[moodyrn]

Thanks Matt, that 1/8in cable ended up coming in handy after all.

 

[bmichels]

  Hey all, I managed to get some listening time in with the HE1000 last night and this morning and I wanted to share some initial impressions.
 
First off, for anybody asking about burn-in: I first listened to it for a while after letting it play for about 30 minutes. Then I listened to it later after music had been playing in it for 6 hours. I then listened to it this morning after letting it burn in over night, by which point the HE1000s had been blaring music for about 15 hours. I'm going to say that I honestly did not really notice much differences in the sound, if at all, during the three times I just mentioned when I listened to it.
 
However, I'm not sure if this was anybody else's experience, but in my first several minutes or so of listening to the HE1000, I actually wasn't that impressed. I thought, "is this really the same headphone that I listened to before at CES and CanJam?" But after those initial minutes, I started to pick up all the little things that it did better than best headphones that I currently own (HE-400i and HD700), and I really started to become impressed. My point is, I don't believe the HE1000 is a headphone that will wow upon the very first listen, but its strengths quickly become apparent soon after.
 
These are some things that I noticed while listening to the HE1K:
 
The bass is really, really good. This is the first thing that I really started to notice about the HE1000. It sounds better than from what I remember before, though this may be due to listening in my own home and with my own music. @money4me247 is right on the money when he says that the bass on the HE1000 sounds like its coming from a well-controlled subwoofer. It's like the bass is kind of separate entity from the rest of the frequency response range, but yet the overall sound still remains cohesive. I'm not sure if that is the best explanation, so I'm just going to say that I really agree with money's analogy. The HE1000 tends to emphasize the sub-bass while the mid-bass is firmly kept in check. And it sounds very full, with no hint of bloat whatsoever. I would say that the HE1000 makes my HE-400i (itself already very impressive in its presentation of bass) sound like it has some mid-bass bloat, even though I know that really isn't the case.
 
I also agree with money4me247's observation that the dynamic range is absolutely humongous on this headphone. I noticed slight differences in volume in certain passages of my music that I never heard before quite easily. I think this huge dynamic range also helps the HE1000 to excel in other areas, which I will get to later.
 
The HE1000 is amazing in making everything clear in a mix. I found myself noticing background elements in a mix very, very easily, much more so than any of my current headphones. And this doesn't only apply to music. When watching movies or TV shows, in scenes where the main emphasis is on dialogue or other elements with music in the background, I found myself being able to clearly distinguish the sound of the background music, much more so than any other headphone that I remember. I don't mean that the background music is drowning out the dialogue or anything like that - the music is still at the lower volume, but its so clear that you don't need to really turn up the volume to really listen to it.
 
Like HiFiMAN's other headphones, crappily recorded music will still sound decent on the headphone, but excellently recorded music will sound spectacular. However, the HE1000 does make badly recorded music sound much more apparent and somewhat worse than my HE-400i and HD700, while the HE1000 also makes really apparent which are the truly excellent recordings and which are good but on a lower level.
 
Vocals sound sublime on the HE1000. Not only do vocals come to the life because of the pretty much perfect tonality of them and because of the details that the HE1000 effortlessly presents, but also because of the huge dynamic range. The fact that the HE1000 is able to capture such subtle changes in volume allows one to really be able to listen to the nuances in the singer's voice - when some words are slightly emphasized, what kind of tone the singer adopts to use in certain parts, etc.
 
Various instruments sound absolutely life-like on the HE1000. You can really hear the air being blown through the bass instruments. Violins actually have that sound where you know it's a bow being pulled across the strings (something that I never really noticed was missing from the sound of my other headphones until I noticed it here).
 
And it absolutely nails how the piano sounds. This is not only in terms of tonality, but also again because of that huge dynamic range. I myself have been trained in classical piano and have been playing the instrument for over 10 years. When one plays classical, there are lots of nuances one has to take into account - which notes are slightly accented, when do you start to gradually play louder and louder, when do you play the bass (the left hand) to be slightly louder or softer than the treble (the right hand), etc. That huge dynamic range allows me to hear all of those subtle nuances in a good recording and is truly something that can literally transport me to being right next to the piano player like no other headphone that I've ever heard ever has.
 
If anybody is looking for comparisons, sorry, I don't have them just yet, mainly because I can't get the HE1000 off of my head once I put them on and start putting music through them. Though I can really only compare the HE1000 to my HE-400i and HD700...
 
