Background
See here for background.
After determining that my headphone amp was up to the task (see background),
I ordered a pair of
HiFi Man HE-500
headphones from my favorite headphone place,
the friendly knowledgable folks in Montana, also known as
Initial Impressions
They're big and bulky,
high build quality made of metal,
remind me of
David Clark headsets for pilots,
but they're not heavy, they are comfortable though looser fitting than the HD-600s.
They come in a really nice box, similar to how the HD-600s are (or used to be) shipped.
They come with vinyl/leather pads installed,
with extra velour pads in the box easy to swap.
The velour ear pads are similar to the HD-600s, though not as soft and round rather than oval.
They have a braided cable that has significant microphonics,
so listening is best done sitting still.
The velour pads sound a bit more smooth and integrated than the vinyl/leather,
so I used them for the entirety of this review.
I hooked them up to my tuner and ran them at 90ish dB SPL for about 24 hours
before any serious listening.
For the first 3 days I owned them they were constantly running,
either on my head or on my tuner unattended.
HiFiMan recommends 150 hours of break-in,
but I believe this is to break in the listener's ears and expectations.
The sound may have changed slightly after the first 4 hours of breakin,
but such subtle changes are hard to pin down unless you can do fast switching,
which is obviously impossible over several hour time ranges.
I didn't observe any changes in the sound after that,
and as a well trained and experienced critical listener I am confident in this,
though of course nobody can be 100% sure.
How I Reviewed
Throughout this review, I had the HE-500s and HD-600s side by side on my amp,
and switched back and forth repeatedly on the same musical selections.
All switches OFF, no adjustments to the sound,
just my
CD Player
playing directly into the
MOH amp
through my
ladder stepped attenuator switchbox.
I adjusted volume slightly between them to achieve subjectively the same SPL
due to their difference in efficiency.
I occasionally compared both headphones with the Maggies, which I consider my reference,
as they have flat response, neutral tonality and vanishingly low distortion.
They measure +/- 4 dB from 30 Hz to 20 kHz at the listening position in my tuned room.
NOTE:I'll be filling in the empty links below.
Some folks might find it useful to see the exact recordings I used during this evaluation.
The Sound: Part 1
My first impression when I put them on was,
"WOW this is big, open, refined, wide sound".
That lasted about 4 seconds.
My next thought was,
"Where's the midrange?".
We're talking massive midrange suck-out here.
But without any other apparent distortion.
It was as if someone had preserved the bass and treble,
but ever so carefully and gracefully snipped out the midrange.
I figured this is just an initial impression,
I'll listen more and see where this leads...
that's what the fun of this hobby is all about.
The Sound: Part 2 (Bass Response)
Oh Bass, thou art more lovely and more temperate than any other
headphone or speaker on this Earth.
Did I mention the HE-500 has incredible bass response?
Seriously, I have never heard bass like this except in nature.
The impressive depth, speed and clarity can be heard in pretty much any good recording
of any kind of music that has low bass.
Yet that only scratches the surface.
Its perfection can only be fully grasped when one hears how it sounds with acoustic instruments
recorded in natural spaces:
kettle/timpani drums, double bass violins, etc.
The perfect blending of the fundamental and harmonics is fundamentally RIGHT.
Suffice to say, the HE-500 bass is the best I've every heard, period.
Neither attenuated nor boosted, just perfect in every way.
It's what this headphone does best.
The Sound: Part 3 (Treble Response)
The treble response is very good -
smooth and clear, but that's merely table stakes for a $700 pair of headphones.
But it's not perfect.
It favors some harmonics or frequencies over others,
creating a slightly surreal aspect to the music.
This is especially evident on mandolin, harp and similar plucked string instruments.
They are superbly clear, though a shade more crisp than they are in reality,
and the timbre or voicing is slightly off.
Yet there is not even a hint of harshness - very smooth they are.
It sounds good - nay, great - but somehow unrealistic.
As if one is having a dream of listening to the instrument in real life,
knowing it is a dream.
Strangely, this slight off-ness is not apparent with castanets.
They sound amazingly true to life.
Perhaps because their frequency range is so high?
I don't know.
But castanets did sound freaking great on the HE-500.
And by great I also mean realistic - looking up expecting to see real castanets in the room.
As did certain types of similar small, high pitched percussive sounds.
I could live with this treble response.
Nay, more than live with it - I could love and cherish it.
It would be the single slight blemish that proves the purity of the whole.
The Sound: Part 4 (Midrange Response)
Midrange is where the HE-500 completely fell apart for me.
