HIFIMANHE6se Full-Size Over Ear Planar Magnetic Audiophile Adjustable Headphones V2

First the bad. The cable is horrendous, too short, twisty and kinked. Horrible.Secondly the meh. They need more clamp force but aren’t uncomfortable.Finally, who cares? They sound so darned good compared to other well regarded cans from Sennheiser and Focal that I’m happy to buy a different cable and a headband mod to improve the fit.Yes, they take a lot of oomph to drive properly but with a powerful head amp these are simply brilliant across genres.Just try them.

Its a great upgrade after using Sundara for a long time. Sundara is a great headphone but it lacks strong bass unfortunately. So after searching for planar magnetics with strong bass I ended up with HE6se V2 and decided to try it. I am so glad I did. This headphone is like a F1 Race car that is limited not to pass 90kms/hr.To break that limit it needs an EQ. First I used it with my SMSL M500 MKIII Dac/Amp and I was disappointed. Then I bought Singxer SA1 headphone Amp to boost its performance. The sound level increased like 30-35 percent but it was still a bit bright with the heights and lacking bass. Then I decided to try EQ and installed Peace and select Bass Boost. OMG ! It got rid of that slight bright heights and added the bass I was looking for all that time. It started to sound just I was expecting it to sound right out of the box. Also the sound is more clean and clear and detailed than Sundara. Its just amazing!So basically to get the phenomenal sound from this headphone:1.Just EQ it with your current Dac/Amp. If the sound and bass is loud enough for you, you may get away paying an extra money for a new Amp.2.After EQ if you think the bass is still lacking or the sound is at max but still not loud enough!Then you need to look for an good amp something like Topping D90 or Singxer SA1 etc.. ( I am using Singxer SA1 with volume knob always fixed at around %85-90 and from computer at %50-60 usually. When I want louder I go %70-80 from computer but never passed %90.(without jumper mod which makes SA1 even louder). If you have the budget you can go for higher Amp of course but not necessary if you ask me. ( I saw a lot of positive comments in forums about Soloist 3X with HE6se ). If you don't have the budged there are some people saying they get very good performance with some cheap speaker amps but never tried so I cant comment on that.About the Headband Mode ( Do You Need it?)If you find clamping force is not enough and top of your head starts to hurt after half an hour or less then the answer is YES (which was my case).If you are fine with default headband congrats you just saved some money. There are different headband mods for this headphone across the web but I think Hifiman Hybrid headband is one of the best and it is very simple also (Its taking 3-4 min to change them). Search for Hifimen hybrid headband ( which is Sundara headband ironically :) The trick here is you need to use the original 4 screws that is coming with HE6se not the ones which are coming with Hifimen hybrid headband !About the Grill Mode ( Do You Need it?)Some people say it increases sound stage a bit because it is more open but honestly It is very minimal difference and very difficult to notice. There are lots of grill mods again. But I bought mines from arcticcables because they are CNC cut and they look and fit much better. ( For dust filter I bought 2xpack 120mm dust filter Ultra-fine Mesh for computer from Amazon. I cut and glued them they looked fabulous. The trick here is just don't use too much glue only edges and a bit in the middle otherwise they look terrible)DOES IT WORTH THAT MUCH HASSLE FOR THIS HEADPHONE?DEFINITELY YES !!!

This is a wonderful headphone and it is very hard to do better within this budget, if not impossible, if the objective is to acquire a HiFi headphone. It is fully open, needs a lot of power (more later) and probably won't withstand much abuse, so definitely do not buy this before considering all these elements before.I personally do not care much of perceived built quality or cables, so I have no problem with what I got in the box. Also easthetics do not matter to me but do consider that these will never be head turners.Basically you should just buy them for their sound, which for me is the only considerartion aside with comfort, which also matter to some extent.And the sound does not disappoint. Bright and detailed, they remind me a lot the Sennheiser HD800 with less soundstage and much better bass that you can hear and feel, while with the HD800 forget about feeling it: those were designed for Classical music and therefore don't expect a good reproduction of frequencies under 80 Hz. With that said, it is a flattering comparison for the HE6SE at less than 1/3 of the Sennheiser price!I prefer by some margin the Arya SE, but those cost more than twice the price and I am not sure if they reproduce more details.And, last but not least, power requirements. In my opinion there is a lot of misinformation in the internet around this topic. While I am not debating that these are the most power-hungry headphones money can buy, I think it is completely misleading to say you need a speaker amplifier (with adapter) to properly run these, or a 2k£ headphone amplifier. I have used initially a modestly price but powerful Topping A30 Pro to run these and I got a great sound around 80 to 90% of the volume. Like others I wondered what I was missing, so I bought an Hifiman EF400 amplifier/DAC, which is reported to run them well. And I couldn't tell the difference from the A30 Pro. If anything, the bass on the A30 Pro is slightly better. So overall I found some talks about power requirements to be just misinformation. Just keep in mind that they won't be driven well by any amplifier (like the Arya SE), but you do not need to spend a fortune to run them properly. No esotheric tube amps with pre-WWII tubes, no speaker amps required.

It sounds good straight out of the box, but with a simple EQ (using an Oratory1990 preset within Peace UI on windows) this thing really improves and sounds excellent.But I'm not keeping it because the earpads are very comfortable. The openings are too small (and I have small ears). I can't wear these for very long.They do need a lot of power to sound their best. But there's an abundance of high powered amps for low prices on the market now.For sound these punch well above their price point. For comfort they punch well below.

Absolute bargain. Great headphones. Beats your Beats and Apples etc effortlessly.One caveat though- they are relatively insensitive so you do need a bit of power to drive them properly. Not great to plug into your phone

Make sure you have a sufficiently powerful amp and there is no headphone under £1000 that comes even slightly close to this headphone. The next nearest is the HE1000 Stealth and then the Susvara.