Hifiman HE-6SE

Hmm, I kinda do want an amp that runs hot to help keep my feet warm in my home office... (it gets cold up here in maple syrup land)

 

which part of maple syrup land? It was 3 this morning in vermont....

 

-20 celcius in Montreal today

 

It's actually strangely warm today as the weather is just below freezing (December heatwave, wtf?). We were around -25 with the windchill a couple days ago which is more the norm. Maybe a couple days of -40 by the time we get to mid January.

 

So, we think the jot2 can power the he6se?

how would it compare to the lyr or the mjolnir?

and is multibit worth it for a one box solution?

 

1. We already established that it can.
2. You should know by now that small tube amps are going to underpower the HE-6.
3. That depends on your DAC preference.

You've reached a point where trying some of this gear is the answer to all your questions.

 

I agree with your sentiment here 100%. You have to dip your toe in, and reading impressions is no substitute for forming your own. That said, with respect to item 2, I don't see any reason why Lyr 3 and Mjolnir couldn't power the HE-6 SE. Lyr 3 is rated at 4 W per channel into 50 Ω, the same as Jot 2. It's a powerful hybrid. And Mjolnir has a reputation for kicking harder than any other amp Schiit has made. It's rated at 5 Wpc into 50 Ω, so 25% more headroom than either Jot 2 or Lyr 3. I think there is a distinction between amp requirements for HE-6 (old school) and the HE-6 SE re-release. For HE-6, it seems like power amps are still the standard, and I don't think Jot 2 is powerful enough to change that. But for the HE-6 SE, it's probably a matter of taste between Lyr 3, Mjolnir, and Jot 2. Cool that Jot 2 offers so much for so little, and nice to see the switchable pre-outs.

 

I have a Lyr3 w/multibit (and currently a LISST "tube"). It's fine with most headphones, and it gets "loud" enough with the HE-6 but doesn't satisfy me. Then again, I'm a nutjob with monoblocks for his HE-6 so pay no attention to the man behind the curtain because I threw out common sense years ago for the HE-6.

 

It is funny you mention the JLH amp, as I too feel it does a fantastic job on the 6se, inefficient planars and 300 ohm dynamics. Sure when used as a headamp, you are likely only getting a few watts into the 6se, but it is all Class A goodness! I actually sold mine to go in another direction, regretted it, and picked up another on 11:11 from AE for $180 shipped from China. And you know what, the new unit is dead silent! My first one had a slight buzz in one channel at higher volumes. I highly recommend a preamp or DAC with volume control to make the JLH much more versatile as a headphone amp, as the gain is high. Unit variance and the DIY nature of the amp does make purchasing one a gamble, but well worth it if you get a good one!

 

And there is no correlation to some other stat?

it’s interesting to me that ohms law doesn’t provide concrete guidance for these headphones.

I am trying to wrap my brain around that. The sp200 does ok with them. I am trying other things just to see if power is really the issue.

the idsd micro distorts in the bass at high volume.

the dx3 is clearly underpowered and can’t bring the volume.

it just seems odd. I am going to try giving them up to 16W into 50 ohms. See what happens.

 

Well, fun update.

I got the a90/d90 and speaker amp in to try with the he6se.

The he6se right driver died while a/b testing topping against the speaker amp. I only got about 20 minutes of listening on the speaker amp. (It died while connected to the a90).

I was surprised about how much of a difference it made. I don't know if it was at "sold me it's worth it" level, but it really was far cleaner, more dynamic sound coming out of these things. I wouldn't call it night and day, but definitely a noticeable improvement across the board.

On the a90/d90 side: It is very clean. But not worth the price. Nothing about it said "I am worth $1200" to me. They are going back.

Now that the he6se are dead, everything is going back. And I am moving on to the next leg of this journey.

I expect that to be focal or ZMF. Will start a thread around that after I read everything I can on here about them.

Merry Christmas everyone!

