Hifiman HE-6SE

I'm really happy with prototype 2 of the strap. It's only 3 layers thick, so flexible like paper but strong enough for the task. I've also attached it in a different way so it can pivot independently of the headband. Attaching the strap this way greatly improves comfort over stock.



I know 3D design and printing can be intimidating. And for the coming week, I have access to my 3d printer, cheap postage and a bit of time.

So if any Friend or contributor to this thread would like a printed strap, just send me a PM with your address (worldwide). This is for one week only, or until I run out of filament. I'll try to improve the print quality a little, but keep your expectations in check.

 

I've actually become quite comfortable listening to the HE6se on the Vali 2 over the past week. It has to be done at moderate volume, otherwise the audio gets distorted. And extreme sub bass will trigger over current protection. And the He6se needs a modified headband otherwise the weight becomes distracting.

Other than that it's been very enjoyable, and a big improvement on the great HD6xx. I've been wondering what more will be revealed when I connect the infamously demanding HE6se to more powerful amps like my MJ2.

Today was the day the veil was to be lifted and clouds open as I tried the HE6se on some of the latest and greatest headphone amps.

First stop
Some TOTL DAC into
* Violectric Nimbus US 5 Pro
* Burson Audio Conductor 3X GT
* Chord Dave (single ended)

Violectric was head and shoulders the best of these. Joyous and natural.
Burson was solid, but dwarfed by the Violectric.
The Dave had great bass. Other than that, it's hard to find anything good to write about it. A downgrade from dongle - > Vali 2.

But other than the much tighter bass, there was really nothing qualitatively new or extraordinary to these HE6se experiences beyond what's coming from the Vali 2.

Second stop
Holo Audio Red - > Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE - > Holo Audio Bliss



Awesome. I couldn't rank this vs the Violectric, because a few hours had passed. But very very nice and a fraction of the price. Again, nothing qualitatively new was unleashed from the HE6se.

I'm back home now with the Vali 2, listening to the same tracks. This is great! Now I know I'm not missing out.

On the way, I thought hard about getting the Bliss. It's a maybe. But I'm happy for now.

 

An update on the HE6se strap:

With the design working well, I printed this version in carbon fibre filament for long term use. I find the strap works much better when it is angled around 30 degrees forward, as shown. Unfortunately that means the cables protrude too forward and are distracting.

The simple solution shown is the flip the cables L-R, and flip the pads 180 degrees. This leaves the cables hanging directly downward.



The end result is a very comfortable headphone, with its substantial weight much better distributed. In practice, that means hours of usability each session rather than minutes.

 

I've been using the headphones for around 6 weeks now, and they've become my favourite. I'll write up some detail on mods but first wanted to touch on the frequently raised issue of "You need a powerful amp to drive a HE6-se"

You don't need a powerful amp to drive a HE6-se V2 beautifully.

I'm really scratching my head about the headphone community. How can this claim be everywhere when it's just completely inconsistent with my hundreds of hours of careful listening. It feels like it is the single most commonly repeated claim from head-fi and Headphones.com forums.. but it just has no relationship to anything I've heard after listing to almost a dozen amps. Is this all about conformity?

"Apparently, people conform for two main reasons: because they want to fit in with the group (normative influence) and because they believe the group is better informed than they are (informational influence)."
https://simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html

Thanks to @roshambo123 and @Philimon for encouragement to discuss my experiences despite the non-conformity.


HE6-se needs external amplification for sure. It doesn't sound great out of a laptop headphone out - mostly because it is insensitive (quiet when volume is maxxed), and the bass sounds a bit lacking. There's still plenty of music that sounds great though. For general use, Hifiman suggests a 2W into 50 ohm amp. The community pretty much ignores the manufacturer and there are many suggestions to use speaker amps with dozens or hundreds of watts. Of course, 100W into a speaker (8ohm) is ~12W into a 50+ohm load, so a speaker amp is like a powerful headphone amp, not orders of magnitude more.

You don't need a powerful amp to drive a HE6-se V2 beautifully. In my experience, the Vali 2 (or 2+) drives this headphone wonderfully, with none of the problems of a laptop out. It is extraordinary value at the $400 discounted price and there is no way I would recommend a HD6xx anymore knowing what you can get for just a little more. Spending just a few more dollars and a bit of time on mods and upgrades transforms a very good headphone into a truly excellent one, and I'll post about my experiences doing that next.


