The Hifiman he-400i from the point of view of someone who doesn't know what to expect:

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by Vanheim, Jul 17, 2016.

  1. Vanheim

    Vanheim Acquaintance

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    Introduction: well, let me start off by saying that I don’t come from the wealthiest background.

    So, it shouldn’t come to a surprise that purchasing the hifiman even at $300 was a big move on my part and wasn’t an easy decision, but my love for audio made me detest using cheap audio products which didn’t honor music, instead spat on its face.

    Da luuks and da build: I’ll say it, these look sexy. The chrome cups give for a very classy and sophisticated look IMO which helps it segregate itself as a higher class of headphones. The headband is not so ideal but you get used to them. Others really don’t. I wore these during a road trip and I stopped counting how many weird looks people were giving me. It was awkward to say the least. But tell you what? I didn’t care, (maybe I cared a little bit), but I wasn’t going to take them off my head.


    But the sexy cups tend to be a fingerprint magnet, they don’t give me much confidence in terms of being scratch resistant. Take care of them will you? Try not to throw them around and be rough with them. The headband adjusters inflict scratches on the back of the metal structure. For the retail price of $499.99 this is unacceptable to me. Hifiman messed up big time in this part for me. The adjusters are very hard to adjust due to stiffness but ease up over time. The new 2.5 mm connectors look nice, I’d say they shouldn’t cause any problems.


    Da cumphorttt: Holy schiit! Why would you take these of your head? Even if no music is playing, I would rather keep them on my head while they hug my head with those soft pads. It’s not a headphone that I want to keep on my head just for its sound, but its comfort makes me want to keep them on even if there is no music on! I have listened to these for hours at a time and felt little to no discomfort. These don’t disappear completely but they don’t keep screaming “hey I’m on your head, does that bother you?”.


    Da sundddd:

    First impressions when I received them were as follows,

    ***note: I am playing them out of an Objective2 amp with no external dac, only the crappy one from my HTC one m8 and my Lenovo notebook. So maybe that's the reason for my impressions.


    Unimpressed. I simply didn't see what the fuss was all about. The treble siblant and strident.

    The vocals were nice but there was no *magic* I wanted for 300 dollars.

    The bass, oh my God, where is the bass? Is hifiman pranking me? Is this a joke? Are my headphones broken? The mid bass sounds horribly tactile, like someone beating on plastic with plastic. Unacceptable for it's price tag. Where is the liquid planner bass I was promised? There is no sign of sub bass. It's just missing. On "secrets" by tiesto and kshmr- this particularly showed.

    I tried eq from dobly atmos on my HTC one m8: on the "rich" setting with a bit more eq'ed sub bass. better. The treble calmed down, but not much. The mids still there and are nice but no orgasmic *magic*. They are just not forward enough for me. Mid bass less plastic feeling but still not good enough. Sub bass is helping the mid bass sound a bit more textured but it's still mostly missing and obscure. Hell I preferred the punchy textured bass on my $50 status audio hd one than the he-400i at this point.

    But slowly they started to improve, (burn in? What? It really works?) the treble calmed down a lot. And the Objective2 seemed to help, (ampless directly from phone with eq didn't work well enough). The mids started to sound a lot more nice. Vocal layering was very impressive. The bass improved and wasn't as plastic crappy feeling anymore. But it didn't go deep at all. Impact was almost non existent. It wasn't "accurate" there was certainly information missing my $10 earbuds with eq can dig out that this couldn't.

    On a jazz track it really shined. On "the look for love" by Stanley Turrentine - the instrument separation was impressive. The instrument's attack and decay is something I first realized on this headphone. The strings and drums sounded fantastic. They had life in them!

    On "better than anything" by Diana Krall and Natalie Cole - the vocal layering and separation was also quite impressive as I've never heard them on other cheaper audio gear.

    But at that time I thought that if they didn't improve drastically with a better dac (garbage in, garbage out and all that), and further burn in, I’d have to say that I really didn’t think they were even worth $300 let alone $500. But prices are really crazy in the audio world I’ll have to say. My perception of value for money might differ from yours but whatever.


    Now these are my impressions after listening to them for around a month-

    Bass: amazing sense of realism and the lightness of the slam helps clarity. It can sound anemic depending on the song and the rig. There is a certain texture the bass presents that I’ve come to love. With the correct eq however it can reach higher levels of awesomeness! For bass heavy genres I use the eq to bump up the bass quite a bit and boy does it seriously hit hard! Most of that seductive texture is still retained but now it doesn’t just punch weakly, now it attacks you with authority! Yes, in a pleasurable way! On The Eagle’s Hotel California the kick drums with eq are very authoritative and make for a very addicting listen.

    Mids: Oh. Thissss. This is amazing. The mids have a sweetness to them that is hard to describe, its unlike anything I’ve ever heard. The instruments are presented in a way that is just a joy to listen to! On Porcupine Tree’s song- My Ashes, the guitar sounds incredible and the imaging is very good. The vocals carried that sense of dark atmosphere which just stood out so much to me! And not surprisingly Steven Wilson’s songs are great on these. The Vocals and the instruments never sound congested, rather they flow. Green day is also amazing here. The guitar riffs have a sense of authority to them. On Diana Krall’s Let’s Fall in Love, her voice sounds intoxicating to say the least. I’m blown away each time I hear that song. Bjork and Carpenters also sound amazing! Blowing me away each time I put their songs on.

