Hifiman HE-6SE

Discussion in 'Headphones' started by purr1n, Aug 22, 2018.

  1. rrwwss52

    rrwwss52 New

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    4 wpc single ended on the Lyr. The headphones are still breaking in (100 hours or so) Have access for using speaker connections to a balanced line via my Anthem MRX AVR as well. I like them.
     
  2. BillOhio

    BillOhio Friend

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  3. rrwwss52

    rrwwss52 New

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  4. ufospls2

    ufospls2 Friend

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    Hey Guys,

    I’m back on the Susvara train, and having owned the HE6se for a bit I thought I would write up a bit of a comparison. The Susvara (originally Edition 6) is sort of a successor to the original HE6 I suppose, so its natural to compare them. Both the Susvara and HE6se are too expensive at their MSRP, but the Susvara has come down in price a lot if you look around, and is doable on the used market for under $4000USD. The HE6se can be had for about $1300USD on the used market as well, which I think is a pretty good price for the sound quality you get. Is it fair to compare a $6000USD headphone to a $1800USD headphone? Perhaps not, but I think with their similarities and heritage, its worth looking at.

    The set up used for listening is an iFi Micro iDSD BL into a Marantz receiver. Not ideal, but its surprisingly decent sounding :)

    Bass: The Susvara has a tiny bit more in terms of quantity of bass, but there isn’t much in it. Pretty comparable levels. The Susvara has better sub bass. The HE6se sounds thicker in the bass, and its not as clean and precise as the Susvara. The HE6se bass seems more tactile however, and makes a strong argument for the best bass I have heard for the price.

    Mids: I think the Susvara and HE6se are pretty similar in terms of their mids. They aren’t thick and warm like an Audeze LCD2 for example. They aren’t cold and clinical, and lacking presence. I’m not really sure how to describe it, but on the Susvara, I might call the mids…sweet? I definitely prefer the mids on the Susvara to the HE6se.

    Treble: For my personal preferences, I prefer the Susvaras treble. It is less elevated than the HE6se, and less piercing. It just seems smoother all around. I can see someone preferring the HE6se if they like a lot of treble however. Remember, this is using both headphones unmodded. I don’t think it would be fair to compare them modded.

    Ok. I’ve tried to compare the FR without taking the other “stuff” into the equation. This is because, well..the Susvara smokes the HE6se in terms of dynamics, detail retrieval, soundstage. The Susvara has far superior dynamics, both micro and macro. Detail retrieval with the Susvara is amazing, on par with the best I have heard, perhaps even the best. The HE6se has a smaller soundstage in every way, less depth, less width, less height. They are a smaller sounding headphone. The Susvara has great depth in terms of soundstage.

    Comfort is much better on the Susvara than the HE6se. Less weight, and they just feel better on my head. The HE6se are comfier than Audeze headphones however.

    The Susvara is the most natural sounding headphone I have heard. It just sounds right. It is a “just one more song” headphone for me. Both are great headphones, but the Susvara, for my preferences, totally beats the HE6se. However, it comes with a heavy price, even used. If you are looking for a TOTL headphone and considering the Utopia etc…I would definitely recommend giving the Susvara a listen as well. The HE6se however, is the best headphone I have heard for the money, and I would strongly recommend checking it out at $1300USD if you are looking for headphones in that price range.
     
    Last edited: Oct 27, 2018
  5. AstralStorm

    AstralStorm Friend

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    Ok. These arrived. Short impressions:
    1) They're actually noticeably better than stock HE-6. Mostly the new Sundara pads are responsible for this but the much less resonant cups help.
    2) They do keep the life-sucking grille. Instaremove. It's also still mounted as badly as in original HE-6 so it rings like a bell. That is probably what ufospls2 heard as bad detailing and dynamics since it is a resonance in HF.
    Sundara and Susvara have a valid and acceptable grille, not a clingy one.
    3) Hifiman tossed the front foam filter quarter-circle. Hmm.
    4) Disable high gain on Jotunheim or it clips. Schiit didn't lie about 3W@50Ohm power handling but they forgot to mention that tripling the voltage gain drops current by three - you end up with 1A max at these 50 Ohm which is not enough. Low gain is more than fine and super excellent. Knob at around 3/4 though and that's before equalizer attenuation. HE-6 never were very sensitive.
    When Jot current clips, the sound is slow and... dirty-ish? Highly not recommended.

