[PelPix]

Somehow double-posted. My apologies.

 

[nicholars]

IS the HE500 better for distortion?
 
I might save up and get that because the FR looks a lot better on that as well.

 

[stv014]

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IS the HE500 better for distortion?

 
Yes, at least according to the InnerFidelity graphs. However, bad headphone measurements are not uncommon, so the HE-400 might be better than the PDF file shows.

 

[TMRaven]

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It has a few peaks above 1% and into 2% in the treble.
This may sound like a small amount, but that's actually like -20-40dB or so, so like a fifth (on average) as loud as the input signal, which is loud as ****

 
You're putting too much stock in the measurements.  It's not enough of a problem that anybody who's heard them stays away from them because of it.  
 
Quote:

IS the HE500 better for distortion?
 
I might save up and get that because the FR looks a lot better on that as well.

 
HE-500 does boast better measurements, but you really like your bass, so HE-400 might be the better option.  HE-400 actually has less bass distortion than the HE-500.

 

[nicholars]

I am not a bass head as such.... I like lots of genres of music.... I just find that music sounds like it is missing something when it does not have good sub bass..... Also sometimes I like to listen to electronic music and I just find it a bit "meh" on the HD650 compared to the D2000.
 
I would rather have no bass at all than low quality monotone fart cannon bass but I definately like the sub bass on the D2000 for example and although I prefer some areas of the HD650 I definately miss the sub bass of the Denons.
 
I was thinking of just trying the IE80... I would rather have over ears but at this price bracket <£200 I cannot find any headphones with comparable SQ to the HD650 but with sub bass also. The D2000 are harsh and sibilant and hurt my ears after a short amount of time.

 

[IEMCrazy]

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It has a few peaks above 1% and into 2% in the treble.
This may sound like a small amount, but that's actually like -20-40dB or so, so like a fifth (on average) as loud as the input signal, which is loud as ****

 
I have HD650, HE-400, HE-6 (and others.)  Quite honestly I think that number is either a bad measurement or had something to do with those horrible pleather pads. Sure it's not as clean and black in background as HE-6, but it's surely not even close to as bad as that number makes it sound.  It's still a very clean sounding headphone.  HD650 can best it in technical performance, sure, HD600/650 is honestly hard to beat  for technical performance without spending boatloads to do so.  But the two have equally enjoyable and very different presentations.  Prior to HE-6, HE-400 and HD650 were sharing equal head-time.  HE-6 has bumped out some of HE-400's head-time (HD650 still can't be replaced) but all three really have different signatures.)   I wouldn't put that much stock into those THD numbers without having the cans on your head (with velour pads.)
 
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I am not a bass head as such.... I like lots of genres of music.... I just find that music sounds like it is missing something when it does not have good sub bass..... Also sometimes I like to listen to electronic music and I just find it a bit "meh" on the HD650 compared to the D2000.
 
I would rather have no bass at all than low quality monotone fart cannon bass but I definately like the sub bass on the D2000 for example and although I prefer some areas of the HD650 I definately miss the sub bass of the Denons.
 
I was thinking of just trying the IE80... I would rather have over ears but at this price bracket <£200 I cannot find any headphones with comparable SQ to the HD650 but with sub bass also. The D2000 are harsh and sibilant and hurt my ears after a short amount of time.

 
Electronic is a bit "meh" on pretty much anything after you've heard it on Denons.  Denons actually have rather bloomy/bloated bass, but the slam and boom they have just works for electronic like nothing else.  Electronic is artificial and as such it's not designed with the "natural acoustic reproduction" that the haughty-taughty headphones are designed for.  Artificial sounding playback is an advantage for those genres. 
 
I agree about good sub-bass in many genres, but I find HD650 works for everything but classical as a result.  I do miss the rumble of the percussion and bass sections on a good classical recording with 650 and usually prefer HE-400 (now HE-6) for that genre.  HD650 just can't be replaced for jazz, world, folk, a good portion of rock, etc however.
 
D2K is a v-shaped curve. It has steep boost to the bass and treble at the cost of the mids.  HD650 is a frown shaped curve, relatively steep cut in the bass and treble at the benefit of mids.  You literally could not find two opposite headphones without throwing Grado in the mix

  I suspect LCD-2/3 is the only thing that will satisfy your thirst for deep clean bass compared to Denon.  HE-400 may come close, but Denon still wins for when you want bass slam. 
 
