[Scog]

 
Quote:

If you can afford to, burn em in over night for a few nights. There's a very apparent smoothing of the (initially slightly harsh) treble after about 20 ~ 30 hours.
 
Btw, can you adjust them rotating around the vertical axis? It looks as though those joints can be swiveled but I can't seem to adjust them with some applied force.

I will burn them but I'm happy to listen for now while I'm home and burn in during the day while I'm out. I did notice some harshness, but that has not stopped me from enjoying most music. John Coltrane is superb. I am getting what sounds like a high end frequency spike off the cymbals but it is still low volume, and right near the edge of hearing. Not enough to bother me too much with the understanding that it will soften up with time. I suspect though that some of this comes from this headphones ability to reveal the smallest of signals on the recording.
 
Yes I can adjust the cups on the vertical axis. The available angle is not large but is large enough. It begins to turn smoothly with firm but still gentle torque on the bolt between the crescent mount and the up-stick. Between these two parts, there is what appears to be a small teflon washer providing friction control, while the horizontal axis swivel uses o-rings for this task. Smart engineering really, it has resulted in fairly similar adjustment force between these two joints of different types and materials. Can you verify if your set goes, from the bottom, Flathead screw head, split spring washer, crescent mount, Teflon(?) washer, up-stick(this is the technical term), screw base?
Quote:

Pretty sure these don't come with velour earpads and a travel case, Scog. Unless head-direct said they'd give them to you.
 
I just got an extra set of leather earpads and a cloth bag.

I ordered a pair of velour pads and an ipod lod with my order, and also emailed customer service to add a travel case after making my order. With how busy they must be right now being effectively the second launch of this new product, it's not hard to understand how they could have made this mistake. I trust them to take care of it as fast as they can, and for now I have my headphones so I'm happy.
 
EDIT: Checked my email and they will be sending out the missing items soon. I have been very impressed with the response time from Head-Direct customer service.
 

 

[Dazedy]

 

I will burn them but I'm happy (snip)
 

I'd be interested in hearing how velour changes the sound signature.

 

[wje]

Quote:

I'd be interested in hearing how velour changes the sound signature.

From some of my earlier readings, I did come across a user's impressions based on the pleather vs. velour pads.  I'm not sure which HifiMAN model was being used for this testing and impression, but here's what I remember reading.
 
- Leather / Pleather ear pads: Give you the impression you're in the first row of a concert.  They seal a bit better and provide a slightly better bass response.
 
- Velour pads: Provide the impression that you are several rows back in a concert.  A bit less bass, yet still comfortable.
 
So, based upon the information of that one person, it all kind breaks down into a situation of sound stage.  I have a pair of velour pads for my HE-5LEs, but have never taken the time to swap out the pleather pads to see what kind of impressions I could gather from the sound differences.
 

 

[jerg]

Quote:

 

 
Yes I can adjust the cups on the vertical axis. The available angle is not large but is large enough. It begins to turn smoothly with firm but still gentle torque on the bolt between the crescent mount and the up-stick. Between these two parts, there is what appears to be a small teflon washer providing friction control, while the horizontal axis swivel uses o-rings for this task. Smart engineering really, it has resulted in fairly similar adjustment force between these two joints of different types and materials. Can you verify if your set goes, from the bottom, Flathead screw head, split spring washer, crescent mount, Teflon(?) washer, up-stick(this is the technical term), screw base?
 

Ah ok, yeah the adjustment worked very well. Thanks.

 

[GrumbleFish]

I'm a tad confused about the whole extra pads situation. I was under the impression that we would be getting a free pair of leather pads in addition to the stock pleather pads that came already attached to the cans. When I got my package, I couldn't tell the difference between the pads on the HE-400s and the extra "leather" pads. I'm pretty sure I just got two pairs of the pleather pads. 
 
MuppetFace, did you say that you did get the leather pads for your extras? If so, are the leather pads different. I know earlier in this thread, or the other thread that closed, some members were talking about the fact that the pleather pads were thicker/deeper in order to get the drivers farther away from the ear so as to increase perceived bass.
 
I'm like 99% positive that the two pairs of pads I got are the same. I'm not complaining, they work well for me and are very comfy. Just a tad confused.
 

 

[GrumbleFish]

Also, to those who did get the travel case, I think just Kilo at this point, how is the quality of it? Is it a hard-shell travel case?
 
It looks pretty big in the picture on the Head-Direct site. I mean, I guess it has to be pretty big to hold the cans, but is it actually viable to kart around? I was considering getting one, since the stock bag is pretty useless for travel unless the goal is to prevent dust collection or scratches. Is there a spot for the cable in the travel case? I can't fit the 400s and the cable in the bag comfortably at the same time.
 
 

 

[Kilosonic]

Quote:

Also, to those who did get the travel case, I think just Kilo at this point, how is the quality of it? Is it a hard-shell travel case?
 
It looks pretty big in the picture on the Head-Direct site. I mean, I guess it has to be pretty big to hold the cans, but is it actually viable to kart around? I was considering getting one, since the stock bag is pretty useless for travel unless the goal is to prevent dust collection or scratches. Is there a spot for the cable in the travel case? I can't fit the 400s and the cable in the bag comfortably at the same time.
 