    Lynx headphone and monitor outputs don't clip just like they didn't with HE-6 itself. (though monitor out is way quiet and phone barely sufficient)

    5) Clamping force is much higher but some massaging of the springs reduces it to decent levels. Headband is much improved.
    6) The headphone is noticeably lighter than HE-6 but not light at all yet.
    7) Cable is an interesting job, separate wire pairs sheathed in a textured PU sheath. The strain reliefs are obviously insufficient as the cable is not stiff at all. It is likely that it will fail at one of the plugs.
    8) I did receive the adapter box. Will test it on actual speaker amplifiers later.

    Mods needed:
    0) REPLACE THE GRILLE IT MAKES IT SOUND HALF PRICE. Just like HE-6.
    1) Fuzzor v2. Use silicone foam instead of felt liner for maximum fuzziness. Even more needed since the damping foam is gone.

    Mods maybe needed but not likely:
    - Filling the cups inside with damping material. They sound much less resonant.
    - New version of super low acoustic impedance pads.

    Mods not needed:
    - Jergpads. The Sundara pads are actually ever so slightly better.
    - Audeze Vegans. Ditto.
    - My own custom pads fail due to increased clamping force. The silicone foam gets squished and does not hold right super low acoustic impedance.

    Modding notes:
    1) You do not have to dismantle the headphone to remove the grille. Use a flat screwdriver to remove the holding ring. Carefully.
    2) Pads are replaced now by rotating the holder things into cutouts. No need to use a lot of force anymore.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2018
  6. dubharmonic

    dubharmonic Friend

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    @AstralStorm I'm terrified of damaging these in an attempt to get the grills off, but the scratchy treble is awful, especially compared to the HEK. Did you take any pictures of your mod process, or do you know where I might be able to find a guide? Or am I just completely overreacting? :)
     
  7. Negura

    Negura Friend

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    Removing the grill opens the sound (at least on OG HE-6). Scatchy treble is a sign of underdriven HE-6 and modding won't help very much at this point, unless you go down the route of fuzzor stuff which I don't recommend. I heard the Mcintosh with Abyss and LCD-4 and it couldn't drive either properly imo, out of headphones out. HE-6 no chance. Are you still using the adapter box on speaker out?

    When properly driven HE-6s don't need a lot of modding to sound great. I like them even stock with the old velour pads. Modding surely helps to get them to the next level, but they should sound good stock.

    I don't know if Fang messed anything up on this release though.
     
    Last edited: Nov 4, 2018
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Removing grills might make scratchy treble worse without other mods.
     
  9. rrwwss52

    rrwwss52 New

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    I traded back the Lyr3 for a Mjolnir2. I believe it does a better job driving the HE-6se having balanced capability. Thank you for your comments.
     
  10. dubharmonic

    dubharmonic Friend

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    I had a head cold, so couldn’t do any critical listening for a while, thanks to the congestion.

    @Negura I’m still using the HE adapter and the headphone jack, and since spending more time with the HE-6 I’m sure I could differentiate the connections in a blind test. The headphone jack results in harsher upper mids most notably. A Norne Audio adapter is on the way, so I’ll soon be able to bypass the HE adapter.

    It’s taking my brain much longer than usual (several hours) to get used to the HE-6 when changing headphones. Even going from the HE-1000 to the HE-6 is a big change in presentation. It’s clear that they’re related, but the HE-1000 is delicate, soft and nuanced while the HE-6 does everything with authority. This is why I perceived the HE-6 as scratchy after switching.
     
  11. AstralStorm

    AstralStorm Friend

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    I've experimented some more.

