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Thanks for all your input guys, my thread aim was deliberately provocative as I'm trying to find a good enough reason not to splash out on some planners..!
The he500's are drawing me in and I'm helplessly saving up for them
My only concern is the soundstage, I keep reading that planners in general have a more closed in stage. I also keep reading about the separation and air around instruments? Small soundstage with great separation? mmm??
I mostly listen to acoustic music, mainly Jazz and classical. The K702's are brilliant for this, will the he500's be better?
any help would be appreciated thanks
It's hard to explain. K70x may be the most vast soundstage out there. HE-400 (which I doubt is much different in terms of soundstage/separation than HE-500 given the same pads and decent amp given wje's comparisons of the two) has a smaller stage (by far) than K70x. It has a smaller soundstage than HD650 for that matter. Yet the instruments are indeed more separated. HD650 is better at painting the "whole picture", K70x can kind of smear everything into a soundstream 300ft away. HE-400 has the instruments right on top of you, but they're still lined up next to you. Picture one of the Miles Davis quintets, with Miles blasting a trumpet directly at your forehead, Wayne basting the sax at your cheekbone, and Ron drumming over your shoulder
It's an excellent separation of each instrument, even though they're all located close to you (and no, I don't mean to paint it as harsh.)
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Yeah the soundstage is quite amazing. Also, I find the bite that they have in the upper mids to be very engaging, similar to Grado's only without the fatigue (for me anyway). I use a quite warm set up with them which I had originally built around a pair of RS1i's. The K7XX's are very responsive to sublte changes in your source, it can make or break them. My NOS dac-ah and warm mosfet amp add that extra bit of lower end, I'm colouring them and this makes them very hifi friendly- quite lush at times!
Oh I find the K70x insanely fatiguing. However I agree with you that
compared to Grado it is not
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The soundstage on the both the he400 and he500 is quite good.
Have you heard K70x? HE-400 is not a big soundstage by contrast. For that matter, T1 is said not to be a big soundstage by contrast. But with better, far better, positioning, or so I am told. HE-400 soundstage isn't bad, but a properly setup HD650 still has a bigger soundstage, though a warmer, less dynamic, and softer presentation and less separation of instruments. Then again, a properly setup HD650 in this context (now that I have my Silver Dragon cable) costs more than HE-500 and approaches LCD-2 price....
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I think you would love the HE-500 with those music types.
The small soundstage with great separation think of it this way... the K701 would be like watching a 720p broadcast on a 100" projector screen, the HE-500 would be like watching a 1080p 3-D Blu-ray on a 60-inch 3D HDTV. Smaller screen but better details, dimensionality, and objects are more clearly defined.
I can't speak of HE-500 but I love HE-400 with those music types. Like I said above (and in the HD650 thread) now with the silver cable, I think I can safely position HD650 as my favorite again after a brief preference for HE-400, But I prefer HE-400 above the K702 for those genres after briefly preferring K702 over HD650 for them (if that isn't confusing...) K702 is a great headphone, but its lifeless, cold soundstage doesn't often suit me unless I'm truly critically listening to a particular arrangement, orchestra's presentation ,etc. It's an essential part of my toolbox, but it isn't always the easiest to pick. I really like it, but it's now my 4th preference. HD650 first, HE-400 almost dead equal, D5k but only for specific genres (anything electronic, anything raw acoustic (guitar, lute, even violin sonatae.) finally K702 when I have the purpose of needing a wide soundstage or analytical flatness.
But its all preference. Some prefer analytical presentation always. K70x is probably the closest to "poor man's HD800." Both go for dead-neutral analytical detail and huge soundstage primarily. Planars go for organic articulation.
I disagree about the detail though. From wje's evaluation of HE-400 and HE-500 it doesn't sound like there's much difference in detail extraction, so assuming that's true, I'm not sure it's fair to say K70x is less detailed than HE-x00. It has tons of detail
when fed a lot of power. On my Lyr and O2 it's quite articulate. When fed on my lesser amps....not so much. K702 on O2 is freakishly detailed to an almost unpleasant extent.