Postscript: I checked Adorama and the HE6-se v2 has been discontinued by them. A banner said it was removed from my shopping cart for that reason, and the product page says "no longer available". There are open-box versions listed on the Hifiman page.

 

HE6SE v2 does not need speaker amp to sound really good but underpowering it, just because you get a good volume is not a good idea. I found that the setup Soekris 2541 ->balanced Monoprice TXH AAA 887 with the amp at high gain incredibly good.
But what took iy to the next level was running TXH AAA 887 on high gain and full volume through preamp.
2541->Phonitor 2 Black -> Monoprice THX AAA 887 is simply the best HE6SE v2 I heard. I tried Adcom and Bryston speaker amps and no complains but this one has special flavor.
Precise and smooth treble, extended and very tight bass, instrument separation and stereo image is very precise but sounds natural at the same time. The only mode is opening the grills.
There are moments when I think that micro resolution of this setup is almost as good as HEKSE with Monolith Liquid Gold X but probably not.
I am trying to finish the review of Phonitor so more impressions on this setup will be coming.

 

There have been a few other recent posts about mods, so I'll just rank the mods I did and give some explanation.

1. Best Mod: remove grills - easy, free (or very cheap) - ends a slight congestion
2. @AstralStorm 's Fuzzor mod, described in two posts on page 3 of this thread. Easy, and costs about $10 in material and postage. Described as "Removes 6-8k resonance blip - glassy quality - and minimal bass improvement on top", this was the most impressive mod for me because it made the timbre feel much more real. It turned the headphone from good to top league.
3. Headband (described above) despite the awesome sound, the headphones were just a bit unpleasantly heavy and a modified headband helps a lot.
4. Pads (DCA Ether Angled Ear Pads, Leather). ($50-$100) A modest effect on sound, a bigger effect on comfort.
5. Cable (Forza Noir balanced XLR). No effect on sound, but a little more upmarket feel. Expensive. The stock cable is much maligned, but absolutely fine.

The headphones are in the top league of headphones with the three cheap mods done, way ahead of Focal Clear, HD800, etc IMHO. There are thousands of words written describing the nuances and differences of top tier headphones. I've heard most (briefly), and would say the modified HE6-se v2 is very much part of the group, without being extreme in any sonic characteristic. Almost Stax-like in detail but with extended bass down to 16Hz or so. I wouldn't trade its sonics for the sonics of a focal Utopia or DCA Stealth. The only extreme element of these headphones is price, where a modified HE6-se v2 is around 10 -20% of the asking price other top tier headphones.

The payoff is that tracks which sound boring on mid tier headphones sometimes sound intriguing, engaging and fun on the HE6-se. Also, it's much easier to notice and appreciate the differences when changing source components (DACs, amps, tubes etc).

Regarding amp requirements, I move it between setups a lot, and it sounds better on my MJ2 (5W into 50ohms) than on the Vali 2s (~1W into 50 ohms). That's just because the MJ2 is a better amp and it's obvious with these headphones. I don't think the extra wattage makes much difference.

 

So, my friend @Philimon lent me his HE-6SE v2's and I've been able to listen to them for about a month. Here's some observations.

Associated gear:
DAC - Theta DS Pro Gen V (modded, single ended only)
Amp - Nakamichi TA-2A
Headphones compared - Transplanted Yamaha YH-100's (link to sbaf review), transplanted Fostex T50RP's

• Can be a little piercing at times, I like to turn the treble knob on my amplifier down to mitigate some of the upper-mids.
• Bass has nice impact, is clean, and has good character. Deeeep and tight, but lacks a mid-bass hump so doesn't pressurize the cup how I'm used to.
• As soon as I swap from my reference headphones (transplanted YH-100) I immediately notice there is a haze to the HE-6se sound, it's not perfectly clear, perhaps pads are to blame. (Easily acclimated to.)
• When I switch back to my reference headphones from HE-6se I immediately notice midrange is more even in timbre (more neutral FR) and seemingly more detailed than HE-6se because of it (not actually the case).
• Timbre seems a little cartoonish to me. Slightly sucked out midrange and accentuated upper-mids have a little glare that can make drums and finger snaps seem overly biting.
• Nice imaging with very good left-right delineation.
• Hard left and hard right sounds can sound a little unnaturally behind me.
• Grandiose image due to driver size. I am used to smaller 55mm or even 40mm planar drivers that can translate a sense of space to the center image. HE-6se v2 has a larger image that makes some things more interesting, but also gives a sense that noises emanate closer from you, and singers are "larger than life".
• My reference headphones seem to portray low level signals more clearly and delicately. In the intro to "weirddough - who can I run to" the rising low level vocals shine through more readily with sublime delicacy and great volume differentiation on my YH-100 transplant, whereas HE-6se struggles to define them at the start and the rising volume is less noticeable. Modded T50RP's are a little bit better than HE-6se's in this regard too, imho.