    1) Added nylon stocking back cover to replace the grille. No sound changes compared with open. Good. Put nylon in delicately while mounting the ring, then tension it carefully by pulling it out. After tensioning, cut out remaining nylon with scissors.

    2) Stuffed a 1cm strip of 1mm thick cotton felt between Susvara pad nylon and plastic. Improved high frequency resonances, probably due to similar effect to Jergpad cutouts or Fuzzor. Trivial to remove if needed, relatively easy to put in. Use a sharp knife. Felt does not have to be adhesive.

    Result: Removes residual 12k frame mount resonances, cleans up and speeds up midbass by cutting the resonance. Improves soundstage a bit.

    3) Added exactly 3 strips each of StP Biplast 5 - 5mm butyl soft open cell memory adhesive foam, similar to Comply Wraps but not silicone and stretchy instead of tearing. Inspired by Fuzzor and what Hifiman did in original HE-6.

    3 strips only: one in the middle, a bar of space, then 2 on 2/3rd magnets. Slightly tensioned so it's a bit thinner goes to about 3 mm and narrows down. Use a knife, cutout as 2mm wide which goes to 1.5 mm when tensioned.

    The strips extend only over magnet and not mounting glue. Adding more foam has no beneficial effect since this is meant to dampen backwave and not disperse like Audeze design. The amount of foam is calculated based on HE-6 original foam damper quarter circle and is about same volume, but better foam and placement.

    Result: Removes 6-8k resonance blip - glassy quality - and minimal bass improvement on top. Improves subbass rolloff. Removal of the blip improves soundstaging a lot! Does not affect general balance otherwise.

    I suppose original Fuzzor was not effective enough to remove the backwave - probably not enough material. In total, the mod puts the HE-6se, as usual with such mods, on another level. Soundstaging is vastly improved and sound is more powerful and faster to boot. Microdetailing in highs that was obscured by resonances is now revealed.
    All of these mods are easily removable, though a slight residue of glue may remain from the foam.

    I'm a bit lazy to remove the pads again to just take pictures, but I'll take a few after it's been put together once I get daylight in a few hours.

    I got a whole sampler of StP stuff so I'm not afraid to use it. ;) They have absorption coefficients listed vs frequency and sometimes vs temperature too, though not to highest frequencies so I had to measure a bit myself. Here's their catalog: https://standartplast.com/catalog/gold-line/
    This is mostly car audio damping which has to be super effective at low frequencies, mechanically and thermally strong and cheap enough due to large areas. For headphone use, Biplast is the best followed by AeroFlex (PET foam, medium semi-closed cell) and Crystal (PET foam, big open cell), then by Splen. (exactly same as Creatology foam - small closed cell.)
    Unless you want to just affect bass, in which case you use Bomb Aero or NoiseBlock in multiple layers - both are bitumen dampers, differ in thickness and in cover being aluminum foil vs fabric.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2018
  12. AstralStorm

    AstralStorm Friend

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    There is a high likelihood that HEK was tweaked to even out the treble and it definitely features a different grille. This is the main part that the HE-6 mods attack, fixing up cheaping out Hifiman did on the backwave absorption, grille and pad mount. After those changes, HE-6(se) becomes nuanced while keeping the authoritative sound.

    According to our instruments (CSD and FR), HEK has an inferior driver. But somewhat less case resonance and is easier to drive.
     
    Last edited: Dec 8, 2018
  13. dubharmonic

    dubharmonic Friend

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    @AstralStorm thanks for posting about those mods! Not sure if I’ll try it, still feeling nervous. Your observations of the HE-1000 and HE-6 make sense based on what I’m hearing. Regardless of accuracy, one thing I really like about the HE-1000 is its ability to avoid being harsh or strained. Even on a Vali 2 with a bad recording it’s listenable.

    The HE adapter started smoking a while back, so that’s out of the rotation. Still waiting for a speaker adapter to ship from Norne Audio so that I can hear the HE-6 properly driven.
     
  14. AstralStorm

    AstralStorm Friend

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    So that you're less nervous, here are 2 pics of the mods that are mildly invasive. To remove the back ring I used a knife but any flat object will do.