 

HE6se V2 are $699 right now: https://www.adorama.com/hmhe6sev2.h...x0Mo36DUkEyizSZQSvVU40&utm_source=rflaid62905

Has anyone tried then with the Emotiva BasX A-100?

 

I have these though my headband is different... were there multiple versions of the HE-6SE? I bought mine from Adorama a month ago. Both of my amps seem to power this headphone fine from what I can tell through the balanced output and they both send 4-4.5W to it.

 

I just received my HE6SE V2 from Adorama, and did a couple mod on it to suit my taste. However, I just found out there's 1 dB mismatch on my unit. I measured the DC resistance on the 3.5mm sockets' pins to eliminate (if any) cable mismatch. The left driver is 57.3 ohms, and the right driver is 56.4 ohms. Then I used my miniDSP EARS as a FPC by removing the silicon to measure the FR mismatch. I checked the voltage on the driver to make sure they are matched, and I got the plot below. The left side is 1 dB quieter than the right side.

The mods I did are adding 2 mm wool felt on the pad side, adding sticky foam in the cup to reduce 10 kHz reflection, and removing the mesh on the grills (which happens by accident, it just fell off when I took the grill on and off a few times) I'm pretty sure none of them would cause 1 dB mismatch across the whole spectrum.

Are your HE6SE matches better than 1dB? I remember Hifiman used to be great at driver matching, but this mismatch might be the tax I pay for the $699 price drop. I'm thinking about returning it or exchanging it, but I'm not sure if I could do so with the mesh fell off. I actually really like its sound, because it's the only Hifiman headphones I heard that doesn't sound like plastic. The headband doesn't feel like torture on my wide head, and the resolution and texture are also great as a planar headphone. If I fail to return or exchange it, I willprobably pad a resistor on the right driver to attenuate it 1 dB.

Edit: The previous image is using the EARS as FPC without any compensation, so the FR looks like crap. Here's the before and after right driver only FR with SBAF V3.2 compensation. It's fairly flat besides the 2 kHz dip. The bass tilt and 10 kHz peak was overly engaging for my taste, and I had to use it with my less engaging gears. With the mod, it's less fatiguing for me. I dialed down the right side volume by 1dB in software, and I really love its sound now. I've tried a few other pads, but the stock pads measure the most neutral.

 

I just swapped the pads and used the EARS as FPC to measure again. The mismatch persists. When I swapped the channel, I also swapped the L and R 3.5 mm plugs to eliminate mismatch in the cable and the source.

The 1 dB mismatch is roughly 5% and it seems fairly broadband, so it's probably more than the impedance or pad mismatch. Perhaps it comes from magnet or alignment or some other sources. In the worst case I can't return or exchange, I'm still glad that it should be fixable with an L pad circuit.

 

Just played with my HE6SE a little more tonight, and I think the phase reversal might contribute to the oddity in some vocal pieces. Many of the Hifiman and other brands headphones are phase reversed, at least the HE400i and HE560 I owned are so. Initially I was playing with EQ trying to fix the 2 kHz dip. Then I saw the phase reversal in Arta and tried to reverse it in software. I can't hear any difference in instruments, but I think I hear some difference in vocal. I'm not sure it's late night placebo or something, but I did feel the "sss" and other annoying bits in the vocal are subtly less annoying now with corrected phase. As a result, the vocal feels more polite or has a slightly more natural timbre. I think it does more improvement than filling up the 2 kHz hole with software EQ (which also does evil), at least for the night owl me tonight.

For those of you that want to try it out, it's pretty easy and lossless to do it in software. I think most of the players have plugins to do this. I used Equalizer APO to multiply each channel with -1 and played my music without WASAPI or ASIO for quick comparison. If I had to do an L-pad mod on my HE6, I would probably just swap the wire leads inside. Also with the stock 4 pin XLR connector, it's very easy to wire up an adapter for this job.