šŸ”¶ Hifiman HE1000v2 and HE1000v2 Stealth Edition

Thank you!

Don’t make me Picard you! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

It should be pointed out I got this excellent condition HekV2 and Plussound cable bundle for about the same cost as a brand new Arya at MSRP. Just doing my reviewer duty :wink:

Well, I got these a few days ago. Not quite sure what I think about the sound just yet. I think the bass is improved (vs the Arya) for my library, though. The mid-bass no longer leaves me wanting.

I did not expect these to be so uncomfortable. The Arya wasn’t bad at all, but with these I feel like the sides and top of my skull go numb after a couple of hours. I actually miss the comfort of the LCD-X.
I’ll see if a headband cover improves the comfort on top, but I don’t know what to do about the pads. Any ideas?

Well, comfort seems to have improved after some time. Still not great, though. Surprisingly, I’d say that these fit surprisingly differently to the Arya considering they’re the same design, so anyone who didn’t find that comfortable might have more luck here and vice versa.

The sound is… not entirely what I expected. In fact, I didn’t notice much of anything at first, maybe missing some factors that I felt were better on the Arya. However, I definitely appreciated this headphone more when I switched back to other headphones: nearly everything just sounds really good. I can shuffle my entire library on them and nearly everything sounds at least good, if not great. Fewer ā€œwowā€ moments than I had with the Arya, though.

The bass on this headphone is great, it improved in exactly the ways I was hoping from the Arya: more mid-bass, enough of a physical sensation for me.
The mids are also great. The timbre, especially of acoustic guitars and pianos, is something else. The treble is the only area where I have some issues. There was a fair bit of sibilance earlier on, but I think that’s mostly better now. Drums (I think it’s mainly the toms) on a lot of tracks are kind of fatiguing if I turn the volume up, which I often want to do, in the hope of getting guitars to sound like the Arya. At quieter levels, it’s alright, though.

If I think back to the Arya, I miss the aggressive sound of electric guitars. I also have the feeling the soundstage and instrument separation aren’t as good, but I wonder if that’s just my memory.

Thanks for sharing. What amp and dac are you using?

Just the dac2541 → V281 I have in my profile. Seemed to work fine for the Arya.

Has anyone tried some portable/transportable amps with these that they found to pair well with the hek? I really like the idea of being able to move about a bit with my setup.

ā€œJustā€ the dac2541 and V281!?!? Lol. That’s a damn good chain!

HekV2 and Arya are a bit different. Hek is definitely the technically superior one, but Arya does some things that some will prefer. I hope you figure it out!

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The new iDSD Diablo might have a shot. I haven’t heard it, but it has a hi-current mode. Still…the HekV2 is quite revealing. The Diablo very well may bottleneck it too.

Someone send me a Diablo to play with! :grin:

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Yeah that’s kinda what I have been thinking :sweat_smile: The BX2+ has really interested me since its got quite a bit of power behind it for planars, although I’m not sure about anything higher end than that, need to look into it a bit more. Just thinking of possible options before I save up more for a v281 or something in that sort of performance range.

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I tried playing around with EQ a bit. reducing 5.5k by a couple of dB seems to help the drums to sound a bit better, but I’m not used to applying EQ on my own, so better is probably possible. Funny that I didn’t have the same problem with the Arya: according to Crinacle’s graphs, they’re the same there. I guess the extra energy the Arya has in the treble between 3–5k probably does something here.

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What if you rigged up a shoulder strap for the V281 and got a really long extension cord? Would that be transportable enough? :rofl:

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It could be a psychoacoustic thing too. With increased resolution some frequencies could sound more or less emphasized.

How long have you had it?

Just a week so far. I’m not sure I hear much increased resolution compared to my memory of the Arya, but I’ll just blame my memory for that. It’s definitely far more resolving than the AH-D7200 or Elegia!

Also…risky question…what headphone cables are you using?

Mostly an Audioverse ā€œbasicā€ cable with a Hart interconnect, but since I read about cables making a difference with this headphone, I also tried with the stock cable. I’m not sure I noticed a difference, but I’ll try the stock cables again today.

Could get something like this :eyes::joy:

It took me a week or two to properly appreciate what the HeKv2 can do, I also had to change up what I normally listen to in order to see exactly what it can do. I had to listen to stuff with more natural instruments to start seeing what is really very nice with them.

Also, I’ve noticed quite a large difference in the sound compared to the stock cable whilst using the hart I have. The hart reduced bass and also the part I love about them the most, the spatial recreation.

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You just need one more piece:

Then you’re completely OTG!

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Only if I get someone to carry me in it

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yep, this definitely makes sense. I already noticed some improvements over the past week.