It has several good qualities: smooth, balanced, unoffensive.
But it has two big problems:
This was apparent in all midrange sounds, but more obvious with some than others.
I first noticed it in a
rec1
sinfonia ensemble with oboes and bassoons.
The bassoons in this recording, which sound lifelike on my Maggies, HD-600 and Etymotic MC-5s,
sounded dry and hollow, like a sampled and synthesized recording of a bassoon.
I could tell it was trying to sound like a bassoon,
but it didn't actually sound like one.
Next I tried some other sinfonia concertos with clarinets, oboes and flutes.
rec2
Same thing - though to a lesser extent.
Also on piano,
though if it wasn't so obvious with bassoon it would have taken me longer to notice it on piano.
Dismayed yet intrigued, I continued exploring this with several recordings:
The Doppler is a flute duet played by Rampal and Arimani with piano accompaniment.
It ranks among my absolute best performances and most incredibly life-like recordings.
Each flutist has a unique tone and on the Maggies and HD-600 it is easy to hear the differences.
With the HE-500, it's harder to tell them apart.
It sucks out the midrange and veils the critical harmonics that differentiate the sounds.
What I hear is a very clean, pure, ethereal caricature of a flute,
but it doesn't sound like an actual flute.
The flute tone has a raw core of power that is somehow lost as the HE-500 "refines" the sound.
And the subtle differences in tone and players exist in that core.
The same happens with other singers, especially Kraus and Bartoli.
The timbre of their beautiful voices has an ethereal component.
But it also has an earthy, gritty power and resonance.
The HE-500 suppresses this latter aspect.
The initial impression is, "WOW, it's so open and spacious"
yet a moment later that fades into, "Where's the beef?",
and then to, "That doesn't sound like an actual human voice,
but a high fidelity purified copy of a human voice".
In my
Bach Cello Suites
the same thing was apparent.
The fundamental and upper harmonics of the cello were there,
but the middle harmonics were suppressed or veiled.
These are the harmonics that capture the magical woody resonance that makes a cello what it is.
And they were gone.
By the way, with "magical woody resonance", I'm not talking about speaker resonances
that can artificially, euphonically enhance the sound of a cello (or voice, or other instrument).
I know what that sounds like, and I know what the real instruments sound like,
and they are not the same.
Perspective
I've made strong statements about how the HE-500 voices the timbre of natural instruments.
Let me put it into perspective.
It's like one of those realistic paintings that looks like a photograph.
You can tell what the objects in the painting are,
but you can also tell they're not the real objects - it's not a photograph.
The voicing of the HD-600 (and the Maggies) is closer to a photograph,
while the voicing of the HE-500 is more of an artist's rendition.
I believe this explains comments other reviewers have made, that listening on the HE-500
they can tell all the different instruments apart by their unique timbres.
That's true, yet it doesn't mean the voicing is accurate.
Just because you can differentiate them doesn't mean they sound like the real thing.
This analogy isn't that great because photographs are crystal clear, more clear than any painting.
Yet the presentation of the HE-500 isn't less "clear" than reality,
in fact in some cases it's more clear than reality.
It's just different from reality.
Conclusions
I wanted to love the HE-500.
I tried to love the HE-500.
When I didn't find love at first sight, I blamed myself and tried again to love the HE-500.
I told myself the HE-500 had so many excellent qualities, I should love it.
I listened for hours on end, focusing on those excellent qualities,
training myself to love the HE-500.
But every time I heard it veil the timbre of acoustic instruments,
it was like my would-be love was lying to me.
Deep inside, I felt betrayed.
The HD-600 certainly are not perfect, nor are the Maggies - though the Maggies come about as close to perfection as
mortal hands can devise.
But I could always forgive the HD-600 and Maggie their flaws,
because I felt they were striving for the truth.
In contrast, I felt the HE-500 were not.
They weren't designed to reproduce
the actual sound of real acoustic instruments in natural spaces,
but to "improve" that sound by refining it into something more spacious and ethereal.
With that came the realization that "we" (me and the HE-500, that is) just weren't meant to be.
I really do like the HE-500.
It does so many things well, and it really sounds great.
But I hear the absolute reference - live acoustic music in natural spaces - frequently.
That's the music I love and the sound I'm looking for.
Despite everything the HE-500 do so well, they just don't sound like that.
It was a very hard decision to part with them,
but part we must.
I know that they are a fine headphone and will make many other listeners very happy.
Thy eternal beauty shall not fade until the subsonic frequencies be reached,
Thy response ruler flat like eternal lines to time.
.. but then I heard the midrange.