CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone Measurements => Topic started by: Marvey on May 24, 2012, 08:32:31 PM
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HE6 Frequency Response and CSD Waterfall Plot
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=308.0;attach=2168;image)
I've never really felt that the HE-6 was that bright. But I did feel it sounded etched. The sharp 5k resonance (see CSD below) combined with the peak at ~10k probably explains why. 5k is the energy/edge/bite area of the spectrum. John Grados also have excess energy at 5k.
But otherwise very very clean. This matches the subjective experience of those who have heard it.
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Holy cow. -55db and still can't see the noise floor!
LCD3 (un-veiled 2nd best version) added for comparison.
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Maybe we've been wasting time w/ the wrong brand of ortho.
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I don't really like either brand.
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I prefer HifiMan over Audeze by miles....
I might be biased though....I do own an HE-500.
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Yeah I agree. If I was going to buy an unmodded ortho it would be the HE500. But it's bass response freaks me out. I should post that somewhere else though...
Don't want to take away from the HE6, it deserves some praise for these results. Good job Fang and Hifiman!
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Not bad at all. Past 10K it has those jaggy little ridges like the 007, but still really clean. Do they have that Stax-ish airiness?
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It must be the gold that attracts Ye pirates ..dB
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Any other thoughts on how these measurements look Don?
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I wonder if there is any room to mod them to ease that etched effect.
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I wonder if there is any room to mod them to ease that etched effect.
Some strategically placed small pieces of foam or thick felt over the grill or between the grill and the diaphragm in some pattern to break up that resonance might work.
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I thought they were quite impressive, relatively flat with a gentle slope down after 1K and a steeper climb back to the top. Should make for good listening. I have briefly listened to the HE6 at meets but nothing to get a good feel for them. The only HiFiMan I spent time with was the original HE5 and after all the silliness that followed, it left a bad taste to bother with the brand again. That said, quite a few folk whose opinion I trust, highly commend the HE6. Perhaps one day. As for damping, I am sure you could get rid of some of the etch, the trick would be to leave enough free air to keep the air in the performance.
my 2c - this is a large driver, fairly still but heavy. The etch is probably a small node in the driver or even some sort of cup resonance. It would be very cool to see raw driver measurements - as in removed from the cups.
..dB
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Do they have that Stax-ish airiness?
Not quite. They don't have the airiness of the STAX. I think the HD800 has more air than the HE6. This is one of those things that's hard to determine with graphs, but I get the feeling that "good air" requires the following on the FR graphs:
- No roll off before 16k
- No sharp peaks or dips between 10k-20k. For some odd reason, reasonably smooth seems to be a requirement for air.
HE6 responds well to EQ if you want to tone the treble down. I also tried to EQ it to make the bass sound like the 007 with less success. There's a little bit of thickness - probably 2nd order harmonic to the HE6 bass. The strength of the HE6 is not with the bass, although it's still pretty darn good. LCD3 bass kills it though.
As far as the etch, I am wondering if the 5.5k resonance mode and 12k mod (almost but not quite an octave apart) count for the double penetration ridges of death? See [4] in http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,71.0.html (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,71.0.html)
BTW. Very good impulse response.
BLUE = HE6
RED = HD800
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I wonder if there is any room to mod them to ease that etched effect.
You could try the Ray Samuels Darkstar mod. >.<
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I forgot to try the EH 6SN7. BTW both the Melos and BA had no problems powering the HE-6. The HE-6 was actually as tolerable as ever. But as many know, I have no tolerance for etch. Maybe with a PCM1702/04 based DAC.
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Are these using the pleather pads? or the old velour pads. I never heard them with the pleather pads but thought they were a little bright with the velours.
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They don't have the airiness of the STAX. I think the HD800 has more air than the HE6.
I was going to say that this is probably related to the ability of the respective drivers response time but your impulse data suggests otherwise.
BTW. Very good impulse response.
