I just had the pleasure of listening to HE-1 for a solid hour. The people at Sennheiser SF were very accommodating. A few top line impressions, mostly using HD800 as the control group. As always, these reflect my own personal taste, biases, prejudices, mood, what I had for lunch (margherita pizza with tomato sauce from san marzano tomatoes, 00 flour, and mozzarella di buffala), etc., and are open to future emendation.
- Soundstage is not as thrilling as HD800, though it coheres beautifully. Imaging likewise is good, and enfolds you in a plausible organic space, but does not give you the razor edge protractor of HD800.
- The tonal quality itself is like a better Utopia. The electrostatic nature of the diaphragms prevent them from slamming ala th900 (or indeed HD800), but the low extension is far better than HD800 unmodified. It doesn't leap out at you, though it sounds great from the start. You need to pay attention to notice how lovely it is. However, after 100 hours, I can see myself falling very much in love. Still, when I closed my eyes and gave myself over to it, the engagement of Tristan, Brahms, Tosca, Die Walkure—they were all a step above HD800. Not quite so sumptuous as LCD4, but definitely engaging in a way that the stern HD800 is not.
- It tolerates high volumes very well without distorting. I listened to Si pel ciel, Karajan's tre sbirri, Brahms's first piano concerto, and the climax of the Liebesnacht without any audible distortion.
- It does not have much black magic for bad recordings. The old Callas stuff still sounded meh. The studio-stereo stuff, though, was exquisite. I would stick with Yggy, or Dave, or MSB, as your wallet recommends. I don't know why Sennheiser doesn't spring for Eitr. I can't imagine their USB implementation is up to scratch with their dac and amp.
- I think I might have heard an improvement between 320kbps and lossless, though the DAC still seems to be the limiting sphincter. It does fine with good recordings.
- It's fine with piano, but didn't differentiate itself over and above Susvara, K1000, Utopia, SR009, and HD800.
- It was *marvellous* with the Grosse Fugue. I was simply blown away by the realism of the string quartet.
- There's a second out on the back for a second headphone to plug into the amp. $10,000, I believe it was quoted as being, but the associate (excuse me, "ambassador") didn't want me to quote him. Oops.
- The Kleiber Sturbin Wir Um has never sounded so sensual—Brangäne most of all.
- The "crossfade" controls remind me of the old SPL Phonitor. Seem interesting, but I preferred the Kleiber Beety 5 (the only thing I listened to with it) just as it was originally mixed. But WOW does Orpheus make the Vienna Phil sound sumptuous, rich, and LIVE!
- Wunderlich sounded fine singing Adelaide but it wasn't out of this world.
My ultima is still probably the MySphere, or the Baby Orpheus with one of the Mjolnir-Audio creations.
