Is the return of wired headphones driven by a simple desire for better sound quality or is it part of a backlash against modern tech? Thomas Germain tries to find out.
I see that they make a bunch of lower end he-560’s now under a V2 or V4 model…
I have the original. Not my pic cause I don’t want to dig out the box but they’re these…
Those are usually powered by this(Schiit Mjolnir 1).
Obviously they’re recabled since that’s a balanced only amp. Which has plenty of power at 8W per channel at 32 ohm and 5W at 50ohm.
The later he-560s were not necessarily lower end, they sound the same imo (I owned the v1 and the v3), but they had come cost saving things like ditching the wood grain because of returns and cost and more importantly they ditched the evil mini smc connectors for the cable. I actually prefer the headband of the v3 to the v1, but it is a preference thing and you can actually buy both from Hifiman directly and swap them out (I did this with my Hifiman HE-6). The HE-560 v4 sucks though, I really hate that style of headband.
I don’t have pics handy, but I own the HE-400, HE-500, HE-560 v3 (v1 is long gone), Arya, and HE-6 (heavily modded now). The HE-6 is by far my favorite, but it is stupidly hard to power properly. They did a remake of the HE-6. but it has that stupid he-560 headband, so you’d have to mod it to make it decent. It also doesn’t sound quite as nice as the OG, but it’s pretty close.
I see that they make a bunch of lower end he-560’s now under a V2 or V4 model… I have the original. Not my pic cause I don’t want to dig out the box but they’re these…
Those are usually powered by this(Schiit Mjolnir 1). Obviously they’re recabled since that’s a balanced only amp. Which has plenty of power at 8W per channel at 32 ohm and 5W at 50ohm.
The later he-560s were not necessarily lower end, they sound the same imo (I owned the v1 and the v3), but they had come cost saving things like ditching the wood grain because of returns and cost and more importantly they ditched the evil mini smc connectors for the cable. I actually prefer the headband of the v3 to the v1, but it is a preference thing and you can actually buy both from Hifiman directly and swap them out (I did this with my Hifiman HE-6). The HE-560 v4 sucks though, I really hate that style of headband.
I don’t have pics handy, but I own the HE-400, HE-500, HE-560 v3 (v1 is long gone), Arya, and HE-6 (heavily modded now). The HE-6 is by far my favorite, but it is stupidly hard to power properly. They did a remake of the HE-6. but it has that stupid he-560 headband, so you’d have to mod it to make it decent. It also doesn’t sound quite as nice as the OG, but it’s pretty close.
Sorry for the rambling!