Are these measurements frequency dependent? I would be curious if impulse data taken at 80Hz, 500Hz, 4KHz and 10kHz all look similar. The HD800 should be fairly uniform due to the radiator, I suspect that the big driver orthos generate different frequencies from different areas of their driver ( I should add more optimally ) If you picture a membrane stretched fairly tightly over a circular frame with the edges glued down - the center has to have more flex than the edges. Vintage yamaha / fostex worked around this by pleating the driver , which is why I think many of them roll off the top end.
sidetrack
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Here is a project for you Purrin, we need raw driver data from all the different types of planar drivers out there, most of them have been pulled apart at some time so we know fairly well the inner construction , we would also need to measure the tension of the fixed drivers.
To my knowledge, the HE6 is a fairly taught fixed driver without pleats, traces are broad and sparse (relative to others ) and yet it provides excellent performance.
If we had a database of all these parameters we may see a pattern emerge to help us understand why a particular driver does better than others.
..dB
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Impulse technically has no frequency. it's just a burst. mathematically, it's derived from all frequencies excited
In terms of planar where the sides are tied down, the center will flex more (different amplitude), but will still excite at the same frequency as the sides which flex less (less amplitude but at same frequency). This is why I'm not so sure about the differential damping schemes.
I can start right away with the bare T50RP driver. Should be an interesting project. I'm sure Whitney can some me some rare stuff too.
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I forgot to try the EH 6SN7. BTW both the Melos and BA had no problems powering the HE-6. The HE-6 was actually as tolerable as ever. But as many know, I have no tolerance for etch. Maybe with a PCM1702/04 based DAC.
Interesting. Even w/ the Lyr and that Audio GD disgrace from the Venice meet the HE6 was always less controlled and more congested than the HD800 on my speed tests. I'll have to try it from the S7 and Sansui one of these days.
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I like the HE6 but the amping requirements suck
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I like the HE6 but the amping requirements suck
I don't think it's as bad as people say. It's more quality than quantity. Probably was more to do with the size of the power transformer. BA and Melos, despite being "flea" powered in today's world, have big ones. Lyr (despite all it's advertisement of power) still has a microscopic one.
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In terms of planar where the sides are tied down, the center will flex more (different amplitude), but will still excite at the same frequency as the sides which flex less (less amplitude but at same frequency). This is why I'm not so sure about the differential damping schemes.
Didn't get you there. If there are areas which emits waves of different amplitude, then different amount of damping may be needed to control those areas to the same degree.
I am not myself a big fan of 'differential damping' these days but the general reasoning seems to be quite logical to me.
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I'm sure Whitney can some me some rare stuff too.
Yeah no problem. I've been wanting to send you my Yamahas for ages, but I seem to have a problem where the more I learn about damping, the better my ears get at hearing problems, and i can't really keep up. I keep wanting to get over one more hurdle or try one more thing before having them measured. I was recently all set to send them and then I had another idea. ::)
I want them to reflect what I'd like a headphone to sound like. But I should get over it and just send them. I'm starting to think they are more limited by the drivers than by my damping at this point.
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It would be interesting to see how much the He6 measurements would change if they were powered by an ipod. I'm curious if resonance artifacts can ever be changed by amp/source even in worst case scenario like this.
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I would be interested in a comparison of measurements when using the velour vs the pleather pads.
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Hopefully this isn't too off-topic, but I was wondering how you guys would compare the HE6 vs HE500 or HE5LE? I've only heard the HE6 and HE500, but the listening sessions and amps were both different. I tried wading through the main thread on the other site but there's way too much noise.
Also, any experience on the velour vs pleather pads would be good to hear. If the pleather pads are much better, I'll pick up a pair with a new replacement headband.
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I'll let someone else tackle the phone comparison who's heard the HE5LE. But as for pads, the pleather and velour actually sound surprisingly similar. I'd say the velour has a bit more treble, and the pleather has a bit less treble and more bass. I thought velour was better on the HE500 because pleather made the bass too much for me. But it will come down to which phone and what you want out of it. I didn't get a clear better/worse from my experience with them.