I think that's all that I have for now. If you'll excuse me, I gotta get back to listening to them.

 
GREAT review.   Can you tell us what source/amp were you using with the HE-1000 ?  I guess the HE-1000 needs premium source/amp to shine ....

 

[BenBau]

Thank you guys for your first impressions!
I Would also be very interested in this headphone, but the brown-silver color scheme will prevent me from buying them I'm afraid....

 

[chowmein83]

   
GREAT review.   Can you tell us what source/amp were you using with the HE-1000 ?  I guess the HE-1000 needs premium source/amp to shine ....

 
I'm currently using a NuForce UDH-100 amp/DAC combo to drive the HE1000. While I don't think its underpowered in driving the HE1000, I do feel like it doesn't bring the best out of it. I'm thinking about using an Onkyo A/V receiver that I have access to to listen with the HE1000s with, because based on a few minutes of listening I think there's something special there...

 

[Currawong]

Funnily enough, I found them easily drivable direct from my 2011 MacBook Pro. I didn't test to see how much I lose dynamics or any such thing, as I was only listening casually, but it was pleasing that I could enjoy listening without worrying about whether my gear was "good enough". 

 

[chowmein83]

  Funnily enough, I found them easily drivable direct from my 2011 MacBook Pro. I didn't test to see how much I lose dynamics or any such thing, as I was only listening casually, but it was pleasing that I could enjoy listening without worrying about whether my gear was "good enough". 

 
I agree, actually. I actually have tried driving them with a FiiO X3 2nd gen, and I thought that sounded pretty decent (and a lot better than lots of other headphones). But I do think they will scale up a lot depending on the gear used.

 

[reddog]

Just a side note, I really like the three cables that came with my beta unit. However if I wanted to get a longer cable, who is making custom cables for the HE1K? Norne Audio or Moon Audio.

 

[rgs9200m]

Here, just get an Oppo PM1 cable, up to 15 meters... plugs or balanced.
https://www.oppodigital.com/products.asp?cat=45

 

[ruthieandjohn]

For my review of the HE1000, I plan on attempting to do several things unique so far:
 

1. Compare, in a "1st 2nd 3rd place" sense, the HE1000 to my two other top-end headphones, the Sennheiser HD 800 and the Grado PS1000;
2. Compare in this three-way comparison both upon receipt (less than 1 hour use) and after whatever number of hours of burn-in seem to be seen by others as sufficient (seems to be over 130 at this point, perhaps as much as 200 hours);
3. Compare (after full burnin) in this three-way method to three different DAC/amps I have at hand... some combination of CEntrance HiFi M8, Sennheiser HDVD 800, Joseph Grado HPA-1, Sony PHA-1, Beyerdynamic A 200p, no amp i.e., straight from iPod
4. If possible, engage my local audio store, Overture Audio, a HiFiMAN dealer, to compare either or both of the HiFiMAN EF-6 and the Moon Neo 430A amps in a three-way comparison to the best of the amps in the previous bullet.

 
I have just completed the "as-received" comparison, so I will post it here.  When I complete the others (after 130 hours+ more burn in), I will make a new post that combines the contents of this post with the post-burn-in tests and amp tests.
 
Test Method
 
I have used this test method many, many times on many headphones, as can be seen by the tables here and the links to over 18 individual tests therein.
 
I used four songs, all encoded in Apple Lossless Format at CD quality (I actually bought the CDs and ripped them... no internet download involved) and played by my Apple iPod Touch 5th Gen.  Because each of the 10 acoustic tests used a limited segment of music (2 - 10 sec), an infinite loop was used to repeat the appropriate segment of each song while headphones were switched in and out.
 

• "You're Going To Miss Me When I'm Gone," by Band of Heathens, from their album One Foot In The Ether (used for fidelity of drum sound, positional resolution of two vocalists, and ability to discern pitch of string bass passages);
• "Spanish Harlem," by Rebecca Pidgeon, on The Ultimate Demonstration Disc of Chesky records (used to assess female vocals, transparency, the attack of finger on bass string, and high resolution discrimination of differences in shaker shakes);
• "Symphony No. 3 in C Minor Op. 78 (Organ Symphony) - IV" by Camille Saint Saens played by Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (used to assess the "ripping" sound of well-rendered lower brass and organ reed pipes, and the ability to hear a very small entrance amidst a bombastic chord of orchestra and organ at full tilt);
• "Throwback" by B.o.B. on Underground Luxury (used to assess ability of a bass tone, specifically lowest C on piano at about 32 Hz, to pick me up by the throat and shake me!)

