The story so far...

After just a month from acquiring my Denons and splurging on a desktop amp setup, I broke out the bank and decided to further indulge myself into my wallet-sucking hobby again. This time, I was gunning for open-back headphones.

I was able to save more time for this decision, mainly because I managed to loan some higher end models from some generous pals of mine. Within the last week or so, I had the Beyerdynamic T1, the HD650, the LCD-2 on my desk, ready for auditioning. Several days later I came to a consensus that I liked the T1 out of the bunch, but it was way out of my intended budget. So I settled for the dark horse of the planar mag world, the HiFiman, specifically the HE-500.

A trip to Jaben and almost 3 hours of auditioning, I brought home the HE-500. This was the newer, revised version where HiFiMan went up a notch from its previous version. You get a fine spread of extras and accessories with the headphone itself; there's one set of leather and velour earpads, a leather bag, a 3m braided silver cable, an extra set of connectors and lastly, the hard-shell carrying bag with the HiFiMan logo proudly emblazooned on it.

The spoils

Taking the phones out, holy crap, they are heavy. They weigh approximately half a kilo, but I expected this after reading its specs online. The HE-500 are heavy compared to most if not all modern flagship models. The gimbals housing the planar mag drivers is 120% solid, cold metal in and out. You can literally fend off zombies with these. The padding on the headband is very minimal, very similar to my Denon AH-D5000s, but it didn't have the uncomfortableness I feared. However, HiFiman could've put some extra effort into its headband padding, but it's not really a huge gripe for me. Despite being heavy, the HE-500 don't feel that way on my head. The clamping pressure distributes the weight evenly around my ears and the headband's centre-point didn't have that burning sensation on my skull. Very nice.









We all heard how notorious planar magnetics are when it comes to driving them. They are very much inefficient compared to the standard dynamic drivers we often see, and thus requires a hefty amount of power to drive them into their correct zone of fidelity. This may be the case for the HE-6, which literally needs a nuclear reactor to drive them, but very less so with the HE-500. Dr. Fang Bian, brainchild of the HiFiMan lineup, claimed that the HE-500 is the 'user-friendly' version of the HE-6, catering to the scenario where its more probable and realistic for audiophiles to reap the full benefits of a planar mag headphone without blowing a mint on a speaker amp system beforehand. Although it carries the same traces and workings of its higher-end big brother, the HE-500 doesn't require a whole lot of drive them. Granted, 1 watt is still a feat for most conventional, lower rung amps, lest you go for the reference or higher end models like the Ray Samuels, Eddie Current, Woo Audio or Rudistor variants.

The sound

So comes the main dish of this review. How does it sound? Initially, I want to just pair it with the Schiit Bifrost and Asgard and completely run through the bases, but I thought it would be interesting to see how the HE-500 would scale up in terms of equipment level. For this, I had tested the phones in this manner;

1) Naked and Unamped (yes, straight from my system's audio jack)
2) Fiio E10
3) Centrance DACport
4) Schiit Bifrost + Asgard

Naked and Unamped.


Fiio E10
I wasn't very confident with this. Sure, it drove my ATH-M50s with authority, but the HE-500 were on a whole different level. I was partially right, and wrong at the same time. The E10 does pump some juice into the HE-500, but not a whole lot. The sound is very hollow, and I can assure you its not the open-back design at work here. The lows, mids and highs all sound very thin, unsatisfactory. Even with the volume pot at max, I couldn't get a proper drive.

Centrance DACport
This opened up a whole can of whoop-ass. The DACport drives the HE-500 very decently. I had the volume pot at near max for this. The frequencies are much better represented here, it's fidelity has went up a notch from the E10. Alas, it didn't have the control and finesse I was looking for. However, I do want to mention that the DACport is powered by USB, which is already amazing considering how power-hungry planar mags are. It deserves an honorable mention at least.