As I said, getting what you want gets expensive, HD650 is a difficult trick to best.  If you want the similar laid back treble performance with high detail AND a heavy, solid sub-bass you're probably looking at LCD2/LCD3/HE-6.  HE-500 is said to be more similar to HD650 in that it has the warm mids and rolled off bass.   HE-6 can do it...it takes EQ well so you can roll off the slightly bright treble and make it laid back again instead of it's more native brightness.  And that NAD could drive them nicely indeed.  But it's still different from HD650...I still can't give up my HD650s. And it's even more expensive than LCD-2.
 
I think what you really want is LCD-2, but you don't want to pay for it

  If you plan on keeping HD650 too, HE-400 is an excellent compliment, and so is HE-6, I'm learning.
 
But short of the pricy stuff, I think you're stuck with complimentary excellent headphones rather than looking for "one size fits all perfection."   And I still prefer the HD650 for female vocals, and still prefer the D5k for electronica, even with HE-6..though with complex EQ I could probably duplicate the D5k a little.

 

[nicholars]

The only headphones which I have interest in at the moment (which I can actually afford) are the upcomming Denon D600, the Phillips Fidelio X1 and also possibly the Sennheiser IE80 IEM's.... I would much rather have over ears but as I said I cannot find many decent headphones that have bass as well which are less than about £400.... I have tried lower end headphones such as the ones in my sig but compared to the HD650 or even D2000 they do sound relatively pretty poor. Judging from the measurements the HE400 do look a bit crazy but I would need to actually try them to really know for sure. I was udner the impression that the HE500 has the same bass response as the HE400? Can't you EQ it?

 

[IEMCrazy]

Quote:

The only headphones which I have interest in at the moment (which I can actually afford) are the upcomming Denon D600, the Phillips Fidelio X1 and also possibly the Sennheiser IE80 IEM's.... I would much rather have over ears but as I said I cannot find many decent headphones that have bass as well which are less than about £400.... I have tried lower end headphones such as the ones in my sig but compared to the HD650 or even D2000 they do sound relatively pretty poor. Judging from the measurements the HE400 do look a bit crazy but I would need to actually try them to really know for sure. I was udner the impression that the HE500 has the same bass response as the HE400? Can't you EQ it?

 
Honestly at the price point you're at, you already have tried two of the best...HD650 & D2k. There's always Q701 that extends a bit farther than HD650, but then you're getting some piercing brightness, and they definitively lack slam.  DT990? Again more treble.  I can't comment on D600, or X1, I haven't tried either.  IE80...I've heard relatively good things, though dumping big money for an IEM to get bass of all things seems a little sideways.
 
HE-400 may well be a good direction for you still.  It's as close to "in between HD650 and LCD-2" as you're going to get.  It has its compromises, but does very well at the price point.  Exceedingly well.  I would say overall it's an equal to HD650, but with a different sound, and possibly "more musical" at the cost of being a bit "less accurate."  Don't worry about those measurements.  It looks bad on paper, but it's one of those headphones you really need to try to understand. The FR does some very unusual things to get a certain psychoacoustic effect that works very well.  
 
HE-400 vs HE-500; Don't think of them so much as two tiers of headphones, think of them  more like HD600 & HD650, two compliments at roughly the same level voiced with different sound signatures.  500 is technically slightly better than 400, much like 650 is better slightly than 600, but not significantly enough to let the performance sway you versus preferred sound signature, assuming you're amping them reasonably well.  There's a bigger technical jump from HE-400 to HE-500 than HD600 to HD650, but it still (on a good desktop amp) doesn't compare to the intentional signature difference AFAIK. 
 
HE-400 has voicing more like LCD-2; relatively even mids, but a slightly dark, emphasized low end.  Unlike LCD-2 it sparkles a little in the treble due to some well placed spikes, where LCD is a bit more neutral there.  HE-500 has voicing more like HD650, warm mushroomed mids, with a slightly trailed off bass and high end (though they're still brighter than HD650, almost anything is.) Both will beat HD650 for bass purely due to driver size, and from what I've heard from others (I haven't tried HE-500, I skipped it and went to HE-6 which is almost studio-flat) but from the FR charts and reports of others, HE-500 has slightly better bass texture and detail than HE-400 (which is sensible due to a bigger diaphragm), but lacks the impact/slam of the HE-400 due to being more flat in the bass than the slightly pronounced HE-400 bass.
 
HD650 has it all over HE-400 in the mids, soundstage, and center image.  HE-400 has it all over HD650 in the instrument separation, bass, and low-treble sparkle.  HE-500 as I understand it is a bit smoother than HE-400 and has the warmer mids of HD650 (presumably with yet more detail), and has good natural bass, but not as impactful as HE-400.  It can probably be EQ'd but many headphones don't take EQ that well, the various peaks and valleys get odd as you push on them and the damping isn't often designed around one frequency being disproportionate to another versus initial spec.  Studio flat headphones tend to be the best at taking heavy EQ (K70x, HD800, HE-6, stats, etc.)
 
