MattTCG
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2012
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Okay, thanks for sharing!!
To be honest, no idea, yet. If I can extrapolate from my HD650 / Black Dragon experience.. tighter bass, cleaner/smoother mids, better micro dynamics, hard to explain but the little micro-distortions are gone.. noticeable, yes, huge improvement, no. Would the money have been better spent on the Lyr I want, definitely yes. Is it a good $ value investment, well, not really. On the non-sound side, the better cables do give the headphones a quality look and feel. That's just me.
I do believe that the money should go into better source and them cable last but I'm doing the opposite of what I'm saying.
Next stop, definitely the Lyr. I could have it already given what I spent on the HE400 & cable. Just got side-tracked and after hearing the LCD-2 on a tube amp and reading the great things about the HE400, I had to get a taste of orthos.
Just my particular journey..
I don't really like the pleather pads on the HE-500 as well. When I first received them (newer version), I thought they looked nice with the pleather pads on but I was anticipating a certain discomfort (my experience with leather/pleather pads are not that great, I always preferred the velour ones). In term of pure comfort, I was wrong, they are really nice. But in term of music reproduction, I stopped the experience after just few minutes: the mids were completely off! The voices were like compressed in the stage, that was a strange sensation which made me first think of a faulty driver. But then I switch the pads for the velour ones and this odd sensation was gone... The soundstage is, indeed, wider with the velour pads (not night and day though) and I could not hear a significant change in the bass reproduction.
I think the pleather pads are deformed by the (moderately) "strong" clamping force of the HE-500 and produce this strange effect on mids. The velour pads (newer version) are more rigid and stay better in place.
IMO Hifiman still has some work to do with the pads. We all know the first pads with their archaic locking mechanism (lol?!). The new pads look more professionnal but the locking mechanism is still not great: it is way easier to mount the pads, but they don't stay put on the earcups anymore.
The "feeling" of the velour pad changed as well. The HE-4 had a soft velour pad, really nice on the ear. The new pads are way more rigid, which is a good thing for music presentation, but i prefere the old pads comfort-wise.
To confirm that the pleather pads (at least the one I received?) and the clamping force of the HE-500 don't go along well: I put them on the HE-4, which has a much lighter clamping force. Wow! the soundstage now has a lot more air in it! Soundstage was the main reason why I decided to go for the HE-500, and by no means I would go back to the HE-4 now I listened to the 500s, but I think the HE-4 with deeper pads (like the new ones) are worth giving a try (well, for those who own them already. From what I read, there's no reason to buy the 4s over the 400s now...).
Although I am happy with the treble response from my HE-400's I thought I might experiment a bit with cables to see if any improvement was possible. Rather than replace the headphone cable I have changed the analogue cables between dac and headphone amplifier with silver ones. I don't make any claims about increasing the frequency response but the cables certainly suit and there is a certain crispness to high notes that wasn't there before. Sufficient to say it was an inexpensive improvement and the cables are staying.
The velour pads are MUCH better than the pleather ones when they have worn in a bit by the way.
What length cables are you using? While I'm not a believer in cables overall, silver does make sense to me. However, I would think for a little 6" run, silver vs copper would be irrelevant. The lengths we're dealing with are more or less jumpers, not cables. Unless you do have long runs between DAC & amp.
Think I'll be replacing mine. Really wanted to avoid that trouble but it's obviously a defect on my unit that will continue to bug me or maybe even worsen.
Do you have the first revision? I have not seen any such issue with mine...second revision.