Hifiman HE-6

I made my own adapter, Canare 16 ga starquad to a neutrik female. Tinned bare wire for my Adcom twist speaker connections, a couple bux for the cable and a couple bux for the xlr. . great synergy. My SW51+/Verite manages to keep up but does not beat it.

 

Yeah, making your own seems the best route. Unfortunately, for me, I'm in an apartment where soldering would be a bit kludgy. Also, I don't really know how to solder.

 

You could try this one or put a WTB for one if you are able.

 

Great, thanks! I actually found Dyson this morning, and he's making me a connector. Appreciate the link though.

 

Hey guys. Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday.

I've been enjoying the hell out of the 6se. I'm using violectric v850 & v181. The 181 certainly gets loud enough but I want to try some power amp action.

I tried my Integra dtr 7.1 but bass became boomy and treble got sharp.

Now looking to make a power amp purchase but want to keep it under $300.

After reading 40 pages here, I thought maybe the adcom 545 ii but aesthetically I hate it lol. Any thoughts on the denon POA 5200 or 8200? I like the aesthetic better and specs seem really similar.

 

I need to retract my earlier statements about amps.
Had a problem with my DAC output, now fixed. Was getting too low an output from it, not enough to drive my amps for an HE6.
I'm using digital attenuation in the DAC for volume control, and connect the amp straight to DAC.
Side note: my 45 has a dact attenuator, but I think it sounds better with dact turned all the way up, using digital attenuation.
With the DAC fixed, my 45 amp works better. Need to listen more, may still have problems at higher volumes with complex music. But I listen to a lot of acousticy, vocally stuff, so for my tastes it might be fine.

The ACA is also much better. It has a little less gain then the 45, so need to turned up more. But I still have room to go, and it sounds fine.
Need more time on both, but after fixing my dac they seem viable, especially the ACA.
I think I said this before, but I made a little adapter to connect directly to the ACA speaker binding posts to the 4 pin xlr connector. I'm going to see if I can mount a 4 pin xlr on the back, it has a hole in the back intended for a 3 pin xlr input (for a bridged ACA setup), and I hope I can repurpose that hole.

Randy

 

Get the Adcom and dress it up with some stickers...

 

I actually found an Adcom 545 on audiogon that is damn near like new. It's on its way to me now.

 

Do you (or anyone else) have any more thoughts on how well the Saga + Aegir drives the HE-6? I have a modded 6-screw HE-6 and I'm curious.

 

@auvgeek It's fine but Vidar is better. Aegir is slightly soft and rounded with HE6 (though still leagues beyond most headamps around the price of Aegir), but smooth with nice texture in the mids. Might be fine if you're not cranking it. Vidar brings more slam, which takes more advantage of the HE6's strengths IMO. If you want a warmer tone, pad or DAC swap is a better way to go, with a meatier amp like Vidar or an old Adcom.

 

Okay, interesting. I'm currently using an old Threshold Stasis s/1500 II, a Nelson Pass design before he started Pass Labs/First Watt. Someone said it brought more slam for the HE-6 compared to the First Labs F1J (and similar) which is why I bought it.

 

Okay, stupid question:

I finally got all my DAC, amp, HE-6, cables, etc in one place after a move. Just went to connect everything up, and the labels I made for channel and polarity on the HE-6 cable fell off at some point. Rookie mistake, I guess. I have one label (R channel +), but the other 3 are missing. I run directly off the speaker taps. Don't have a multimeter or any test equipment handy at the moment.

Will I mess up the drivers or anything if I connect the headphone to the amp and just guess at the wires until I find the correct channel and polarity for each of the 3 unknown wires?

edit: got it figured out. Somehow managed to guess correctly the first time. Not sure how to delete but apologies for the stupid question.

 

Wow guys, long-time listener, first time caller.

First of all, I want to thank all your hard work, time, and material sacrifice so chumps like me can just waltz in here, read a few dozen pages, and be sure of their setup...