 

Quality is great; yes its a hard-shell type.
 
It's small enough for carry-on but I wouldn't be bringin it to starbucks. The case is big enough to fit both the headphones and cable. There's no pockets for the cable tho so I just put it in the sleeve bag that came w/ it. 
 

 

[Dazedy]

Quote:

I'm a tad confused about the whole extra pads situation. I was under the impression that we would be getting a free pair of leather pads in addition to the stock pleather pads that came already attached to the cans. When I got my package, I couldn't tell the difference between the pads on the HE-400s and the extra "leather" pads. I'm pretty sure I just got two pairs of the pleather pads. 
 
MuppetFace, did you say that you did get the leather pads for your extras? If so, are the leather pads different. I know earlier in this thread, or the other thread that closed, some members were talking about the fact that the pleather pads were thicker/deeper in order to get the drivers farther away from the ear so as to increase perceived bass.
 
I'm like 99% positive that the two pairs of pads I got are the same. I'm not complaining, they work well for me and are very comfy. Just a tad confused.
 

Quite sure that the "leather" pads they promised everyone was the pleather ones. Most likely it was just a miss-communication on their part.
If you look on the website at their "leather earpads" (http://head-direct.com/Products/?act=detail&id=111) In the description it specifies that they are protein leather. They said the value of them was $20, exactly the cost of those.  They don't actually have any true leather earpads available on their website.
 


Quote:

From some of my earlier readings, I did come across a user's impressions based on the pleather vs. velour pads.  I'm not sure which HifiMAN model was being used for this testing and impression, but here's what I remember reading.
 
- Leather / Pleather ear pads: Give you the impression you're in the first row of a concert.  They seal a bit better and provide a slightly better bass response.
 
- Velour pads: Provide the impression that you are several rows back in a concert.  A bit less bass, yet still comfortable.
 
So, based upon the information of that one person, it all kind breaks down into a situation of sound stage.  I have a pair of velour pads for my HE-5LEs, but have never taken the time to swap out the pleather pads to see what kind of impressions I could gather from the sound differences.
 

Are the velour pads more comfortable? Or is the main difference just a slightly larger soundstage and slightly less bass?
 
I actually haven't noticed any problems with my ears getting hot / sweat around the earpads, which is unusual for me and pleather earpads... they're the most comfortable I've used in a while. That's probably not saying much though, seeing as my last pair of headphones was the ATH-M50, which is notorious for being hot / clampy.
 
One odd thing I noticed is that whatever pleather they use on the head-band isn't the same as the ear-pads: its a fair bit stiffer.

 

[Aaron1006]

Just sent my broken HE400's in for replacement. Customer service was extremely fast at responding and helped me get everything taken care of extremely well so far!

 

[Subatomic]

Finally picked mine up. They didn't come with extra pads or anything, will have to send customer service an email hrm.
 
Overall they sound really good, bass is awesome, really tight and controlled. They're so airy (open) compared to my AD700s, theres almost no isolation on them at all. Oh wells. Pretty comfortable too. As above, cable is a 3.5mm with 6.25mm adapter attached. Might look at eventually replacing it with a different cable but oh wells.
 
So far really enjoying them. Will have them burnin overnight tho

 

[dleblanc343]

I love how everyone is saying "I'll wait a few hours for burn in before I judge the sound"... Fang clearly said he'd burn in the HE400's for 200 hours before shipping them out, to ensure they are not faulty. After 200 hours of burn in, I don't think another twenty hours would make a difference; within the first one hundred hours is a different story.
 
I think this is more a case of people getting accustomed to the sound with usage.
 
Regardless, Happy Listening!

 

[jerg]

Quote:

I love how everyone is saying "I'll wait a few hours for burn in before I judge the sound"... Fang clearly said he'd burn in the HE400's for 200 hours before shipping them out, to ensure they are not faulty. After 200 hours of burn in, I don't think another twenty hours would make a difference; within the first one hundred hours is a different story.
 
I think this is more a case of people getting accustomed to the sound with usage.
 
Regardless, Happy Listening!

As we discussed several pages ago, those 200hr burn-in drivers are likely only for the "fixes" for the first batch of HE400's, subsequent batches like the ones everyone's been receiving these few days have not been burned in.

 

[Dazedy]

Quote:

As we discussed several pages ago, those 200hr burn-in drivers are likely only for the "fixes" for the first batch of HE400's, subsequent batches like the ones everyone's been receiving these few days have not been burned in.

Also, I have most definitely noticed a difference, even after 6-7 hours of burn-in. Before burn-in, some frequencies were sharp enough to actually hurt my ears, but after a few hours it was perfectly fine.  
 

 

[jerg]

Eh I still think the post-burn-in sound signature of these are not good for "sultry" female focals (i.e. Hikaru Utada, Olivia Ong), it's tolerable now but still overly dry, seems to be something particular with the treble still.

 

[olegausany]

I also think that they have better bass with stock pads, had to try Velour ones cause wearing glasses. But after trying D5000 HE-400 going back since I finally got best of both words for just $100 more than regular he-400 price