ThanatosVI
Headphoneus Supremus
You actually don't send a constant 5V Signal to the earcups.When I first got the HE-1, I still had my Chord DAVE DAC with Sean Jacobs DC4 power supply and a Schrodered set (double pair) of High Fidelity Cables pro RCA’s so the very top of the line DAC and cable setup. For many months, I went back and forth between internal HE-1 DAC and the external DAC setup with DAVE/DC4/HFC focusing on certain aspects of the sound individually (timing, speed, coherence, detail retrieval, etc) and finally settled on the internal dac. Yes, the DAVE did some things better and the HE-1 dac did other things better but when combining everything as a whole, the internal HE-1 dac was the clear winner.
Before getting the HE-1, I was on a mission to create the best headphone setup I could and that path was leading me to a DAVE going to a Riviera Pre Amp going to dual mono Riviera amps then to the Susvara. The HE-1 is basically that, a dac, going to a balanced preamp to dual mono amps (in the ear cups).
In my opinion, what sets the HE-1 system apart from anything else I have heard is having the amps in the ear cups. Instead of sending an amp signal of many watts that fluctuates, depending on the dynamics of the music, though a 10 foot headphone cable, with the HE-1, you are sending a constant 5v line signal from the preamp through the headphone cable then to the amps in the ear cups which are connected to the drivers with wire only millimeters long. So the main music signal is traveling millimeters vs feet. That setup creates this effortless flow to the music that I have not heard on any other headphone system (though I have not listened to the Shangri-la).
Also, on a side note, before getting the HE-1, the Hifiman headphones (He1, HE1se, Susvara, etc) were always my top pics and the only headphones I kept so I have no doubt the Shangri-La sounds fantastic.
The amp in the earcups works like a Power amp with fixed gain not like an integrated amp.
Pre amps don't send line level Signals.
It still makes a difference compared to other electrostatic headphones which receive several hundred Volt Signals, but it is still a variable Signal depending on volume set on the preamp