If you like it fun and musical, go with HE-400.  If you like it "accurate" and warm, go with HE-500 (or keep HD650 and also get HE-400...best of both worlds!) Remember the price difference between HE-400 & HE-500 isn't so much about tiers so much as HE-400 is made on the new automated assembly, HE-500 is still made on manual assembly.  The prices would probably be more like $100 or less apart if not for assembly costs.
 
If none of the HE's are in the mix, the new Denons are probably a good one to keep an eye on if you're looking for "a better D2k"  Don't rule out HE-300 as well.  They're dynamic drivers, but supposedly are very nice.  Some prefer them to HE-400.

 

[TMRaven]

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HE-500 has slightly better bass texture and detail than HE-400 (which is sensible due to a bigger diaphragm)

 
 
 
Nope.
 

 
 

 

[TwoEars]

Come on, give the man some credit. I thought his post was very well written and informative and all you can say is "nope".
 
I'm not even sure your graphs prove your point. Since when did distorsion equal texture?

 

[TMRaven]

Oh I'm very aware of how well written his posts are, I read most of them through.  And though me and IEMCrazy disagree on a few things, I respect his opinion.  I'm not as much attacking his view on the comparison as the people he's read them from.
 
Since when does distortion equal texture?  Can you describe to me what texture is in the first place?  I feel it's one of those audiophile terms people throw around that's very wrong half the time it's used to begin with.  At its purest form, the less harmonic distortion a bass has means the less muddy it will be.  It's a big reason why D2000 has a muddy bass in comparison to the headphones we're talking about in this thread.  All too often on head-fi, the term 'bass texture' gets thrown around when a headphone has quantitively less bass, more bass distortion and more apparent midrange-treble components that go along with traditional bass instruments.  People confuse hearing more of those higher frequency harmonics of the instruments as additional texture to the bass.  What bass texture really should be?  The simple ability to discern pure bass notes from another, especially in complex passages where multiple bass might be playing in unison. 

 

[nicholars]

Well to my ears the D2000 has the maybe the best bass texture out of any headphone I have heard....
 
Maybe the Yamaha EPH-100 and the SHure 840 had similar or better bass texture....
 
To my ears the D2000 have loose sounding bass but it is well textured. The ATH-M50 for example have not very much bass texture at all.... Almost a monotone "fart cannon"
 
Again it is all down to personal perception... All I know is I enjoyed the bass on the Denons a lot even though it was a bit loose sounding it was not a monotone boomy sound.
 
Thanks for the in depth comparison IEMcrazy I think I might give the HE-400 a try.

 

[HamilcarBarca]

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Its total harmonic distortion is a tad high, resulting in a higher noise floor than other headphones

 
THD is not noise floor.

 

[muad]

Quote:

 
THD is not noise floor.

 
+1
 
snr is a measure of noise floor

 

[TwoEars]

Quote:

Oh I'm very aware of how well written his posts are, I read most of them through.  And though me and IEMCrazy disagree on a few things, I respect his opinion.  I'm not as much attacking his view on the comparison as the people he's read them from.
 
Since when does distortion equal texture?  Can you describe to me what texture is in the first place?  I feel it's one of those audiophile terms people throw around that's very wrong half the time it's used to begin with.  At its purest form, the less harmonic distortion a bass has means the less muddy it will be.  It's a big reason why D2000 has a muddy bass in comparison to the headphones we're talking about in this thread.  All too often on head-fi, the term 'bass texture' gets thrown around when a headphone has quantitively less bass, more bass distortion and more apparent midrange-treble components that go along with traditional bass instruments.  People confuse hearing more of those higher frequency harmonics of the instruments as additional texture to the bass.  What bass texture really should be?  The simple ability to discern pure bass notes from another, especially in complex passages where multiple bass might be playing in unison. 

 
Roger on the first bit.
 
As for the second bit I'm with you on your definition, simply more bass does not more texture make! The lack of muddiness, lack of distorsion (induced by our equipment - not the musical instrument!) and the ability to reproduce pure notes sounds like a good step towards a good definition.
 
I like to think of it as a landscape laid out before you, with poor headphones you'll be seeing it through a greasy film. With top notch headphones you'll see the landscape in all it's detailed glory and all the curves and bends of the hills.
 
But then tell me - In you graphs the HE-500 has less distorsion than the HE-400. Wouldn't this make it better at reproducing texture faithfully? Or am I missing something?