Hifi man HE500 Thread

I had a similar experience with Dekoni T50RP velours on HE500. They cured upper mids shout but at the cost of woolier bass. I eventually went back to leather...

Ive tried a bunch of pads with HE500, Ill compile my graphs later and share. I found a lot of leather pads unfortunately added some bass bloom, but I found that shallower pads mitigated this issue. Right now I am enjoying T60RP pads as they are shallow enough to prevent too much bass bloom and not so shallow so as to let ears touch the cheese grater drivers.

Subjectively, HE500 (with leather pads) is on par with Audeze LCD2C 2022 technically and a wash tonally. HE500 mids sound a little more rich / dense and the highs arent so sharp. However, HE500 upper mids - treble are a bit forward, almost Grado-esque, lively front row sound, personally preferable to LCD2C. Neither are super resolving particularly in the highs. LCDX 2022 crushed them both in detail retrieval but lower bass was a bit too weak. Im hoping HE6se is best of both worlds... Incoming I have HE6se and Jot2 - will compare against HE500.

Spoiler: EARS mehsure

 

Dropping 500 drivers into 4XX shells.

The 400i enclosure + headband were a little too small and kept me from listening to HE500 for very long.

I found some pads that I like with HE6se v2 and I think theyll work well with 500 too. Update later after I try them.

Forgot to mention earlier, but my 500 is a 4-screw version. Ive not seen evidence yet describing any audible difference between 4 vs 6-screw. I dont think this info is widely known like with OG HE6.

 

One person from HF mentioned how one side of their HE500's sported a 4-screw plate for one earcup and a 6-screw plate for the other: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hif...-experience-in-listening.551345/post-16409870

 

The New Fanastia sheepskin pads linked to earlier I suspect will make HE500 too dark and so is a better match for HE6se v2.

HE6se is not as good as HE500 tonally. I went through a bunch of pads to try and make HE6se non-fatiguing.

The problem with HE6se is I suspect CSD related. A large resonance in the 4-5kHz area of HE6se creates a bit of glare and greyness in that region. It's mostly mitigated with padrolling. Ive not talked about it much in the HE6se thread as I need more time comparing before claiming such things but Ill say it in this HE500 elitest thread. HE6se should be able to compensate with otherwise higher levels of resolution and cleaner bass and I believe it does but still need to a/b compare with notes to confirm and describe in detail.

I've not compared CSD apples to apples by using same pads, but you get the idea of the difference between HE6se v2 and HE500 in my post here in HE6se thread.

EARS and averaged:

Spoiler: HE500 Dekoni hybrid

Spoiler: HE500 Dekoni hybrid VS HE6se New Fantasia sheepskin

 

Linking my comparison between HE500 and HD650 here. I feel 500 (padrolled) is an upgrade over 650. And over time Ive come to appreciate that 500 has a more holographic soundstage (albeit narrow) that wraps around the head a little neater. 650’s sound source is more localizable in comparison and I think that might be because smaller drivers.

edit: I think 650 has what Ive read is called a 3-blob effect. Ive always described soundstage in terms of width, depth, and height. And sometimes overlapping with frequency response, imaging etc. Never used the blob term before.

 

I might need to dig the 500 out of the closet to revisit. I probably need to replace the HFM pads. Just want to confirm that the preferred are Dekoni hybrids?

 

My preferred are Dekoni hybrids. Go back to page 5 and see @cskippy 's review of a bunch of pads. Tonight Ill add review of the pads I tried. The Dekoni hybrids do no favors for the 2kHz dip but it doesn't bother me and Id rather less than more. I've more pads in collection I could try but Im happy with the Dekoni hybrids (not a great endorsement).

 

I wrote impressions for all pads with purchase links within the Head-Fi thread. The posts are scattered through out, sorry Im not going to search and transpose because most of the pads were not good anyway. From memory ones that stood out subjectively were ATH velour (Dekoni or Geekria) and neoakgl. Search HF HE500 thread for more notes.

The graphs attached were all done on EARS. Some of the graphs I chose to show the variance in measures rather than average. A few more incoming... youre only allowed to attach ten files per post.

 

- Some of these graphs are comparisons and contain two different pads (VS / versus title).
- "HE500 dekoni fs VS deknoi athv" is on flat-plate coupler so not comparable to the rest of measurements. I probably do have those pads on EARS as well but just didnt take a pic. Im just scrolling through my folder of REW graph images and sharing the ones with HE500 in the title... The rest of the graphs are EARS.
- From this group I felt all these pads had merit. Some of the differences not captured on frequency response graphs include: comfort, bass bloom / pressurization, bass dynamics and impact (bass characteristics seemingly related to pad porosity and depth).