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Hopefully this isn't too off-topic, but I was wondering how you guys would compare the HE6 vs HE500 or HE5LE? I've only heard the HE6 and HE500, but the listening sessions and amps were both different. I tried wading through the main thread on the other site but there's way too much noise.
Also, any experience on the velour vs pleather pads would be good to hear. If the pleather pads are much better, I'll pick up a pair with a new replacement headband.
To me.....
HE-6...very bright on the wrong system. Slightly bright on the right one. Very deep, tight and well controlled bass.
HE-500....still slightly bright, can be a bit dark on some systems. Slightly flabby bass.
HE-5LE....fairly neutral.
The pleather pads bring out more bass. The velour bring out more treble.
For the hifiman's, I prefer the velour.
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Agree with LFF. No one ever talks about the HE5LE, which is my favorite in the line.
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Thanks for the detailed rundown on all three headphones! I have the opportunity to pick up an HE6 for a nice price and have been looking for a good dynamic standby. I kind of like the LCD2.2 but the ergonomics and muddiness bug me. I heard a HE6 through a Trends amp and it was nice, though I didn't listen long enough to make any strong conclusions. I'm hoping the HE6 does well through an Emotiva mini-X, though it seems to be a crapshoot on how the HE6 will respond to a particular speaker amp. Unfortunately the folks at Emotiva didn't have any experience on how their speaker amps would perform with orthos.
It still amazes me that a used HE6 is cheaper than the going rate for a used LCD2.1. I suppose the LCD2 and LCD3 are more impressive upon a first listening, but they give me a headache soon afterwards.
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Agree with LFF. No one ever talks about the HE5LE, which is my favorite in the line.
But wasn't that modded?
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Got some HE5-LEs in today. Must say, these are really nice, balanced and quite neutral sounding. I am very pleased, and I have got to say that I definitely prefer them to the HE-500 I previously owned.
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I should have hung on to my 5LEs! :'( They were a good headphone.
What are you driving them with strat?
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I am just using my Leckerton UHA-6 MkII, which does a decent job driving these.
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They are not quite as hungry as the 6's.
Damn, that Leckerton just keeps popping up as a solid performer!!
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Personally, never was into HE-6. I can agree it does a lot of things right, but I can't get over the brightness. It ruins everything to me.
One odd thing however happened on my Lynx HA61 and HE-6 - it is one and only time when I heard HE-6 as dark headphone. I did not hear any ringing or anything, and mid to highs was even recessed. Never saw that kind of odd change again with that amplifier or with he6. It was during some local meet-up, when we compared Lynx HA61 and Beta22 amplifiers. On Beta He6 sounds typical, but on Lynx it was like totally another headphone. But I can't say I liked new sound also. Really it was some very odd pairing. I wonder what happened there. Lynx have an amazing ability to control headphones, it just chains them down, and not allow a single wrong oscillation. Seems HE6 was not prepared for this, heh
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To be pretty blunt, the HE6 sounds bad on the beta22. You need better amping comparisons.
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To be pretty blunt, the HE6 sounds bad on the beta22. You need better amping comparisons.
Possibly. Overall its one of the best amplifiers I heard, but I indeed do not think it is the best choice for HE-6, I heard better. But then again, there are a lot of Beta versions around, and most of them are a bit different. But I'm not interested in either of those really.
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I was never particularly fond of any ortho from the Beta 22.
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I really found the B22 to be a tad sharp and bright in its signature. Not what I'm looking for in my sound.
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Actually, I felt my Beta 22 did an OK job driving the HE-6 back when I still had it despite people saying the pairing shouldn't sound good. On the other hand I thought the B22 SUCKED with the HD800 despite people saying the pairing was great.
