh amps. This way you don’t have to invest in two separate systems.

 

[Degree]

Has anyone tried these new Schiit Jotunheim 2 yet? On paper it seems pretty powerful with 4W @ 50 ohms

 

[thefitz]

Has anyone tried these new Schiit Jotunheim 2 yet? On paper it seems pretty powerful with 4W @ 50 ohms

My Mjolnir did 5W into 50 ohms and didn't hold a candle to my Bryston.

 

[SilverEars]

My Mjolnir did 5W into 50 ohms and didn't hold a candle to my Bryston.

Interesting point. They are trying to sell off the new jotunheim as using discrete parts, and Mjolnir probably used discrete components. The question would be is the new jotunheim just another revison with tacked marketting and how it compares to Mjolnir would tell is.

 

[thefitz]

Interesting point. They are trying to sell off the new jotunheim as using discrete parts, and Mjolnir probably used discrete components. The question would be is the new jotunheim just another revison with tacked marketting and how it compares to Mjolnir would tell is.

In my experience, the HE-6SE sounds best with as low preamp gain as possible, and as high power amp power as possible.

If you have to set your preamp gain to high, I think the HE-6SE is going to sound a little too hard to be enjoyable. Set to low gain (or perhaps medium), whole new ballgame. So you need to feed it a lot of power to get that low gain signal to an proper listening volume.

I do find it mega annoying that we only have theories on the secret sauce of HE-6 amp pairing, given how many measurements we blather in about, especially the whole "not enough current" thing. Surely we can figure this out.

But hey, I can't figure it out either. Hah.