New Hifiman HE-5LE planar magnetic headphone
May 18, 2010 at 9:23 PM Post #751 of 1,933


Quote:
 

In my opinion, HE-5 is far less musical than HE-5LE. HE-5LE have a lot more body, more balanced sound than HE-5. I can use HE-5LE listen to music more than 3 hours. I only can use HE-5 for less than 1 hour before my ears feel tired. There are so many new headphones are so bright, and my taste might be out of date. But K1000 and HE-90 are not as bright.
 

This was NOT part of the sales literature when I bought my HE-5/EF-5 combo!!! lol  
tongue_smile.gif

 
Unfortunately, I haven't had much time lately to do much listening but one area that I feel the HE-5's were a bit weak in were it's somewhat "distant" midrange (requiring me to crank up the volume) which seems to have been addressed in the LE's...
 
I really like the HE-5's, but would like to give the LEs an audition (as well as the T1s, HD800s and the new Audeze LCD-2s).  It may be sacreligious around these parts, but I've found tweaking the EQ in my computer based rig has transformed other cans I've listened to.  The inherently (from what I've read) lower distortion of these orthos give me some confidence in successfully tweaking/boosting the the midrange on my HE-5s.  It is interesting to see such wide ranging posts - and subsequent mods proposed by the manufacuterer... I'll be following this thread with interest.
 
May 18, 2010 at 9:50 PM Post #752 of 1,933


This was NOT part of the sales literature when I bought my HE-5/EF-5 combo!!! lol  
tongue_smile.gif

 
Unfortunately, I haven't had much time lately to do much listening but one area that I feel the HE-5's were a bit weak in were it's somewhat "distant" midrange (requiring me to crank up the volume) which seems to have been addressed in the LE's...
 
I really like the HE-5's, but would like to give the LEs an audition (as well as the T1s, HD800s and the new Audeze LCD-2s).  It may be sacreligious around these parts, but I've found tweaking the EQ in my computer based rig has transformed other cans I've listened to.  The inherently (from what I've read) lower distortion of these orthos give me some confidence in successfully tweaking/boosting the the midrange on my HE-5s.  It is interesting to see such wide ranging posts - and subsequent mods proposed by the manufacuterer... I'll be following this thread with interest.



You will find that your concerns about the mids has been completely addressed with the HE-5 LE.
 
May 18, 2010 at 9:53 PM Post #753 of 1,933


Quote:
Surprisingly, I blew the dust off of my RSA Raptor and was enamored by the results, using the HE-5LE, the T-1 and the HD800's. 
I was foolish to think that the Raptor would not have enough power to push all three headphones through the test. Boy, was I wrong.
Sticking to just the HE-5LE's all I needed was 10 o'clock on the volume dial to motor them to a quality output. I have taken off the outside "star" foam and the cloth that covered the grill and am quite happy with the results.
Others have reported loss of bass, but I am not having that problem. The T-1 and HD800 sounded especially nice, actually pretty competitive to my Luxman.
 
Lesson learned? Don't knock it until you try it. The EF-5 has less of a "hollow" midrange, but the Raptor (which costs twice as much)
is definitely a contender. I'd still say that the EF-5 is better, but for all 3 headphones, I now find I have another option on a rainy day. 

 
Is the EF5 a good amp for the HD800? will it do justice to the headphone?
 
 
May 19, 2010 at 12:21 AM Post #754 of 1,933
The EF-5 drives the HD800 and the T-1 effortlessly. The only headphone I felt it doesn't do a good job with, is the K-1000's.
 
May 19, 2010 at 9:47 AM Post #760 of 1,933
Thinker, it is interesting that you like the HE-5 cable on the HE-5LE. The HE-5 is a silver cable (brighter) and the HE-5LE is OFC copper which helps tame the highs. I assume this was done to accommodate the people who were complaining about sibilance, along with the newly incorporated star foam add-on (both sides of the driver). 
Do you think that the copper mesh grills with the cloth compensate for the original HE-5 silver cable? Or do you just like the speed and 
brighter sound of the silver cable?
 
May 19, 2010 at 10:50 AM Post #762 of 1,933
From what I decipher from thinker is that he uses the LE with its original cable(Not old HE5 cable) and has only removed the grills with its attached cloth and replaced them with the new copper grills and replaced the LE pads with old HE5 pads. So all in all only removed the grills with cloth and put on copper with no cloth instead and old HE5 pads.

 
Quote:
Thinker, it is interesting that you like the HE-5 cable on the HE-5LE. The HE-5 is a silver cable (brighter) and the HE-5LE is OFC copper which helps tame the highs. I assume this was done to accommodate the people who were complaining about sibilance, along with the newly incorporated star foam add-on (both sides of the driver). 
Do you think that the copper mesh grills with the cloth compensate for the original HE-5 silver cable? Or do you just like the speed and 
brighter sound of the silver cable?



 
May 19, 2010 at 10:56 AM Post #763 of 1,933
I'm going to get a cable to try the HE-5LE from the speaker outputs of my Leben CS300X, to see if that offers better sound than from the headphone out.  I think the headphone out does a great job, I know some folks liked the original HE-5 with speaker amps best.
 
Listening right now to the HE-5LE, to Patty Griffin's "No Bad News" - and both her voice and the acoustic guitars are exceptionally natural sounding.
 

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