Hifiman HE400SE Review (Headphone)

[Kremmen]

I bought mine brand new in a sale from Amazon themselves (UK) for £69.30 delivered. They came with the same black cable that my Edition XS use. I must say I am delighted with the HE400SE. I actually bought two of them at that price. That was on August 2nd.

Amazon were also selling brand new Edition XS headphones in the same sale for £269. Bonkers!

It was Amir's very favourable review that convinced me to pull the trigger on the HE400SE.

Thanks Amir!

 

[Oso Polar]

I bought mine brand new in a sale from Amazon themselves (UK) for £69.30 delivered.

I bought mine for $59 directly from HIFIMAN. New "B-stock" - which meant that the *box* (which is to be thrown away anyway) was a bit dirty. After EQ I absolutely love them and for sure there is nothing comparable at this price point!

 

[Swin]

Polish stores, for example rms.pl or mp3store.pl
But I dont know about shipping costs to EU countries.
I picked them locally so the price was a bargain.

I can't think about better headphones in that price category (up to 100bucks) - assuming you are using EQ

Yes it really pays off to live in a modern safe and functional country like Poland.

One thing more - both V1 and V2 are sold at the same time, some sellers give information on the version they sell, some not.

And the version tested here on this site was V2 if I am correct.

 

[zahmzan]

Hello
I was regarding this headphones but i read that it needs an amp\dac to be good.
I wanted this for gaming (single players games mainly) and music and i own a Soundblaster GC7 is it enough to power the Headphones? I didnt find an answer to this anywhere.

thanks

 

[solderdude]

Hello
I was regarding this headphones but i read that it needs an amp\dac to be good.
I wanted this for gaming (single players games mainly) and music and i own a Soundblaster GC7 is it enough to power the Headphones? I didnt find an answer to this anywhere.

thanks

The GC7 can supply 1.7V in 25ohm.
Without any EQ you can reach 110dB peaks is 'somewhat loud'.
peak SPL is something entirely different as 110dBA average SPL (the 'warning' tables for exposure limit time).
When you want Harman bass that becomes a bit louder.

 

[zahmzan]

The GC7 can supply 1.7V in 25ohm.
Without any EQ you can reach 110dB peaks is 'somewhat loud'

Can you ELI5 that for me (and thank you for your reply)
And regarding the HifiMan i've seen some reports of it being 32ohm also.

 

[solderdude]

I measured 28Ω, Amir measured 25Ω. The box and specs say 32Ω but that's not the actual value but the 'nearest standard' value.
Hifiman is notorious for having inaccurate specs and all 'reviewers' just copy those specs and everyone assumes that is accurate.

It means that you can use the HE400SE with the GC7 but won't be able to play very loud, just 'somewhat' loud.
How loud 'loud' is for you I cannot say.

When you want to play impressively loud with not distorted 'Harman' type bass you must use an amplifier with output power that can reach 2.5W in 32Ω.
Note that 1W is probably more than enough for you to quickly dial the volume control back.

 

[zahmzan]

I measured 28Ω, Amir measured 25Ω. The box and specs say 32Ω but that's not the actual value but the 'nearest standard' value.
Hifiman is notorious for having inaccurate specs and all 'reviewers' just copy those specs and everyone assumes that is accurate.

It means that you can use the HE400SE with the GC7 but won't be able to play very loud, just 'somewhat' loud.
How loud 'loud' is for you I cannot say.

When you want to play impressively loud with not distorted 'Harman' type bass you must use an amplifier with output power that can reach 2.5W in 32Ω.
Note that 1W is probably more than enough for you to quickly dial the volume control back.

Thank you so much for the explanation. I think i'll use the ali express deal and get one

 

[Whatever18]

I find those headphones really uncomfortable, they are heavy (is this a thing with all planar headphones?) and you feel the pressure on your head and ears fairly quickly

Also the sound signature is kinda weird to me, I don't even know how to explain it but there's something odd in their presentation, like the music sounds a bit too distant and lacks ''punch'' if that makes sense, they sound kind of ''dull'' and unexciting to me. I wonder if it's just me being used to closed headphones and switching to open headphones after a long time not using them. They are also hard to drive, I think I might sell them, like even if I find a EQ profile that I like the fact that they are so heavy and uncomfortable is a deal breaker

 

[Robbo99999]

I bought these headphones a few days ago (for only £69 new! ), and since then I've had a chance to measure them on miniDSP EARS rig as well as experiment with EQ on them. The overall take is that I'm really quite impressed with them, they measure well in terms of pretty good channel balance, and also low distortion that I measured, and I've managed to arrive at a good EQ for them too.