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I liked it with the HD600, in fact I thought they were quite good together, but I never did hear it with the HD800.
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I generally like the beta22 with dynamics such as Sennheiser and AKG. The beta22 reminds me of the gamma2, which has a warmer and darker signature. With orthos, though, it's too much of a good thing. I prefer orthos with more ruthlessly revealing chains, as I don't like the Hifiman or Audeze headphones with additional coloration.
The HD600 did better than the HD800 on the beta22, IMO, but I haven't spent a ton of time listening to either on it. Aside from the BA, I still haven't found the perfect amp for the HD800. The 445 or Leviathan will hopefully be it.
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Just no.
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I really found the B22 to be a tad sharp and bright in its signature. Not what I'm looking for in my sound.
The one I heard was not bright at all. It was quite pleasant sounding. But I never said it is the only amplifier I heard HE-6 with.
http://cs403320.vk.me/v403320125/1386/v6wfORio_gA.jpg - Beta22 on top.
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the heatsink count is correct, but otherwise i don't see much of a B22 in that amp. if the circuit is the same, those are not authorized O22 and B22 AMB PCBs.
i agree though, where people get the idea that the B22 is a bright amp i have no idea. i've heard this complaint from my customers as well. i'm done dicking around with chassis wire though. maybe my BM DAC1 is mellow in the treble, or i'm deaf :).
with appropriate gain and quiescent current bias/heatsinking, the B22 will have no problem flogging the HE-6. the B22 has plenty of power on reserve if built to spec. sonics and subjectivity are another matter.
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Yeah, my Beta 22 was not what I'd call an overly bright sounding amp.
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the B22 tends to be analytical wrt to freq presentation/segregation - you have clearly defined bass, mids, and treble. if you want to blur this a bit to create a more "cut from the same cloth" presentation, i would recommend an IC with a larger AWG copper wire like the JPS Labs Ultraconductor. it's cheap as far as "snake-oil" cables go.
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Yeah, my Beta 22 was not what I'd call an overly bright sounding amp.
Neither was TiKans. Warm.
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+1
:)p13
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Maybe 'twas the Buffalo then.
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Some results with ohhgourami's HE-6s + Krell amplifier. No smoothing was applied.
Frequency Response. The blue trace is right channel with L-network used to make the a volume control less sensitive. Red (right) and green (left) are with out the resistors directly driven by the amp.
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=308.0;attach=4401;image)
CSD right
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=308.0;attach=4403;image)
CSD left
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=308.0;attach=4405;image)
These particular measurements show a bit of ringing in the 3 to 4 kHz area. Same 10 kHz peak as with the unit Marv measured. From my short listening time with them, I feel the Krell and the HE-6 had a nice synergy going on.
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That's a funny little bump on the left channel at 3-4 kHz... I remember ohhgourami was suspecting there was a channel imbalance in his headphones somewhere. Maybe this is what he was hearing.
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Yes. He mentioned that to me too. We did the measurement a couple of times and they came out fairly consistent.
I liked his setup quite a bit though. I liked the balance. With the music playing I didn't feel this set up was bright... just a tad perhaps but very enjoyable.
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With your measurement the 10kHz hill does look pretty prominent (much more-so than Marv's plots). I guess that's the source of the brightness.
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Yes, possible. Not Beyer or Grado levels though.
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My by ear measurement of my fresh new pair, nearly match both yours and even closer, Purrin's.
Slightly lower in all resonant frequencies. Superb consistency in the line at the very least. In fact, it's possible my pair is better than either one measured here. This is with Lynx Hilo, needs every ounce of power to run HE-6, crossfeed and the eq and have 6 dB digital control headroom. (I like my digital volume control on the PC.)
Those headphones leave modded HE-500 way in the dust and finally are something that can compete with RE series of IEMs in terms of general quality.
(FR notwithstanding, even in case of RE-600, which sounds smoothly lowpassed - HE-6 are clearly superior there. Only my modded RE-400 can compete - yet lose.)