 
The 10 tests were as follows:
 

• Transparency:  What is between me and the music?  A felt cloth?  A "Sennheiser veil?" A frosted window?  Dirty window?  Clear Saran wrap?  or nothing?  At its best, makes me forget I am listening on headphones and am in room with musicians. [I use the 12-second segment 0:00 - 0:12 of "You're Going To Miss Me," which is kick drum, guitar, piano, and cymbal for this test]
• Width of sound stage:  How far to the left and to the right, (yes, AND up and down in best cases) does it seem the musical sources are arranged? [I use the same 0:00 - 0:12 segment of "You're Going To Miss Me,"  which starts with kick drum center, guitar #1 right of center piano far right, guitar #2 far left, to see 1) to what extent am I among rather than in front of the musicians, and 2) how wide an angle do those positional extremes of instruments form?]
• Positional resolution:  Can I distinguish a difference in position of two singers in Song 1? [I use 0:30 to 0:38 of "You're Going To Miss Me," where one vocalist ends a verse and a second vocalist, standing next to him, takes up the next.]
• Bass visceral:  Does the bass in third verse of Song 4 actually shake me? Or do I just hear it?  [This test uses 0:31 through 0:33 of "Throwback, " where the bass drops to the lowest C on the piano.]
• Drum "twang":  At start of Song 1, do the bass and tom tom drumhead have a tone and a pitch, rather than just a thump? ["You're Going to Miss Me" 0:00 - 0:12]
• Bass pitch perception:  For the complicated bass runs in Song 1, do I hear a pitch with sufficient accuracy to sing or transcribe the part? ["You're Going to Miss Me,"  1:02 - 1:23 to see if I can hear the pitch of not only the bass glides and accented notes, but also the grace notes]
• Bass finger pluck:  Do I hear the actual impact of fingers on the bass string just before hearing its sound on Song 2? ["Spanish Harlem," 0:00 - 0:04, listening most carefully to the repeated 3-note pattern to see if I not only hear an initial attack but some structure immediately following, before the finger leaves the string and the sound just rings)
• Shaker variation:  In Song 2, verse 3, do the various shaker shakes sound a bit different from each other, as they should? ["Spanish Harlem," 1:40 - 1:47:  there are clearly loud and soft shakes, but how many more volume levels of shakes can I distinguish, and can I hear structure within each shake as the seeds hit the shaker wall?]
• "Ripping" of organ / brass:  In Song 3, is there the sensation of hearing each vibration of the French horn and low organ reed tones (sort of the tonal counterpart to hearing a "pitch" from a drumhead in Test 5); ["Organ Symphony," initial chord from 0:00 - 0:04 and French horn passage 0:06 - 0:12]
• Discern added chord:  About 1:38 into Song 3, after the full orchestra and organ hold a chord at the top of a passage, can I hear a small number of orchestra instruments join in, as sort of an echo, in the second measure of that chord? ["Organ Symphony," in the passage starting at 1:08, how well can I hear the small additional chord added at 1:16 on top of the full strength organ/orchestra chord in progress?  Clearly enough to have noticed it if I weren't already listening for it?]

 
These tests generally emphasize what I find most pleasing in a headphone, namely high-frequency-related features including transparency, upper harmonics of sounds from drum-head, brass, organ pipe, and string bass, and high-resolution effects such as fine detail of each shaker sound and the finger on the bass string.
 
Headphones Compared
 
I compared the HiFiMAN HE1000 beta version to both the Sennheiser HD 800 (driven by the Sennheiser HDVD 800 DAC/amp using digital input) and the Grado PS1000 (driven by the Joseph Grado Signature Products HPA-1).  I drove the HE1000 with the portable CEntrance HiFi M8 amp in single-ended configuration.  Both other headphones were driven single ended.  Both the Sennheiser and the Grado had manufacturer-matched amps, while the HE-1000 did not (didn't have the HiFiMAN EF-1000!!!) As mentioned above, I hope to gain access to the HiFiMAN EF-6 for tests after the burnin interval for the HE1000.
 