...but I'm not so sure. See, these HE-6se have been on my list since I started this hobby a year ago. They were always a meme and joke; especially in Reddit [On post about getting a new headphone, "why is this not an HE-6??"]. Now I have an open-box 'se' on the way and I think I am prepared, but I want second opinions.

First, I ordered Dyson's Speaker Tap Balanced 4-Pin XLR Cable for my ollllld speaker amp that has been passed down to me from dear dad. I had a more modern amp, but I was sick a few years back and vomited onto it on my desk, the stuff went through the grilles in the chassis, and it stopped working [not an interesting story...it is how it sounds]. I know some of you will be like, "send me that vomit-encrusted amp. PM me.", but I tossed it shortly after the incident. Now I have a 50w per channel at 8 ohm backup on my desk. It is a Yamaha RX-V393, which was described as the "best budget receiver for stereo and 5.1" in 2001; which wasn't even a particularly great year.

I also have a THX 789 amp, which on my Denon 7200s and Sennheiser 800s are like, literally mind-blowing and ear ringing.

So questions:

What else do I need for this to work, and work well. I think I'll prefer the speaker taps for the HE6se and that is fine. The THX 789 amp is sort or a 'minimum' for this HP and from no fault of the posters, their mods, amp-antics, and labors make it seem like the 789 will sound like utter shite next to even the most basic receiver, due to power.

Also, do I need new pads [yes]? Pads reviews are worse than cables, imo. I can't tell what terms like 'the pads makes lowly mids meet their high match' and 'bass retains thunder, but loses lightning' mean, so just tell me what pads to buy. I can afford to take internet stranger advice [for at least a few pads]. I come from HD800s land where the pads actually make your ears feel more human and not wearing them, so I do value comfort...velour would be nice.

I can make my own cables [when the material decides to come from China in a few months...], but is there any recommended cable material? I am going to just get OOC 8-core copper because, well, physics.

Thank you!

 

Hey guys,

I have an He6-6 screw that I have basically kept in storage for years now because the person I bought them from had resistors installed right next to the drivers and so every time I use them those resistors heat up and its very concerning.

Do you know how I could remove the resistors or suggest a place or person I could go to to have someone fix this for me?
here are some pictures so you can see:

https://imgur.com/a/ANplpsw

also the resistors are very poor quality and peeling and a couple little flakes got into the actual driver and I can't tell if that will damage the driver when played or not. I don't seem to notice any effect on the sound but it just plain looks concerning to me and I have no idea how to get the flakes out because they are held there by magnetic attraction.

Not sure where to post this if there is a better thread for this question let me know

 

There also appears to be a smaller resistor covered in heatshrink near the rim. Not sure if that's stock or not.

 

Wow I hadn't noticed that! Definitely not stock here's a picture of my other He-6 for comparison https://imgur.com/a/RSoYWvK

 

Paging @dBel84

 

In the stock pic it appears that there is a small resistor under the black heatshrink on the positive wire.

 

I have seen this in a few orthos - sadly a devious way to fool the multimeter that the drivers have balanced impedance - only problem is that when you run frequency vs impedance plot - this will mess things up and depending on how much and at what frequencies, the drivers could sound imbalanced.

UNLESS - it is a current limiting resistor of negligible resistance , sort of acting like a fuse to protect the driver = i suspect that this is not the case

 

Hmmm you're right, seems to be a lot smaller than the one on the other He6. Maybe that was a change they made in production though as the smaller resistor is from a 4 screw and the other is from a 6 screw. Definitely looks way more legitimately done than the huge corroded one that was tacked on.

In my experience I do not notice any imbalances when listening to this pair, the problem is that the resistors heat up a lot and are flaking off little bits of metal.

Any suggestions for how to go about getting rid of the resistors? Or any suggestions for someone reputable that I could send these to and pay to get fixed?