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=16_PRuieEGXutjXBzp7TDXNAYdhZ7JGm3

    https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MNVrBha41Gf9mUoTfxPZkvRyJWjhumzQ

    (Before you say, yes, I removed the hair and slightly trimmed the foam. Violet felt because black felt was elsewhere and why not. It's not visible anyway. This was the slightly messy test run. You can use a bit of black tape to hide the ugly edge of the nylon in the back.)

    Funny thing, Thujone's old configuration uses most of the same principles. No foam which HE-6se tossed; angled pads - but used improved composite from Susvara instead of vegans/angle velour; no back foam but to fix the deficiency no back grille. The one thing he missed as did classic fuzzor is the use of material that is not effective (rug liner), while Hifiman in original HE-6 used a wrong kind of foam that resonated (PET) and also obstructed some of the vents. The bass thing is case resonance from bad case material, HE-6se does not have this issue.

    If this were the old HE-6 not se, you'd also have to unscrew the driver and also fill the case with blutack or similar rubber material and apply jergpads or get the Susvara pads.

    The above post is not at all sponsored by Carpenter Brut - 347 Midnight Demons and Bach on harpsichord and organ - BWV 593 and 1052.

    Either on unmodded Hifimans will drill your ears and on something like Susvara, HEK or even modded HD800 are lacking authority, while Audeze LCD2.5 and Paradox turn into mush. Anything midrange is completely unsalvageable, LCD 3 and X earpiercing and one note bass, modded HE500 has serious bass mush... Of the ones mentioned, HE-6 mod is top, modded HD800 puts up the best fight but loses on subbass punch/authority, followed by ZMF Eikon which has some sort of lushness/harmonics fault and then by modded HD650 which is on the slightly mushy bass side already. Then maybe HEK and Susvara come head to head both smoothing things over. Equalized RE800 funnily enough I'd place on par with HD650 mod - it only lacks some bass authority more than HD650, but detail wise can fight vs HD800 mod. And then soundstage, all the top 4 do it well, even RE800 is close. Unmodded HE-6 and LCD X are terrible while Paradox is narrowish but workable. Stax is a separate special category where they match the detailing but fall weak on bass handling.

    Most top speaker listening rooms fall apart with these in comparison... (I know only 2 mastering speaker setups that approached the level of quality of top headphones. One of the setups used ribbon speakers. It's far enough in most cases so much so that it's not funny.)

    I have no idea what they did to HEK and Susvara drivers to worsen them. Lower tension and thinner, narrower traces perhaps? Or perhaps it's the trace geometry following the one in HE-4 rather than HE-5?
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2018
  15. Prydz

    Prydz Friend

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    HE-6 with Pass Labs or FirstWatt speaker amps, is still to this day the most magical ive heard a headphone, yet. Not heard Susvara.
    Maybe I gotta go back :D
     
  16. malenak

    malenak New

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    How does HE-6 compare to the new Arya? I am finding airy sound with a lots of details.
     
  17. dumbo

    dumbo Facebook Friend

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    I have an old Sugden A21 integrated amp I bet would be nice with those.
     
  18. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    Did some pad rolling on the 6se. Ended up with Ether flow angle pads with the 1.1 flow upgrade black square. The Ori pads made the bass too muddy. Also changed out the grill with a bigger grid pattern. Very happy with the results. No more piercing highs with incredible soundstage and deep accurate bass. As a goof I played Overwatch and found them to be vastly superior to any gaming headphone/headset I've ever used. Using the Benchmark HPA4 which has plenty of power to drive them accurately.
     
  19. Jozurr

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    The first post on here says that the HPA4 does not have enough juice to drive the HE-6, so your comment on that is interesting

    https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/benchmark-hpa4.6729/
     
  20. neogeosnk

    neogeosnk Friend

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    It drove @brencho 's borrowed HE-6 easily and sounds the same as speaker taps to me. Sounds nothing like description you noted. The HPA4 did have to be sent back for some product wide sort of distortion fix, might be what initially caused the issue.
     

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