Synopsis of HiFiMan HE1000 Headphone Impressions from CS

I agree and realise people have different priorities and preferences.

Pads and mods seem to make a difference to how I hear the attack/leading edge. It's similar in effect to the HE-6s. That's one of the reasons why I don't use the Focus pads. I didn't like the Audeze leather pads because of reflections, but some things were moving in the right direction for me, so I am waiting to take delivery of velours. Nothing new here in regards to leather/pleather pads for me.

In short, why the attack/leading edge/transient response are important to me:
- it makes music engaging. It's that simple. Softer attacks = more boring.
- I don't think real instruments sound *that* nice. +/- to realism.

If I can "fix" that, these would likely be a keeper headphones.

 

Just got these in and have been messing with them for a couple hours.

+100 to how important it is to have gear that synergizes. This doesn't mean expensive, I tried some expensive stuff that sounded terrible. Mousai + Bakoon felt like the sound was one of those wet noodles feebly flailing against my ears. Fairly lifeless and a pretty terrible listen. A couple other desktop setups I tried fell short as well, they didn't sound as good as what I heard at AXPONA so I was either missing the mark or my unit sucked.

I finally threw a wonky digital audio player at it (Luxury and Precision LP5) and thought "Aha", this is it. Haven't spent enough time to give detailed impressions yet, but promising.

 

Very quick listen from Wyrd -> Gungnir -> Rag

Very effortless sound. Almost Stax-like, but with body.

Very smooth sounding and natural.... yet guite highly detailed despite smoothness.

It id not as bass-heavy as what I heard from CES, and not as lean as I heard from Canjam. It is more like between, and it's good thing.

No fatigue or any treble troubles... at least to my ears for now.

I found HE-1000 is very sensitive to grill area. Merely positioning my palms close to the grills change the sound significantly. I think there are some modding potentials on the shape of the grill...

 

Very sensitive is an understatement. I think it's due to the much thinner diaphragm substrate, so it reacts to reflection in a significant way, and is more permeable for outside sound.

In fact I bet these HE-1000s will be quite responsive to a lot of subtle mods, on both sides of the driver.

I have no idea how these grills can come off though, very hesitant to try

Layer separation with complex passages in music is effortless with these (noticeably better than HE560). Very agile drivers.

Treble's still splashy with Amy Winehouse etc. Will let it play for a few more days before I start thinking about maybe trying some things.

 

Calaf:

got mine yesterday evening. I have spent a few hours listening to the HE-1000 fresh off the boat. I have a fairly aggressive sounding rig at home (Oppo BDP105 to Teac AI2000 speaker amp to Hifiman speaker adapter) that suits my HE500 (and LS-50) very well. Next week I'll try them on the more refined Meier Concerto/DACcord stack I have at work.

I started with two shiny disks: a Oue Reference Recordings HDCD of Rachmaninoff orchestral works, and the recent Savall SACD of Vivaldi/Bach Magnificat. I heard much of what Sorrodje and negura had reported early on. Impressive extension and detail at both ends but no impact. Zero. Boring.
Then I started jumping around my flac library. At the second or third track, I understood what purrin meant by splashy treble. That is the perfect adjective to describe it. Another may be green, hoping the splashiness will go away after a couple of weeks of playing.

I also noticed that with a small increase in volume (say from 75 to 80 on the Oppo) I could get the HE-1000 to rock on the right tracks, but then the treble would overwhelm everything else. After 30' of splashiness my ears were hurting, I was rather nonplussed, and ready to put the HE1000 down and let them burn-in for a few days.

Then I remembered about purrin toilet paper trick. That helped. A lot.

With treble tamed, mids were back, and with it the emotional impact. I spent the next three hours having a great time with the HE-1000/TP. At 1AM I reluctantly put them down, and left them to burn in with a healthy dose on Black Eyed Peas. Hopefully the TP won't be needed for long.

• 
  I am at about 40 hours of burn-in/play time so I'll throw there a couple of thoughts in the "stream of consciousness" spirit
  • low volume listening (let's say <60 dB spl) is incredibly satisfying. Listening to some Bartok nocturnal music, or a quiet passage in a Dire Straits track, while I have turned the volume down to give my eardrums a break, everything is still there: the resonance of a plucked string, the punch of a drum kit, and the (still) slightly splashy cymbals decay. Most important for me, the emotions are there: I don't need to pump up the volume to stay "in the music". This headphone may be a great tool to preserve your hearing!
    
  • conversely I am not entirely happy how the HE1K behaves at high volumes. I can't put my finger on what is wrong, but while increasing the volume, I hear e.g. the cymbals grow in size, while getting splashier and splashier. I wonder if there isn't a resonance in the metal grids protecting the drivers...
  • imaging is very precise and stable. I listen to a lot of baroque vocal music and I don't believe I have ever heard so clearly the individual sections (or singers!) in a big choir, not even in a live concert.
  • soundstage is weird (bur keep in mind that I am using my KEF LS50 as a comparison): left to right is very wide, but in good orchestral recordings (e.g. Beethoven 5&7, ORR/Gardiner live at Carnegie Hall) depth is transformed in height, so a flute would be slightly above the violins, almost like if you were magically hovering a few meters above the conductor and look down on the orchestra.
  Starting tomorrow I'll use mainly my office Meier stack to drive the HE1K. I am curious to see the effect of Meier crossfeed and active ground on the HE1K