I should note, all these impressions were made with aftermarket pads for the HE-6se. I bought some sheepskin angled pads off of eBay for HFM's and I find them a bit clearer and sharper than stock pads. These pads do have a little glare and haze, as previously mentioned, so they are not a perfect match, but they are the best I have right now.


Measures:



Disclaimer: I realize spectrogram doesn't tell us a whole lot about how a headphone will sound, but I still feel they are interesting to look at. Ortho wall from 3.5-6kHz maybe a little telling about upper-mids bite.

 

Ok. So as soon as I basically gave up on these I asked myself, "Do you have ANY other pads that would fit a Hifiman?" I looked through my drawer and found some handstitched lambskin pads for the MDR-CD550. I tried them on the HFM pad adapters and sure enough they fit.



I added foam spacers to get my ears off the grills.

Whoa. 20 seconds into audition I had to measure them. They sounded CLEAN, bold, the midrange wasn't scooped out. Am I going crazy? Nope, measurements concur.

This measurement is in comparison to @Philimon 's favorite pad for them, the New Fantasia Sheepskin.



Much less scooped out. They were a bit too midrange/upper-mid oriented for me so at first I was mitigating with tone controls on my amp, but I have since installed an Arctic Cotton bass lens, see here:



Bass lens cuts down on sibilance a tad. It's enough to make these listenable without EQ, however I like some boosted bass so typically the bass knob is at least 2/3's the way up.

Also, take a look at spectrogram:


It is a bit cleaner than before. I have double checked and it seems very repeatable, so I am writing this off as an earpad upgrade, not ambient noise.

Impressions?

Very engaging. Wow. Complete transformation for me. Went from something I wouldn't have really listened to, to something I don't wanna take off my head and something that can wholly trick me into thinking I'm listening to my reference headphones. I will be sending some acoustically transparent fabric @Philimon 's way to act as a dust cover for a more acoustically open rear grill upgrade. Can't wait for Phil to get these back and listen to the fruits of my tuning efforts.

I apologize for lack luster initial review, these just didn't open up to me until I found the right pad. These are highly capable headphones and if I wasn't so obsessed with making my own headphones I could see myself living with these 100%.

 

What? Your review was good. Thank you.

Bass lens looks like a great idea, Ill try it. Same with your custom pads.

Have you tried fuzzor type mods on a planar? I guess thats like lining the metal lattice with felt for absorption or diffraction or whatever. Ive not tried. I was going to order some adhesive felt tape or whatever and give it a go later.

 

I just wasn't gushing over these like a lot of the others in here and I felt a bit out of place. Having heard their potential now I feel better reporting to everyone that these do indeed rock.

If you give me permission I can try shaping some Akasa Paxmate onto the magnet grills for you. Is Paxmate too thick?

 

Totally agree. They're amazing with mods, but compromised out of the box.

Here's a photo of @AstralStorm 's Fuzzor mod, which is described on page 3 of this thread.



My implementation was a bit neater but otherwise the same.

He also did a felt pad mod, similar to your bass lens, but those might be pad specific?

 

Carefully cutting strips of Paxmate sounds like a terrible chore so not recommending but youre the guy handstitching pads so do what you will. Foam or felt tape in appropriate size would be easier and cheaper. Paxmate is expensive so dont waste on an experiment.

Check out mods like @AstralStorm ‘s (thanks @Woland) and @E_Schaaf ’s etc from earlier in thread.

 

That's really well put and insightful. Listening today I can confirm the HE6se V2 does not do intimate, instead it tends towards colossal and epic.

I wonder if a 'driver size' effect shows up with measurement microphones, or if it's reliant on biological anatomy.

 

FWIW, I use an $80 speaker amp with these because my actual headphone amp can't even manage 1W into 50 Ohms, and at that price it's cheaper than most headphone amps and I have plenty of headroom. I think that's in part where the speaker amp meme comes from - there's plenty of decent speaker amps available for much lower cost than the most powerful headphones amps (at least until recently).