Measurements on my miniDSP EARS rig:
I'll keep the important overview graphs big & then I'll keep the nice to know extra detail graphs as thumbnails so as not to overwhelm the page & people's patience! All these measurements are based on an initial process of reseating the headphone roughly centrally 10 seperate times & measuring both earcups for frequency response at each reseat - so there's been 20 measurements in total (10 per channel), after which each channel is averaged. Don't worry that the graphs look strange in comparison to Amir's, it's because it's not the same type of measuring rig.

Channel Balance:
Channel Balance is good, with the help of REW I worked out that the right channel was on average 0.6dB elevated vs the left.

following a thumbnail showing all 20 measurements (just some extra detail)


Distortion Measurements:
Distortion was very low all the way up to 100dB, but unfortunately my rig won't really let me measure any higher than that, but 100dB should cover pretty much everyone's use case including bass EQ. There was a distortion spike at 2kHz in the Left Channel that was obviously most noticeable in the measurements at 100dB, but I don't really see that as a problem because you won't be running 2kHz at 94dB nor 100dB when listening to music. I'll show the most applicable 94dB distortion measurement as a large graph and the others as thumbnails. Distortion was below 0.5% pretty much everywhere at all levels up to 100dB, especially in the bass which is where you need to functionally use the extra SPL.
94dB:

84dB:


100dB:




EQ Experimentation & Development:

So obviously this section is going to contain my own subjective experiences of the headphone after EQ and also my personal taste for EQ, but I generally like Harman and from my own previous experience I know I need enough energy above 8kHz otherwise the headphone can sound dull & lifeless. I started off with Oratory's EQ, and it was good, but it lacked sparkle & bite for me, and given that I knew I need enough energy above 8kHz then I tried increasing his 10000Hz High Shelf Filter - it sounded best with his High Shelf Filter at 4dB for me, but it still wasn't quite right. I thought about this and concluded that it's possible there's still not enough energy at 8kHz because the High Shelf Filter by definition will only gradually increase energy above that point (gentle slope) so I concluded it wasn't possible to save the Oratory EQ just by tweaking the High Shelf - instead I realised I would need to develop my own EQ from the ground up using Oratory's measurement data and positioning the Target Curve (Harman) lower down on the measurement so that the naturally occurring treble that is in the headphone can be retained, but at a higher level than the rest of the frequency response (hard to visualise if you've not done a fair bit of EQ experimentation with REW, so don't worry). Basically, I took the Oratory data from Jaako's AutoEQ website for the HE400SE and used REW to develop my EQ, and I ended up with the following:

If you were to compare that graph of the finished EQ vs Oratory's you would see that the area around 10kHz and above sits higher on the graph on my EQ. There are some other differences as well, and the best way of seeing that is by comparing the Total EQ Curve of my EQ vs the Total EQ Curve of Oratory's EQ (and my EQ is the blue line in following graph):

You can see that there's definitely more energy in my EQ above 8kHz, and there's also a couple of other smaller energy increases around 4kHz & 6.5kHz. The extra energy increases around 4kHz and 6kHz are due to the fact the measurement has been EQ'd exactly to the Harman Curve, whereas Oratory didn't EQ those two little areas completely up to the Harman Curve. I've found the extra energy in those 3 different treble areas have given the headphone the extra bite & sparkle that it needed. Essentially everywhere else the EQ is the same as Oratory's though, albeit you can see some tiny differences here & there. Following are the filters for my EQ if you want to try it (all Peak Filters):

Negative Preamp Required: -6dB
PK Fc 20.00 Hz Gain 5.70 dB Q 0.500
PK Fc 148.0 Hz Gain -0.40 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 245.0 Hz Gain -3.10 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 956.0 Hz Gain -6.10 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 1488 Hz Gain -3.20 dB Q 3.229
PK Fc 1662 Hz Gain 7.70 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 3001 Hz Gain -3.40 dB Q 2.263
PK Fc 5076 Hz Gain -2.40 dB Q 3.539
PK Fc 7997 Hz Gain -3.80 dB Q 4.885

Pleased with the headphone, very good buy & especially for the money, good measurements even in the sample I received, and a good EQ result, very good headphone.