Schiit Bifrost + Asgard
If the DACport opened up a can of whoop-ass, the Bifrost + Asgard opened up 10 more cans of ass-whooping goodness. The lows, mids and highs are better than ever, they sing and dance to the Bifrost + Asgard combo. It retained the lush, warm sound I was fond of with my Denon cans. The mids are placed in that sweet spot where the vocals just serenade you to no end. The bass extensions are very nice, they go real low and high when needed, and the highs are a pleasure to listen to, not fatiguing, piercing or overly bright. the soundstage is very big and wide, as expected of a open-back design. I find the volume pot at the 1pm clock sufficient enough for my listening, with lots of headroom and tons of SPL still left to spare.

*The following is a series of songs I picked out purely based on preference for this testing. I want to first declare that my selection of songs are very anime and game-centric. In no way these songs and its genre are ultimately the must-go-to ones and its descriptions reflect the entirety and true potential of the HE-500. While I'm pretty confident mainstream music would work equally good on them, I choose songs which have strong emphasis on instruments, vocal, and soundstage as opposed to music recorded in a cramped studio room. All music files used are in FLAC format at 1050kbps*



One particular song I was very eager to test out was Aoi Eir's orchestral version of Memoria from her Prayer album. I'll be brutally honest, when the orchestra starts to play, I got goosebumps all over me. My heart was racing faster. And when Aoi started to sing, I lost it. Tears rolled down my eyes, and my entire body just shivered from her vocals. It was an euphoric sound, something you have to listen for yourself to know.




I recently started the Atelier Meruru game on PS3. So I had the whole OST downloaded in FLAC. Since the game has a very laid-back, easy-going soundtrack, and the Atelier orchestra team had always used a philharmonic hall to do their OST recordings, it was the perfect test for the HE-500s. Cadena was fun to listen to, the choir effect of the theme song, a signature of the Atelier series was simply stunning. The instrumental version of Alchemist Girl Meruru was equally fun. The bass and flute in Alchemic Boy and Girl was punchy and soothing overall. The lullaby musicbox from Little Toybox had me almost drifting off to sleep.




I played through the Supercell albums next. The vocals in Perfect Day was liquid and relaxed, the acoustic guitar was crisp and clear. The instruments in Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari and Sayonara Memories was fun to listen to.




The Everlasting Guilty Crown by EGOIST was pure bliss. The guitar riffs at the beginning are so distinct and clear, you can feel the energy from the guitarist's strum. The bass kicks are nice and good, they don't lack at all.




Mikako Komatsu's Black Holy gave a sense of depth and a space-like feeling. Again, her vocals literally sing to you. I swear, the HE-500s are very mid-centric, lush and warm, which suits me perfectly. Toumei no Yozora's slow and relaxed pacing gave me a sense of aloofness, like I was drifting off into space.


Conclusion

I think despite my best efforts to at least try to get a nice flagship like the Beyer T1, I find myself liking the lower rung models a whole lot more. As much as I liked the T1 when I auditioned it previously, it just didn't come close to what the HE-500 could do, for me at least. I'm quite the discerning listener, and while most may disagree with the HE-500 being better than the T1, it just didn't cut it for me. Though there is always room in my hobby for another headphone, a flagship maybe, but I want to lay low for the time being and enjoy this little treasure here. If you haven't dropped any cash on a pair of high-end headphones, and can't afford a flagship, the HE-500 may be up your alley, but be warned, they do take some power to drive to its full potential. I recommend at least a desktop setup as opposed to a portable setup lots of audiophiles are geared towards to let this baby really shine.

This post has been edited by Ban-kun: Jun 3 2012, 09:58 AM

I can do that on request, if anyone wants. I don't have a whole lot of mainstream music though, just a few like Green Day, Tokio Hotel, Far East Movement and Don Omar.

HE-500 sounds warmer, more lush, like my Denon AH-D5000.
T1 sounds zippy, but imaging and placement is dead accurate.
The LCD-2 sounds very dark to me, not my thing.