one more data point about the slowness of attack:
I am now driving the HE1K using a Meier DACcord+Concerto stack. This is definitely a more laid back rig than my home rig (OPPO BDP-105+TeacAI2000 speaker amp) and obviously a less powerful one. Finally I do hear what Sorrodje and Negura have been talking about: for example 20 seconds into RATM "Take the Power back" (one of my favourite bass tracks) when Tim Commerford starts plucking his bass guitar, with the Beyer T1 I hear sharp, percussive plucks with a nice decay. With the HE1K I hear much better the structure of the plucks, the differences among them, but the attack is slower. If I crank up the volume a lot more than I would like to, I hear both the details and the attack. Looking at my notes from a couple of days ago on my home rig all I can find for this track is "wow!", and I remember looking for attack problems after reading the early posts on this thread. One likely explanation is that the HE1K are more sensitive to the speed of the rig driving them than the T1s are.

Speaking of RATM (and of burn-in), I am listening again to "Bombtrack" which was one the first tracks where I heard the splashy cymbals. Unfortunately after 40 hours of playing the splashiness is still there, so the 1-ply purr1n mod is staying. BTW the cymbals in this record are very prominent (too much so I would say) with the T1 as well, but not splashy.

 

My concise review: ~40 hours in, chain: Yggdrasil -> Uber 7 (Highly modded S7) / Rag...

This is a new class of headphone:
HD800 / SR009 class detail.
HD800 class imaging.
HE-6 / Abyss class impact / slam.
Neutral, extreem response (effortless sub-bass, uncompressed / airy highs).

While more efficient than some ortho's (HE-6, etc.), it needs at least a couple of watts to present a tightly focused image, tight bass, and controlled highs. If under amped, it'll still sound pretty good, but will fall short of its potential - most notably in these areas. HE-1000 & HE800 are complementary, with slight variance in tonality, presentation, imaging.

Listening to HE-1000 with Yggdrasil in my chain - I can't help but consider how fortunate we are to partake in this hobby is this day & age. Well done Fang and crew!

 

Finally got a chance to listen to them after a whole weekend of burning in. Man that bass is something sweet. So gooey and visceral, it's delicious.

I mean, it's just a really solid sound. I could reiterate what a lot of earlier beta testers have said about its great balance, deadly bass, agile and transparent mids, very detailed but slightly problematic treble, very big but hard-to-describe soundstage, effortless imaging/layering, and top tier plankton extraction. But I think such a headphone deserves more listening and comparison time, as well as mental burn-in.


There's also the thought of modification. That's on the slow cooker too.


Edit: could someone braver than I figure out how to detach the grills?

 

For me, overall, it's the best I've ever heard. The HD800 is a more 'analytical' listen (detail forward), but even with low hours on the HE-1000 - it's a bit more musical and involving. My time with electrostatics has been limited to meets, but it's been enough to know their 'sound' is not for me. The Abyss has tons of slam, but falls short of the HD800 / HE-1000 imaging.

 

The HE1000s are part of my daily rotation with the other 2 headphones. Because I want to give these as much time as possible, I mostly start the day or listening session off with the HE1000s.

This is how it goes:
- classical - want to change to HD800s
- acoustic - want to change to HD800 or HE-6 (the latter if I want moar bass heft that some songs benefit)
- relaxed vocal music - want to keep listening to HE1000s (Cohen, Katie Melua, Angus/Julia Stone)
- metal - want to change to HE-6
- EDM - want change to HE-6

The HE1K are as stock as they can be right now. Still waiting for the pads.

 

hey guys! I recently posted an in-depth review on the HE-1000 on head-fi (link here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/767883/official-hifiman-he1000-impressions-thread/105#post_11633299). please note personal subjective impressions on the beta unit, so ymmv! also note I don't have as extensive experience with the $2k+ exotic headphones as some of the senior members here.

I am a huge advocate for including comparative measurements with reviews, but I've been running into a lot of issues getting an accurate FR reading on the HE-1k. anyone here have any advice for me or can refer me to any measurements already done on the HE-1k just so I look at the measurement set-up? I feel like there is quite a large discrepancy from headphone positioning and I am also afraid that my amplifier may not be sufficient for the HE-1k.

My measurement chain: Dell XPS m1530 with Windows 7 > ARTA Generates Sine Sweeps > Steinberg UR-22 USB Interface with Yamaha ASIO > Line Out > Oppo HA-2 Amplifier > headphones placed upon my own head (left ear being measured) > Pannasonic WM61-A Microphone > Steinberg UR-22 > Laptop > ARTA analysis

apologies if this is posted in the incorrect section. not as familiar with changstar's posting rules & forum breakdowns. thank you all & would appreciate any assistance!

ps: I didn't realize that there was a beta tester topic on the HE-1k already on changstar, so didn't get a chance to look at it prior to penning my review. looking forward to skimming through this thread when I have free time to see how closely all of your impressions match mine.
edit: skimmed through the impressions here briefly. i didn't find some of the criticisms brought up by some members here from my personal listening impressions, but I will try to test specifically for some of the points brought up that I missed when I get a chance to listen to the he-1ks again tonight.

cheers!

 

Same here - not perceived softness to the attack. The opening snare of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Tin Pan Alley startles me everytime Rag / Super 7.