I’m bouncing between a KGSSHV Carbon and an iESL being fed by some Burson Timekeeper Voyager monoblocks with the “Max” package and I keep coming back to the iESL for the clarity, precision, and authority they get from the Timekeepers and while the smoothness of the Carbon is really nice, it’s definitely obscuring some detail which really surprised me. There’s some tracks that seem a touch more natural on the Carbon, but I’m starting to notice that it tends to mostly be poorly recorded songs so maybe it’s just the resolution and detail being just over the threshold of letting the bad come through on the iESL? Not sure.
Still really really early into listening and honestly my chain has come so damn far since I last heard these that they’re surpassing the expectations and memories of their capabilities I still had in my head by quite a bit so no real complaints at all with either the iESL or Carbon, just slightly different flavors. I should really think about getting a “better” energizer, but I just don’t know whether it’s going to be enough of a gain for my specific tastes to warrant the purchase right now. I haven’t tried a ton of energizers and I’d like to try a nice build of a T2 or a Woo 3ES Elite, but I have a history of giving tubes a million chances to win me over without any real success, though I was playing at a much much lower level at the time and I know a lot of the downsides of tubes start to lessen as you go up the quality ladder. Would be great to be able to demo a 3ES Elite to know for sure if it’s even something I like at all, but maybe I’ll make an excuse to stop somewhere on vacation to demo it or something. As for the T2s, they seem about impossible to come by without just having one built to order and the question of who to have build one is the question that would keep me up at night. I’m honestly kinda lost on where to go from here, but I’m not exactly chomping at the bit to go anywhere at all for now and I’m honestly pretty happy with where I am right now which is pretty nice to be able to say for once lol.
As an aside to the Shangs, the HE600 are fucking phenomenal as well and I was basically 100% confident they’d fall really short of the HE6 line with that thinner driver, but to my surprise, they hold up incredibly well and are easily the best tuned Hifiman I’ve heard so far (though they need a bass shelf imo and take it incredibly well). Pad swapped them and tossed a fat bass shelf on them and they slam like a freight train and have some of the most intense and well controlled rumble I’ve ever heard that actually physically shakes my head and the punch/impact speed seems very estat in raw speed. I’ve only seen one person give any comparisons to the HE6 or HE6se so far and they were saying they think they’re trash compared to the HE6 and I couldn’t disagree more, I think they’re very much a worthy successor that addresses a lot of the issues the se models had and some of the issues that the 4 and 6 screws had as well. The cup design basically accomplishes everything I’ve been toying with over the years with HE6 mods and gets rid of more cup resonance than I’ve ever been able to accomplish with mods on past models. From mod testing I’ve done in the past, removing as much cup resonance as possible significantly increases their resolving abilities and ability to slam and rumble without any issues and along with the increase in resolution from the cup resonance being fixed, the imaging and staging placement precision, which was one of the standout points of the HE6 line as a whole imo, gets even more razor sharp and well defined in space and the HE600 seems like it’s reaping all those imaging and staging benefits as well. I kinda wish there was just one more notch on the yokes on the HE600, but it’s actually not a huge problem, though I also got the Edition XV and Ananda Unveiled in too with the HE600 and they have plenty of adjustment so it’s a little annoying that the identical headband on the HE600 somehow has less adjustment range. They’re also surprisingly easy to drive WELL, though they do still take a bit of power. They actually sound great off of some portable setups which the HE6/HE6se models could just never even come close to pulling off so it seems like the massive source gear requirements might have been fully dissolved from the HE6 line, and that’s a win for everyone.
My curiousity for the HE600 was beaten out by my cynicism. The fact that you have had this experience with HE600 makes me want to at least audition a set.
I came into them really ready and wanting to hate but I just can’t. I’m sure they’ll come down in price or you could use a dealer. I got my HE600 through Hifiman from returning the Mini Shangri-La and at one point when I was talking to Hifiman, they quoted me at HE600 for $450, Edition XV for $250, Ananda Unveiled for $300 if I purchased them along with the Shang Sr, and I know from some chats that the prices can go a bit lower than that through some dealers. Somewhere around $420 for the HE600 I think. At that price, they just murder the price bracket, but I could see people wanting more bass than the stock tuning, I know I did. Pretty wild price to performance ratio, though, and I couldn’t really find a limit on the amount of bass they could take after a pad swap lol. I don’t usually care about measurements, but I’d really like to see a waterfall plot for the HE600, they seem super clean.
Through my HE-6 4 screw woes, I know the European HifiMan guy. He’s a good dude. I’ll reach to him at some point to see if I can audition a pair. If the performance is on parr with the OG, then, as you say, that’s quite the value proposition.
So apparently the HE600 is supposed to be an HE500 successor, which honestly makes sense, but it does step in line with OG HE6 tuning. Not sure if that means as possibility of a true HE6 successor, but either way the HE600 are a pretty great headphone.
3.5mm is technically the second/final generation. Early ones were dual 2.5mm. I have never heard anyone say anything about there being any physical or sonic differences between the 2 variants apart from the input plug.
That’s about right, prices pre covid were in that range, then they spiked.
After the unveiled shipped they dropped back into that range.
The only difference between versions is 2.5 vs 3.5 connectors at the headphone and I think they currently ship with black cable instead of the catheter cables they originally shipped with.
Yes that was MSRP, but, no one who took the time to talk to a dealer payed anything close to that.
These comments about the HE600 are still bouncing around my head… Should I get one in, even if I know I’m going to stick with my strict single planar policy and not keep it…?
Idk. They’re pretty damn good. At dealer prices, I’d say hell yeah, at MSRP, idk, still a maybe, but they do really kinda require a pad swap and a serious headband stretch (pull one side of the leather strap off and stretch it over a speaker or something). I wouldn’t own them without swapping pads but that’s easy enough and other than tossing on a bass shelf I wouldn’t really change anything at all about the tuning. I feel like they’re the slightest ergonomics revision away from being great out of the box but sonically they’re extremely capable.
Those in 115mm. They’re right on the cusp of being too big for the pad rings, but they do fit and once they’re on they don’t have any issues, but it is a bit of a bitch getting them on at first.
I wouldn’t get any aftermarket/third party pad rings, they’re all pretty brittle and like to snap when you’re bending them to get them into the pads or snapping them into place. The ones from Hifiman are pretty flexible and forgiving.