These are the first headphones I can say have correct air rendition. Though they are a tinge bright and the mids cut puts the presentation less forward and defined than ultimately possible, narrowing the center of the soundstage.
(In fact, correct in everything, inaudible distortion, correct decay everywhere - I'd have to compare against Audeze LCD-3, that might be competition. I don't have direct comparison on my hand, but from what I remember about Stax SR-007s, they lose against this due to bass. From memory, LCD-2 rev 1 pair I heard lose unequalized, but otherwise could be comparable.)
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Cue additional precision equalizing. I've spotted a slightly brighter part of the spectrum. Now it's actually perfect, as in within 0.5 dB of flat.
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Bass thickness. It's not thick at all in the bass. I can hear a tiny bit of pad resonance, which should be fixable. I'd say reduced Jergpad mod, limited to pads only. Has to be carefully done so as not to conserve pad thickness - perhaps adding more foam to the inside of the pads.
Staxen actually have broken bass - large subbass cut - so I wouldn't compare to these. HD800 bass is inferior. Audeze bass may be superior, I'm not sure, but there definitely was less resonance.
Air - accurate equalization makes it perfect. HD800 sounds airier out of the box because it has smoother air - no dips - though it needs a flat cut. It also has a minor boost somewhere around those frequencies.
Seems like Hifiman made a tradeoff there in order to make manufacturing possible - and used a quarter-circle to dampen the front grillle reflection.
Said bit of foam also causes the 3k dip and it doesn't fully attenuate the 9k/12k resonances between face and grille. A better design is possible there - the correct material would be a much more tortuous with slightly larger pore size, attached to the grille in strips to not cover direct airflow. I'm not sure which material has such curly pores which are also large. Likely some kind of very loose fabric, I'd say low density blown PET absorber = low density multilayer microfibre cloth.
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Only my modded RE-400...
OT: What did you do to them?, I have a busted pair of RE-ZERO and I don't think I can save the enclosure if I open them again (superglued it when the original adhesive expired), do you think I can make use of the drivers?
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I attached a large blob of cotton pads behind them with cyanoacrylate, switched the cable and lacquered that, then tried covering this all in silicone (didn't work properly).
Removed the front filter and foam.
Check HF for details and a picture - it is about 1 cm^3 of nonwoven cotton pad glued to form a "shell" shape.
It still does not have the comparable air (-12 dB) and has some residual dips, such as in the center of midrange. None of those is more than -3 dB. Works best with RE-272 long tips or the RE-272 short soft biflanges. Medium insertion.
Of course I forgot to add reasonable strain reliefs and soldered one channel the wrong way, so I'll get to remake it. Removing the mod is not too hard, but some traces of cotton wool will remain.
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Necromancy time. I've finally bothered to properly equalize HE-6, this time with FocusPad. (FocusPad-A coming soon.)
Bass is better controlled still, even than my variant of JergPads, probably thanks to thicker, stiffer construction.
Much stronger bass handling. It sounds way more V-shaped yet cleaner and better in terms of soundstage.
Have a peek at the equalization... it speaks for itself. The highest end is actually kind of disputable, I'm pretty sure there should be a bit less boost.
There is still the deep null around 7.8kHz, which I'd attribute to the antiresonance from the grill. I didn't mod these at all other than replacing the atrocious cable with the better expensive version.
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And here goes FocusPad-A, the timbre is different in this one, especially bass. It's less "kicky" but more rounded. Sound is notably smoother than FocusPad.
It is slightly more comfortable too.
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Got a chance to check out JoelT's modded HE-6 for some extended listening. Non-stock pads, some tape modding, dunno what else (grill?). It's better than stock. Tape hiss and treble noise are still exaggerated, so poor recordings need not apply. Otherwise there's a better sense of space, great detail and less glare than I recall.
He's still working on it, possibly getting it measured down the line. Looks promising.