    Treble: One cannot be perfect from every angle. Somewhere there has to be a problem. In this case for me It’s the treble. Don’t get me wrong, it is very extended and isn’t veiled or dull in any way. Rather it’s insanely lively and clear. But that clarity can get a bit displeasure-able at times. There’s peaks in around 4k and 7-9k that I can only describe as party poopers. They almost ruined the headphones for me! They made the vocals sound shrill and harsh as well as the cymbals and high-hats. Listening to Fetty Wap’s Trap Queen without eq ,the cymbals/high-hats are ear piercing and make for a very very bad experience. On Eminem’s Must be the Ganja, it’s torture. Everything sounds sibilant to a certain degree. But I was persistent, after weeks of trial and error I finally came up with a eq setting for me, which killed all the sibilance. Now this headphone for me had become worth $300 and even more. Everything sounded smoother.


    Soundstage/separation/imaging: wow, coming from super low-fi gear this was amazing to me. The attack and decay, the transience, the flow of everything was spectacular! The clear identity of each instrument and their ability to stand out individually without seeming to be mashed into a crowd was something I hadn’t experienced before until I heard the Hifiman he-400i. While the soundstage isn’t HUGEEE it has its charm for me. The soundstage over all seems to expand more on some songs than others. Vocal layering is also very nice as I had stated above in my first impressions.

    Amping: This needs and I mean NEEDS a warm sounding amp to sound like what people praise these so much for! I had to learn that the hard way. I didn’t have the budget at the time to get a rig for it so I was stuck with an Objective2 double amping out of my phone or laptop and using the onboard crappy dacs they come with.

    So if you’re thinking of getting these for portable use with a phone, like I was, you can say bye-bye to that. (unless of course you have a warm sounding amp/dac in your phone e.g the nexus 6p?).


    Conclusion: Over all I wanted to experience what good audio sounded like and hifiman he-400i gave me a bit more to bite than I could chew. It’s overwhelming treble extension is definitely something I could live without! It’s sibilance and harsh/shrill attitude is something that ended up making me decide that this wasn’t really the right headphone for me.


    Please do let me know what you think of my review (as this is my first), where I messed up and where I can improve on in the future.
     
  2. Ryanr1987

    Ryanr1987 Facebook Friend

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    In terms of improving I don't think you can. A review is a personal thing so it will reflect how you think and judge things. If you want to review gear as a hobby then I would just get experience under your belt. The "burn in" you experienced was most likely you adjusting to the sound but I agree with the wimpy bass. Most planars have great extension but piss poor impact.
     
  3. Pyruvate

    Pyruvate Friend

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    Nice write up, though it took me a bit to register what "luuks, cumphurt, and sunddd" meant. :confused:

    I began the hobby with the original HE400, and boy was that a great headphone, but not without its own share of faults. I really do wish HFM would release an improved version of it and not dabble with the likes of 400i/400S (those didn't impress me as much unfortunately). Don't want to go too off topic, but the HE400 truly had balls and that gave it character. That and the HE6/500 were truly legendary.

    Anyway, continue listening and writing! Best of luck on your hifi journey.

    LCD2 had both :punk:
     
  4. LauriCular

    LauriCular Acquaintance

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    Nars Revyou!

    I was lucky enough to get a HE-400 when they were available new; they still put a smile on my face. I've seen the pictures of dead HE-400s (that's a plural s - stupid naming schemes) so I sure am careful with them. Maybe they'll be like classic cars of the future. Fussy, temperamental and gorgeous.
     
  5. Vanheim

    Vanheim Acquaintance

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    Thanks for the compliments everybody. I worded the sections like that so it would be a bit confusing and comical. I have jumped on a B-stock cherry Omni as an upgrade from these. I think I'll like them much much more that the hifimans, but time will tell the truth...

    If anyone wants to buy a hifiman he 400i for under $300, hit me up ;) probably no one...
     
  6. Pyruvate

    Pyruvate Friend

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    You cannot go wrong with T50rp mods (well maybe stay away from the alpha dog/prime); but generally speaking they are sublime. I haven't personally heard the omni, but I've heard nothing but wonderful things. In the past, I've had both the mad dog and mad dog pro, and they were steals for what I got them for. Killer closed headphones! I'm sure you'll be enamored with your pair when it comes.
     
  7. Vanheim

    Vanheim Acquaintance

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    I wanted a smooth sounding mid centric headphones with good bass, great timbre and big soundstage. The omni was the only one that provided that while being isolating, having good build quality, looking fabulous and being backed up by Zach's amazing customer service. So I don't think any other headphone currently on the market can satisfy my wants as perfectly as the omni should.
     
  8. MID

    MID New

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    the one I had sounded like it was faulty. where's the beef?
     
  9. Vanheim

    Vanheim Acquaintance

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    Well, for those who aren't used to bass light headphones it can sound like open heqdp are faulty because of the lack of bass. But if you're talking about hifiman, I wouldn't be surprised if they were broken :)
     

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