Yep, I did. Guys at Jaben 'borrowed' the cable from the HE-6 box and let me tried it.
It was awesome too, but I'm digging the silver cable more. Makes cymbals sparkle and tiny nuances more evident. Decay also fades better for me.

And yeah, they tried to poison me into getting the T1 instead, hence the 3 hour audition session. As much as I want it, I was pretty adamant about getting the HE-500.

This post has been edited by Ban-kun: Jun 3 2012, 10:54 AM

Gonna settle down for now while recovering from damage.

My next foray would be IEMs I guess. I might just indulge in 1 more headphone, probably a flagship, and be done with it.

Universal IEMs maybe. Customs is too much work and upkeep is costly.

I don't think I'll ever afford a stat phone.

While I do agree that copper compliments all frequencies across the spectrum, I find the silver for the HE-500 more to my liking. Mainly because the freqs on an open-back headphone don't sound that harsh compared to a closed-back. Might just be a placebo effect, I dunno. But I'm loving how jazz music and OST sound on my HE-500s with silver, the decay, the crisp clarity and the overall tonality and warmth is just pure harmony.


Ditto. I'm so glad my gut instinct told me to go with the HE-500. As much as I liked the T1's imaging, it didn't have that warm sounding intimacy I was looking for. So far, only my Denon AH-D5000 and my HE-500 fits that bill perfectly.

Jaben almost had me poisoned with the T1, but I remained strong.

About 48 hours now. Gonna target 200 hours.


They have the HE-6, HE-400 and HE-5, but no more HE-500s. I always seem to grab the last unit they have, lol.

They have both, yes, but I bought the last HE-500. They can still place orders for you if you want.
IMO, you're better off with the HE-500. When I auditioned the 5LE, I find the midrange and treble very withdrawn. The treble also sounds zingy, artificial like.

Not very impressed. It's also difficult to drive, 2 watts or so iirc. the 5LE was hooked into a govibe portatube when I auditioned it. So yeah.
Although for some reason the T1 paired with the portatube was actually very nice.

With better driving power maybe, but I'm more of a realistic audiophile, I get what I can afford and make sure my gear is fit for it, not shelling out monies for trophy amps/setups just because.

I can assure you, you won't feel a damn thing even with 500g sitting on your head. The clamping pressure takes care of that, and it doesn't crush your skull into a vice too. Leave it to the chinese...

This post has been edited by Ban-kun: Jun 5 2012, 09:21 PM

Unless you wear headphones 8 hours a day for a living, chances are you won't be affected.

Actually they had some sort of external sound card hooked up before this, some Asus Sonar card, didn't impress me either, lots of microphonic and static noise.

Have you tried Grado/Alessandro headphones? The feel like air on your head, especially with the oversized bowl earpads and their relatively lightweight and minimalistic look.

This post has been edited by Ban-kun: Jun 6 2012, 09:14 PM

Just a few more pics. I think someone here requested I posted my desktop setups. Here's one with the HE-500 and the AH-D5000 with my Asgard + Bifrost.

I noticed my all my headphones' models have the number '5' in them, as with my ATH-M50. Pure coincidence...?

In terms of actual application, the HE-500 would be more realistically plausible compared to the HE-6.
No point in grabbing a headphone to find that your amp has no power in driving it to its fullest. If you're buying the HE-6 and just get about 50-50 chance of swinging its fidelity, you might as well get the HE-500 and realize 70-80% of what the HE-6 can do.

They already rectified the problem by installing a muting relay in their future Asgard units.
propf is using it with his AKG and so far he hasn't blown his headphones yet.

I'm close to 150 hours of burn in on my HE-500, and I must say, the sound has opened up alot more. Better transparency, tonal accuracy seems to have improved as well, imaging took a huge leap forward, its like everything just fell into place effortlessly.

Now to just test it with a my coming-soon DHC Macromolecule and Clone cables.

This post has been edited by Ban-kun: Jun 17 2012, 02:16 PM