My initial impressions of the HE1000, stated here because, indeed, this is the HE1000 Impressions Thread, are:
 

1. Within the first two seconds of listening to the HE1000 out of the box, I noticed the complete, strong bass and the exceptionally large sound stage.  Neither of these took detailed listening tests -- they were immediately apparent.
2. There were some nice  touches - for example, the 1.5m cable, with its right-angle 1/8" connector suited for plugging into a portable audio device, has a very thin shoulder around the plug, allowing you to plug it into an iPhone that is in a protective case (only Sennheiser and V-MODA seem to think to do this - Grado never does... kudos to HiFiMAN!)
3. Another convenient feature is that the cables do NOT twist-lock into the earpiece.  While this might seem unsafe (pull out if pulled), it actually encourages me to use the right cable for the job, since they just plug into the earpieces (for example, changing the cable on my HD 800 is a sit-down, spend-some-time job because of their tight twist lock).

 
Test #1 - less than 1 hour at-home usage of HE1000
 
The table below gives a first place (blue, 3 points), second place (red, 2 points) and third place (yellow, 1 point) rating to each of the three headphones compared to one another on each of the 10 tests.  Just for fun (nearly meaningless, though, for supreme-level headphones such as these), I added the points across all 10 tests to see which headphone was overall highest scoring, second, and third.  Since these are rank orders rather than absolute scores, and since I can make mistakes in comparison (though I tried to assure that any differences I declared were large enough that if made to repeat in a blind test, I could... hence, there is at least one feature that has a three-way tie), scores of 3 or larger are significant.
 

Comparison of HE1000 at less than 1 hour of user use to burned-in Sennheiser HD 800 and Grado PS1000 shows that the HE1000 provides impactful bass performance and superior sound stage while maintaining most aspects of treble detail.
 
Having now reported on the HE1000 as received, I will listen to them for at least 130 hours, then compare their performance to the other two headphones again, producing a new version of the above table.  At that time I will compare the HE1000 performance as a function of amplifier driving them, using the same methodology.

 

[Pirakaphile]

HE-1K an all arounder is what I'm reading. Maybe in a few decades if I've gone mad enough to continue down this path, I'll look to purchase these headphones. I like these impressions, now I just need to find a job that'll keep me afloat even with these tendencies.

 

[potkettleblack]

Great job and thank you for you time. Reviews like this are exactly why I frequent this website.
 
 

 

[money4me247]

@kayandjohn, very informative initial impressions above! I especially appreciated the outline of your testing methodology. The direct 2-10 second comparison is often quite revealing of significant differences.
 
I was wondering if you used different 2-10 second portions for each different acoustic test. I would love to see the approximate time frames of the songs you used in each test, so I can try it out myself! Of course, I don't have the HD800 or PS1000, so I won't be ranking anything. Just thought your specific approach was very cool!

 

[agooh]

I'm about to sell My LCD 3 and order He 1000 < any comparison between these two headphones ?
 
Also how is the sound of he 1000 out of Hugo TT ?

 

[goldendarko]

As much as I like the HE1000's they don't make me want to sell my lcd-3s but sometimes I just want that colored Audeze sound. Comparison wise I think they both do things very differently. The bass is very hard hitting on the LCD but cleaner and tighter on the HE1000. Mids more colored with the LCDs and very neutral but with fantastic tone on the HE1000. Almost everything else is just plain better on the HE1000 though including the treble, soundstage, dynamics, etc. and it's probably more of an all around we than the LCD-3 though it won't be as forgiving with poor quality recordings.

 

[agooh]

As much as I like the HE1000's they don't make me want to sell my lcd-3s but sometimes I just want that colored Audeze sound. Comparison wise I think they both do things very differently. The bass is very hard hitting on the LCD but cleaner and tighter on the HE1000. Mids more colored with the LCDs and very neutral but with fantastic tone on the HE1000. Almost everything else is just plain better on the HE1000 though including the treble, soundstage, dynamics, etc. and it's probably more of an all around we than the LCD-3 though it won't be as forgiving with poor quality recordings.

That's big statement ,so better to keep lcd 3 .
what about Vocals ? I mean you can feel them on lcd 3 , it has body and it feel as if you in are in a front row seat., any comparison in this regard and what about the soundstage ?