musichunter1x
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Thanks for assuring me about not that bad quality controll.
Oh, it is just a preset from qudelix 5k, made by "flik", similar to others.
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Hifiman HE400SE Review (Headphone)
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livinon2wheels
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you should read the negative reviews on Amazon, they make the association with this company a negative experience. Buyer beware.
PenguinMusic
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Hi,
To me there is no need to even read those negative fedback.
I experienced it when my Deva Wireless module decided to stop playing.
I could turn it on, II could associate it to my Bluettooth, but no sound came out of it.
Got in contact with Hifiman support.
Basically their answer was : "We can change the moduile for 279€ or as a "trade-in" for 249€ as soon as wed receive the defective unit.
In other words, they were asking for 80% of the complete headphone's price.
Of course, I did not take advantage of that generous offer.
I offered the headphone to be used wired to a wife's friend who is enjoying it.
Me, that was my only and last buy from Hifiman...
Regards.
I had three bad items out of three. Two were ‚open box‘, means were sent back by customers. Whatever you make out of it. 100% fail rate in regard to excessive harmonic distortion or irregular resonance in treble on at least one channel. Your choice.
I've had two good items out of two. 100% success rate.
Measured, criteria? And not the least, statistics, do you know your maths?
I do maths just as good as the people claiming 100% fail rate.
Let's go then. But perhaps you could explain how you determined that your two are “okay”. If the basis is only a subjective impression, I would probably not want to use statistics to calculate your results.
The reason is simply that my results were determined using measurement technology. Accordingly, if you could not / did not want to make any measurements, our small samples would belong to different populations.
This is also the crux of the matter. Some people cannot measure and will only return a sample if it is crap in extreme cases. You just hope for a good specimen, and have - perhaps - a 70% chance.
I even think that a chance of 50/50 is plausible with 3 out of three and 2 out of two. As long as, how I said, the samples are drawn from the population using the same procedure (measurement)!
Incidentally, headphones from hifiman show very mixed results across the board when they are measured by different people with different samples (even!). Sometimes the distortion is good, sometimes it's just garbage, and resonances are excessive or non-existent. I don't think it's down to the people taking the measurements, but to the different examples of the same model.
It's also not a question of quality control - should you throw away 50%? It's a fundamental production problem, that's how it looks to me.
And therein lies the advantage of audiosciencereview. You get assessments from people who have the opportunity and the expertise for relevant measurements, and the expertise to question them, even self-critically. As a result, I cannot recommend buying hifiman headphones without being able to measure them yourself (and return for another try in case).
Robbo99999
Master Contributor
Well, no one's asked you yet how you measured them and they're not posted up anywhere that I can see, but I'm not sure "we" want to, checking back on your posts it was your first post you made when you joined the forum.
@Robbo99999 , I'm not accusing anybody to not represent measurement in a righteous way. I don't ask for graphs. I just want to know if there's anything beyond a subjective, auditory impression.
When I tell you, that my measureemnts showed a, b and c you just have to believe me, or leave it alone. It doesn't make sense to verbally doubt my measurements as such. The way to go in science would be to do it yourself - measure! (Need it anyway as to determine a nice equalization.)
This case of variability of quality with HE400SE could be solved by getting 20 and more pairs in from various sources and compare. As long as the case ins't closed, some would take note of my caveat, others may ignore it happily. You want a fancy planar for less than pocket money, go ahead. I'm absolutely fine with that, good luck.
ps: I never told you to not buy HiFiMan product; to the contrary I suggested (in secret between the lines) buy more, three of the same model, use your combinatorial skills like a screwdriver for the better - should I be more direct and open for you ...
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Robbo99999
Master Contributor
Ok, so you're not gonna say how you measured your headphones & nor are you gonna show the measurements, that's fine too.
LoL, you didn't get my argument. You're seemingly not interested. You didn't ask for the how to.