Small Addition just for interest: I find that the frequency response of the HE400SE measures better than the HE4XX I own, following are the two measured & compared on my miniDSP EARS rig, you can see the HE400SE is a bit smoother in some areas and has better bass extension:


EDIT: one last parting tip, when I first received the headphone there was no sound coming out of the right earcup - I immediately found that by wiggling the jack that the sound came back - I narrowed it down to a faulty 6.35mm jack adapter that Hifiman included with the headphone - I swapped it with a 6.35mm jack adapter that I already owned and it was fine.

 

[GaryH]

I bought these headphones a few days ago (for only £69 new! ), and since then I've had a chance to measure them on miniDSP EARS rig as well as experiment with EQ on them. The overall take is that I'm really quite impressed with them, they measure well in terms of pretty good channel balance, and also low distortion that I measured, and I've managed to arrive at a good EQ for them too.

Measurements on my miniDSP EARS rig:
I'll keep the important overview graphs big & then I'll keep the nice to know extra detail graphs as thumbnails so as not to overwhelm the page & people's patience! All these measurements are based on an initial process of reseating the headphone roughly centrally 10 seperate times & measuring both earcups for frequency response at each reseat - so there's been 20 measurements in total (10 per channel), after which each channel is averaged. Don't worry that the graphs look strange in comparison to Amir's, it's because it's not the same type of measuring rig.

Channel Balance:
Channel Balance is good, with the help of REW I worked out that the right channel was on average 0.6dB elevated vs the left.
View attachment 390404

following a thumbnail showing all 20 measurements (just some extra detail)
View attachment 390405

Distortion Measurements:
Distortion was very low all the way up to 100dB, but unfortunately my rig won't really let me measure any higher than that, but 100dB should cover pretty much everyone's use case including bass EQ. There was a distortion spike at 2kHz in the Left Channel that was obviously most noticeable in the measurements at 100dB, but I don't really see that as a problem because you won't be running 2kHz at 94dB nor 100dB when listening to music. I'll show the most applicable 94dB distortion measurement as a large graph and the others as thumbnails. Distortion was below 0.5% pretty much everywhere at all levels up to 100dB, especially in the bass which is where you need to functionally use the extra SPL.
94dB:
View attachment 390409
View attachment 390410

84dB:
View attachment 390411View attachment 390412

100dB:
View attachment 390413View attachment 390414



EQ Experimentation & Development:

So obviously this section is going to contain my own subjective experiences of the headphone after EQ and also my personal taste for EQ, but I generally like Harman and from my own previous experience I know I need enough energy above 8kHz otherwise the headphone can sound dull & lifeless. I started off with Oratory's EQ, and it was good, but it lacked sparkle & bite for me, and given that I knew I need enough energy above 8kHz then I tried increasing his 10000Hz High Shelf Filter - it sounded best with his High Shelf Filter at 4dB for me, but it still wasn't quite right. I thought about this and concluded that it's possible there's still not enough energy at 8kHz because the High Shelf Filter by definition will only gradually increase energy above that point (gentle slope) so I concluded it wasn't possible to save the Oratory EQ just by tweaking the High Shelf - instead I realised I would need to develop my own EQ from the ground up using Oratory's measurement data and positioning the Target Curve (Harman) lower down on the measurement so that the naturally occurring treble that is in the headphone can be retained, but at a higher level than the rest of the frequency response (hard to visualise if you've not done a fair bit of EQ experimentation with REW, so don't worry). Basically, I took the Oratory data from Jaako's AutoEQ website for the HE400SE and used REW to develop my EQ, and I ended up with the following:

View attachment 390416
If you were to compare that graph of the finished EQ vs Oratory's you would see that the area around 10kHz and above sits higher on the graph on my EQ. There are some other differences as well, and the best way of seeing that is by comparing the Total EQ Curve of my EQ vs the Total EQ Curve of Oratory's EQ (and my EQ is the blue line in following graph):
View attachment 390417
You can see that there's definitely more energy in my EQ above 8kHz, and there's also a couple of other smaller energy increases around 4kHz & 6.5kHz. The extra energy increases around 4kHz and 6kHz are due to the fact the measurement has been EQ'd exactly to the Harman Curve, whereas Oratory didn't EQ those two little areas completely up to the Harman Curve. I've found the extra energy in those 3 different treble areas have given the headphone the extra bite & sparkle that it needed. Essentially everywhere else the EQ is the same as Oratory's though, albeit you can see some tiny differences here & there. Following are the filters for my EQ if you want to try it (all Peak Filters):