 

Ok, bit of an update on my HE-6se progression.

Added front and rear fuzzors. Also stitched an acoustically transparent screen into the rear grill retention ring.







The fuzzors really help with sibilance, ime. The rear grill mod helps with bass authority minorly, imo. Here's measurements of current config:



Here were the measures with same earpads, but no fuzzors and stock rear grill:



Note the smoother midrange and boosted upper-treble.


These sound really really good. My largest gripes are ear chamber reflections and midrange glare. I believe the right earpad can alleviate both of these fatiguing points for me. I will be sending these modded HE-6se's to @Vtory and he has the pads I want to try on these. Will be interesting to hear his impressions with them.

 

It's awesome to have you here!

Can you explain fuzzors a bit more? Would you have any insights on the pros / cons of the comprehensive fuzzors you've implemented vs the minimal ones I have based on @AstralStorm ?

 

Tysm! Glad to be here!

The only reason I did rear fuzzors was because @Philimon asked me to given his experience with driver chamber contour mods, however after performing the mod and listening to a particular problematic track for HE-6se I can confidently say both front and rear fuzzors aid in reducing sibilance. Was a night and day difference, imho. The song HE-6se's were struggling with was Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko, so have a listen and see if it's an issue for you. The "ssss" region was pretty hot but after fuzzors the only part that's a little glaring is the "f f f f f" when she says "running down your ffffface". Sadly, I do not have measures of ONLY front fuzzors. I was in the eye of the modding storm and the mods were happening faster than I could acclimate to the differences in sound so I didn't bother measuring front fuzzors. After performing the rear fuzzor mod I immediately heard a difference in how tame they were.

When I first did the front fuzzor mod I used whole strips of Paxmate and only did the "center" of the grill, see here:


When I did the rear fuzzors I shaped the Paxmate into triangular prisms by cutting the tops of the strips with scissors at a 45 degree angle. After hearing the benefits of the rear fuzzor I decided to re-do the fronts.

Measures of original front and back fuzzors:


Compare that to the re-done front fuzzors:


Midrange is a bit flatter (especially left channel) and channel balance is minorly better in the upper-treble.

These measures aren't conclusive of much, tbh. I could measure them again and they might come out a little different.

My logic was "moar fuzzors = moar better," tbph. After hearing a benefit I just went a little crazy and added fuzzors all the way to the edges. In my mind it's not only affecting the front wave propagation, but it's also mitigating ear pad/ear chamber reflections. The more hard surfaces you cover with sound absorbing foam the less hard reflections you should have, at least in my mind.

 

Rear fuzzors are only necessary if you keep the broken reflective grille, and they don't fix the problem fully. Replacing the grille is a better fix.

As for front fuzzors, having more of them does not hurt nor really help, but you do have to be careful to not obstruct the driver perforations. The key mechanism is not absorption but the way the fuzzor breaks up the flat reflective surface removing the resonance, without being a metal diffuser like "shaped magnets" of some other manufacturers and models which converts the resonance to a reverberation.
Since it's high frequency resonance, the optimum material would actually be moderate density sheep wool [*] pieces, but these tend to be hard to attach and to get, so silicone or butyl open cell foam it is. Felt can work too but is messy and nobody wants pieces of felt in their driver adding rattle and distortion. Rock wool and mineral wool also would make a dusty mess that's unacceptable there, kapok is also too fragile.

As for damping the pads, go Audeze-style and use tape (or even glue, or blutak) to attach it without the silly resonant plastic holder. You're also allowed to put some felt under the pad though the results were small for full pleathers, even less so for fenestrated or velour or "inverse hybrid" with fabric on the bottom.

[*] http://ica2016.org.ar/ica2016proceedings/ica2016/ICA2016-0238.pdf - industrial or raw wool in particular, not the felt. Closed cell silicone or butyl foam would be slightly better if not for the reflection due to the lack of airflow through it.

 

@AstralStorm @khbaur330162 Thanks for explanations of the fuzzors! After a bit of listening, I'm not detecting any sibilance problems with the minimal fuzzor mod, and will leave them unchanged. My pads are superglued DCA Ether angled leather, without the plastic rings.

 

Regarding amp power, @GoldenOne posted a solid video about amp power recently which is leading me to review the measurements of the amps I've been testing.

Before doing that, here's what the headphones.com calculator implies for the HE6se v2 based on the Golden methodology (for required loudness) and Adorama published specs for sensitivity and impedance.