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Sound Quality
Oh man! The HE400S is a fabulous sounding headphone! Right off the bat, I'll say it lacks low bass extension and is just a tad splashy sounding in the treble...but that's when I compare it with the best headphones available. Given it's price and type, I find it best to compare them head-to-head with the venerable HD 600/650. Listening side-by-side, I've got to say I prefer the HE400S over the HD 600 by a modest margin.

I suggest the reader have a look at the Sennheiser HD 600 measurements along side the HE400S as a reference point.

Raw frequency response plots show a gently rising response from 300Hz to 2kHz, and then a 12dB peak at 3.5kHz with subsequent roll-off to baseline level at 10kHz falling somewhat thereafter. This is very close to the Harman target response and the mid-range coherence I heard is likely a result of this profile. The HD 600, by comparison, shows the raw response actually descending between…

For a long time Mr. Speakers' Dan Clark, Founder and CEO, has worked his way up the ladder from enthusiast, to modifier, to manufacturer of heavily modified Fostex T50RP headphones. With the Ether (starting at $1499), Dan has completed the transition to a headphone completely designed and manufactured from scratch...and sounding better than anything he's previously produced. Congrats Dan!

Description
The Ether is a full-sized, circumaural open acoustic, planar magnetic headphone. The look is superb, to my eyes, the…

More than any other category, hard-core headphone enthusiasts love to rage about the failings of top-of-the-line headphones. It's perfectly understandable. When a $1500 headphone doesn't crush the performance of a much lower priced headphone—let's say the $400 Sennheiser HD 600 or $300 HiFiMAN HE400S—most enthusiasts are want to winge about it. But that's life. Developing headphones at this level is an expensive proposition, and normal diminishing return curves, it's quite understandable in this new but increasingly maturing category that manufacturers aren't hitting "perfection…

Measurements

Raw frequency response plots show a headphone that's quite flat between 60Hz and 1.7kHz. Below 60Hz, due to the transition to below pad resonance, the Ether has a roughly 2dB loss. This is very common among planar magnetic headphones and the Ether actually does a pretty good job of remaining flat in this area. The Harman response curve would want a bass rise beginning at 150Hz and increasing to a shelf at about +2dB to +4dB.

Above about 300Hz, the Harman curve would want a gentle increase up…

Editor's Note: As I read and edited this article an ever-increasing grin spread across my face as I realized it was Bob's geekspeak love note to Ti Kan and Morsel for their ledgend M3 DIY headphone amp. I'm sure they're both ticked pink at your praise, Bob.

It seems to me Bob's message here is: If you're a fairly accomplished DIYer, this is surely an amp to consider buildings.

This episode is full of ideas on what makes audio sound better (or worse). If you're like me, constantly searching for scientific reasons,…

You just never know what's going to show up from InnerFidelity's headphone measurement program. Today I got to measure a rather unique completely DIY headphone.

"The Empiric," built by superbestaudiofriends.org member feilb is a visual stunner. But more stunning, much more, is that they are not modifications of an existing headphone, but rather a self-designed and hand-built from the ground up headphone. Well, he sourced the drivers, but everything else is pure imagination.

He's got some great pictures in this…

I had a long and very interesting conversation with Dr. Fang Bian, CEO and Founder of HiFiMAN, earlier this year in which I learned Bian had two strong tracks in his life: audio and inorganic chemistry, specifically nano-technology. It seems to me, the HE1000 is the first time where Fang has been able to express these two disparate disciplines in a single product.

The HiFiMAN HE1000 ($2999) has a "nanometer thickness" diaphragm. I've asked Dr. Bian how thick that is exactly...but unfortunately that's a trade secret at the…

Sound Quality
So seductive. I don't remember when I've had a headphone that sucked me into the music this much. And not just one type of music...almost any and every track I punch play on stops me in my tracks. The exception would be loud complex music like metal mass orchestral crescendos where the HE1000 seems to become a bit too confused in the mids and treble.

The best word I've found to describe the overall sonic impression of the HE1000 is "soft." At first, after hearing them for a bit, I thought this soft nature would end up reducing dynamic impact. It does, a bit, but…

Raw frequency response plots show a headphone with very little change due to positional differences. Bass response is remarkably flat and well extended. Mid-range response from 200Hz to 1kHz is nominally quite flat, but significant features reside here. Not sure of exactly what to make of it, but will note that these feature coincide with spikes in the THD+noise plots. My WAG (wild-assed guess) is that they represent some diaphragm modal resonances, possibly due to the very thin diaphragm. The treble hump…