Negative Preamp Required: -6dB
PK Fc 20.00 Hz Gain 5.70 dB Q 0.500
PK Fc 148.0 Hz Gain -0.40 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 245.0 Hz Gain -3.10 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 956.0 Hz Gain -6.10 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 1488 Hz Gain -3.20 dB Q 3.229
PK Fc 1662 Hz Gain 7.70 dB Q 1.000
PK Fc 3001 Hz Gain -3.40 dB Q 2.263
PK Fc 5076 Hz Gain -2.40 dB Q 3.539
PK Fc 7997 Hz Gain -3.80 dB Q 4.885

Pleased with the headphone, very good buy & especially for the money, good measurements even in the sample I received, and a good EQ result, very good headphone.

Small Addition just for interest: I find that the frequency response of the HE400SE measures better than the HE4XX I own, following are the two measured & compared on my miniDSP EARS rig, you can see the HE400SE is a bit smoother in some areas and has better bass extension:
View attachment 390421

EDIT: one last parting tip, when I first received the headphone there was no sound coming out of the right earcup - I immediately found that by wiggling the jack that the sound came back - I narrowed it down to a faulty 6.35mm jack adapter that Hifiman included with the headphone - I swapped it with a 6.35mm jack adapter that I already owned and it was fine.

Great stuff! Could you check with your measurements whether the headphone has inverted polarity? Some initial measurements showed it did do I'm wondering if they might have fixed this with current units.

 

[Robbo99999]

Great stuff! Could you check with your measurements whether the headphone has inverted polarity? Some initial measurements showed it did do I'm wondering if they might have fixed this with current units.

Sure, how do I find that out from my measurements? I'm half thinking that I'll already be able to find out from the measurements I've done rather than doing additional ones?

 

[oceansize]

Sure, how do I find that out from my measurements? I'm half thinking that I'll already be able to find out from the measurements I've done rather than doing additional ones?

@solderdude mentions it in his review of the HE400se, here. Hopefully he'll be kind enough to add some words of wisdom and guidance on this.

*Edit*
See this post in this thread

 

[Robbo99999]

@solderdude mentions it in his review of the HE400se, here. Hopefully he'll be kind enough to add some words of wisdom and guidance on this.

*Edit*
See this post in this thread

(Had a look in REW and can't find anything in the measurements I've done that enables stuff like that to be displayed).

 

[solderdude]

Just check the phase response in REW.
Compare that with known correct phase headphones like your HD600 or HD800.

Can you compare with HE4XX ?

 

[Kremmen]

@solderdude mentions it in his review of the HE400se, here. Hopefully he'll be kind enough to add some words of wisdom and guidance on this.

*Edit*
See this post in this thread

Thanks for linking to solderdude's fabulously detailed review of the HE400SE. I had no idea that there were such detailed headphone reviews out there! Nice to see it was a favourable one too.

 

[Kremmen]

Just check the phase response in REW.
Compare that with known correct phase headphones like your HD600 or HD800.

Can you compare with HE4XX ?

Hi solderdude. This isn't a response to your post but a big thanks for the tremendously detailed review of the HE400SE that oceansize linked to. I have never read such a thorough review of a headphone (I suspect that you have done plenty of them!) and was delighted too to see the filter mod and subsequent results in there too. Keep up the great work!

 

[Robbo99999]

Just check the phase response in REW.
Compare that with known correct phase headphones like your HD600 or HD800.

Can you compare with HE4XX ?

You don't mean this do you? I don't think you mean this.

Could you show me in REW where to go for the absolute phase information that we're after?

(Yes, I have HE4XX & HE400SE measurements)

 

[solderdude]

Look at the scale on the right side of the bottom (phase) plot... 1kHz is at 0°. It looks like either the polarity issue has been resolved in the current HE400SE or..
the polarity is flipped somewhere in the chain.

To check for that you need to measure the HD600 or HD800 and see if 1kHz is around 0° or at +(or -) 180°
When HD600 (or 800) is around +/- 180° then the polarity of your HE400SE is flipped.
When HD600 (or 800) is around 0° then the polarity of your HE400SE is not flipped any more.

 

[GaryH]

You don't mean this do you? I don't think you mean this.
View attachment 390608

Could you show me in REW where to go for the absolute phase information that we're after?

(Yes, I have HE4XX & HE400SE measurements)

I think the simplest way to check polarity is from the impulse response - try clicking the 'Impulse' tab instead of 'SPL & Phase'.