Curupira
Senior Member
Try doing a sweep with the tone generator at https://squig.linkI'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!
Close your eyes and focus on the mono sound coming in front of you. Lower the volume so the tone generator isn't very loud (it will be 0dbFS). Start at 1kkhz and go upwards looking for treble spikes that skew towards the right.