Look, in science there are unwritten rules followed for centuries now. In case you do not trust measurements, which is not only o/k, but necessary, the fellow researchers would replicate the claimed results, or not. Preferrably with different methods that is. Nobody would ask for the basic data of an experiment to prove the other is not plain - untrue. It is seen as an insult first, and second it doesn't help with bringing the art forward.
Only in case you don't get the idea, that is how it works in science, and following basic rules of honor is part of the education in the field. In all regular case the fellows are taken serious, because they are deemed experts, and have reputation to lose. All your attempt to scrutinize my conclusions following pretty basic measurements not shown in detail here is based on way less. Just accusation for no good reason at all, it has no other grounds than thinking of me as an evil minded fraud.
@Ste_S claimed to have 2 out of 2 success rate. He didn't tell what defines success. Was there objective measurement involved at all? That was my simple only question. No answer for now. May I guestimate?
btw: now it comes to me, that I have shown measurements already; you only have to find them, it was on the remaining 'frankenstein' pair of cans I kept, and still big deviances left/right, LoL
Robbo99999
Master Contributor
I think it's obvious that you can't be taken seriously. (You could have just redeemed yourself by making this less complicated & showing the measurements of your headphones along with explaining how you did it (which you would have done when you first posted in this thread) - there's nothing in this thread - you're making this way more complicated than it reasonably needs to be, hence my "I don't think you can be taken serious" comment.)
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"You don't do as I want, that's too complicated, hence can't take you serious." Don't worry, I've learned that long before 
(My data on the H400Se was in a thread on equalizing them, may be you still want to do the research.)
(Still no word on @Ste_S findings.)
Robbo99999
Master Contributor
This is my last post to you on this topic unless you start being more reliable. Just put the graphs here in this thread as you are referencing the fact that you've measured them, and explain how you did the measurements. That way people can judge whether or not your measurements are valid & hence what you're saying is valid. We're not gonna go around ASR searching for your measurements. (You are pretty much trolling at this point.)
(My data on the H400Se was in a thread on equalizing them, may be you still want to do the research.)
You bother me with asking for proof, in that I present you 'measurements', that I could fake in a minute. I explained why it may be inappropriate to relentlessly doubt my honesty. I leave it at that.
(Still no word on @Ste_S findings.)
Robbo99999
Master Contributor
Just a little status update, been doing some listening of various tracks on my Anechoic Flat Speakers with bass Room EQ'd to Harman Curve vs my other headphones, and my EQ'd K702 and EQ'd HE400SE are most like the speakers in terms of tonality and overall representation. So if people wanted to try to emulate that I'd recommend Oratory EQ'd Hifiman HE400SE or instead K702 with my EQ that's in first post of the following thread (derivation/origin details explained there):
www.audiosciencereview.com
K702 does have some problems with the longevity of the solder holding the wires on the posts in the earcup though, but they can relatively easily be resoldered back on and my solder has never failed yet, and maybe it's possible AKG have done something to improve reliability of the solder - for instance in the latest unit I bought they put little rubber heat shrink sleeves over the wires & post where it's soldered on to give some more protection. K702 does have some unit to unit variation though which also doesn't help, but you can also get an idea of unit to unit variation at that first post of mine at the link above. Having said that HE400SE also has some reports of QC issues but there are also a lot of people with very positive experiences with EQ'd HE400SE.
My EQ'd HD560s and EQ'd HD800 are both very pleasant & enjoyable though, but I get the impression that my EQ'd K702 and EQ'd HE400SE are closer in tonality and overall experience to my Anechoic Flat Speakers with Room EQ'd bass to Harman Curve. The HD800 doesn't capture the bass aspect of the speakers, and the HD560s might not capture the correct level of "vocal forwardness" in relation to the speaker experience. I couldn't say that any of these headphones sound unbalanced to me though with EQ, just some tick more boxes than others in terms of how they relate to say the reference speaker experience. I suspect if the HD800 could capture the bass aspect of the speakers then it would be the best headphone of mine (I'd say below 100Hz is where it doesn't match, so subwoofer territory, or even the lower end of larger speakers).
(I put a copy of this message over in the K702 thread too, because I figure it's relevant there too.)
AKG K702: a valid alternative EQ to Harman Curve for you to try
I'd like to offer you all an alternative EQ to the Oratory EQ, it's still done to the Harman Curve but it's using a different set of measurements. Oratory's measurement for the K702 has changed by a large amount over the various versions of pdf's he's released for it, and for my 4 units of K702...
www.audiosciencereview.com
My EQ'd HD560s and EQ'd HD800 are both very pleasant & enjoyable though, but I get the impression that my EQ'd K702 and EQ'd HE400SE are closer in tonality and overall experience to my Anechoic Flat Speakers with Room EQ'd bass to Harman Curve. The HD800 doesn't capture the bass aspect of the speakers, and the HD560s might not capture the correct level of "vocal forwardness" in relation to the speaker experience. I couldn't say that any of these headphones sound unbalanced to me though with EQ, just some tick more boxes than others in terms of how they relate to say the reference speaker experience. I suspect if the HD800 could capture the bass aspect of the speakers then it would be the best headphone of mine (I'd say below 100Hz is where it doesn't match, so subwoofer territory, or even the lower end of larger speakers).
(I put a copy of this message over in the K702 thread too, because I figure it's relevant there too.)
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I think Heinrich makes some good arguments that shouldn't be ignored, product variation is real. It would be prudent to examine exhaustive data first before giving certain general statements about how bad or good the product variation is. A preponderance of evidence to extrapolate a conclusion could be done as Robbo99999 says, it still has a very limited evidentiary weight compared to say physical constants like the speed of light. Although I wound not drag all of ASR into Robbo99999's reasoning like Heinrich does. All here can have varying opinions and standards of evidence and logic.
I don't have a dog in this fight so I'm not picking sides here, just providing my observation for balance. It's not that important as both of the positions of this debate could be true conditionally.
I don't have a dog in this fight so I'm not picking sides here, just providing my observation for balance. It's not that important as both of the positions of this debate could be true conditionally.
Robbo99999
Master Contributor
I've really liked these HE400SE headphones with a slightly modified Oratory EQ, but I've not been using them much recently - I feel that they fatigue/abuse my right ear (kind of like the right ear feels a bit blocked after using them). I don't know what's causing it, I mean measurements of my unit on my miniDSP EARS don't really show differences between left & right that would explain that.
View attachment 456780
Maybe there's something about the anatomy of my right ear that interacts to cause a short sharp treble spike somewhere. The right ear fatigue doesn't always happen when I use them but happens often enough that I think it's related. Since I've stopped using them I've not noticed right ear fatigue since then. They're still the best sounding headphone out of the box for me when used with an unmodified Oratory EQ, so they're super reliable on that front, just this right ear fatigue seems to have slowly come to light. I know short sharp treble spikes have been noted with some other users on this forum with this headphone.
EDIT: many years ago when I first had my HE4XX I had the same problem, and in the same ear, the right ear. Strange. I don't use the HE4XX anymore. These round cup Hifiman's don't seem to be suiting my right ear, weird!
View attachment 456780
Maybe there's something about the anatomy of my right ear that interacts to cause a short sharp treble spike somewhere. The right ear fatigue doesn't always happen when I use them but happens often enough that I think it's related. Since I've stopped using them I've not noticed right ear fatigue since then. They're still the best sounding headphone out of the box for me when used with an unmodified Oratory EQ, so they're super reliable on that front, just this right ear fatigue seems to have slowly come to light. I know short sharp treble spikes have been noted with some other users on this forum with this headphone.
EDIT: many years ago when I first had my HE4XX I had the same problem, and in the same ear, the right ear. Strange. I don't use the HE4XX anymore. These round cup Hifiman's don't seem to be suiting my right ear, weird!
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