How does the he400se compares to the tygr 300 r?
For gaming I would say he400se is better all around and the 300r is warmer and some people probably like it for music more but itās nowhere near as detailed as the he400se. Also with a grill mod the he400se im starting to realize has a massive stage and every bit of imaging to use it. Vertical imaging on the he400se is outstanding and easily some of the best Iāve ever heard.
do you happen to work for Hifiman?
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I hate a lot of hifiman headphones. All but like 4 out of 30 are just shit.
Once I develop some courage I will do the grill mod.
Would a magni 3+/modi 3+ stack be able to run the he400se properly?
ok then these seem to be really good lol Thanks for the info!! I was slightly joking because i found it sus that in the āifi dacs get killed by staticā-thread one guy starts to defend Hifiman to the core and in another, someone (you) states that a newly-released $150 Hifiman HP is better then a $1000 Ananda lol, seemed like you tried to push sales ā¦
i do think anandas have their place but theyāre overpriced and by todays standards its becoming more the case by the day. when the ananda was just the new edition x or whatever it replaced it was a nice step up but still the price has always seemed high on the anandas to me. if you can find them on the used market for like $450 or less then sure theyāre a pretty good headphone but they just arenāt all that special.
Okay, sorry, I just donāt buy it. Tell us why?
Do you happen not to EQ your headphones at all and be treble sensitive? I donāt like Sundaraās default tuning either, but they respond so well to EQ that it doesnāt even matter.
No offence, but your opinion reminds me of Oluvās review of the 2020 Sundara, in which heās complaining about tonality and ignoring literally everything else about the headphone.
You give these short, edgy statements while everybody else is trying to compare them in detail. Look, someone wrote here the HE400i is nearly the same but slightly better than the HE400se. Someone else on reddit the exact same thing. Iām 99.9% sure these sound nearly identical to the HE400i and HE4XX, which are very good headphones but a class below Sundara.
Also, I donāt buy the idea that HiFiMAN are dumb enough to shoot themselves in the foot and release a headphone better than Sundara for 1/3 of the price.
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Speaking about edgy opinions. The reviewer below says the Sundara is more of a sidegrade to HE4XX. All of it is bullshit, of course. My Sundara out of the box stomp the HE4XX. If you trust his reviews, I beg you, take him with a grain of salt.
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Sundaras stage kind of poorly. It seems wide but depth is bad. Iāve said it before that sundaras are one of the only headphones that are planar that can still get congested and I didnāt think that was possible. They sound hazy and the imaging is nowhere near as sharp as the he400se. Iāll be blunt, I straight donāt give a fuck what you spend your money on but sundaras just arenāt some kind of special headphone. They just arenāt. Iāve sat with them both for plenty of time and I have no reason to shit talk one and love the other. Itās very obvious that you want to defend sundaras and thats fine. Susvaras are hifimans flagship planar. They developed the stealth drivers for the susvara to be acoustically transparent. This is almost certainly the reason the stage is so much bigger and Iām betting itās also why the imaging is so spot on, because thereās less in the way of the sound. The stealth drivers seem to be lower sensitivity and more detailed by quite a bit. Now that they have that process down it seems like theyāre putting them into their other priced tiers and started with the he400se. Also the lower sensitivity hifimans almost always sound better and this is on the lower end. As I said before thereās not really much character to the sound, its just very detailed and capable of slamming pretty hard in the bass. The soundstage width and depth is far wider and deeper than my grill modded he6se v2 and my arya. Nearing GL2000 levels. Vertical imaging is astoundingly good and I donāt quite know why but it is. Instrument separation is leagues better than the sundaras. The standard hifiman dip out of the mids seems either gone or a lot better as I donāt notice it at all. The he400se is just a better headphone. And itās cheaper. And again grills are a requirement. I was also serious about the he400se being better than the ananda, too. The driver tech is moving forward. Itās really not that hard to grasp, dude.
Sundara heabands are better. They can have that victory.
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The irony is that the model these ostensibly replace (judging by the āSā in the name and the color), the HE-400S (which have the far more comfortable suspension headband) have a āhigh for HiFiManā sensitivity of 98 dB and are the easiest to drive HiFiMANās Iāve ever owned (HE-400, HE-400S, HE-4XX, HE-500, HE-560, HE-5Se, Edition XX), you are right that they are notorious for having cans with low sensitivity.
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Luckily the padding on the new, non-suspension headband broke in nicely for me after about a week of wearing and kneading the pads gently with my thumbs.
I love the HE-400se Internationals.
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Same. These are enjoyable. Movies, gaming and just general listening. The 400se allows me put less wear on my Elegia which makes me happy
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Just heard the HE400se at my friendās house, he got them for 210 usd in Romania (yey, European prices). His take is that it sounds almost exactly like his Hifiman Deva (cabled). Not knowing how Hifiman Deva exactly sound like, in my opinion the HE400se sounds like a HE400i 2020 with slightly different tonality - thinner, less warm - but certainly doesnāt have the incredible musicality and the refined lower and upper end of the Sundaras. He didnāt let me borrow them so I can do a detailed comparison, but maybe Iāll take my Sundaras with me next weekend to his place and do A/B tests if heās okay with it. Now I am also curious about his Devas lol, and they look better in real life than in pictures thatās for sure.
I have auditioned one of my favorite records, Tool - Lateralus (which sounds phenomenal), in order to test what is for me the most important thing about Hifiman headphones - instrument separation, easiness of sound.
For 150 in the USA and around 200 in Europe this is about the best headphone for the price. So much better than HD6XX or HD560s imo! However, if you can still get the HE400i 2020 for a similar price I recommend it more, since it is not as dry/grey as the HE400se.
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Youāre a lucky person if the 400se Internationals are your ābeater cans,ā like an old car that you drive during the winter while the Porsche is in the garage. 
So after quite a bit of use these things can slam really hard. Didnāt expect them to change that much but I am pleasantly surprised. I never would have imagined planars could have this much difference after burn in and from what I can tell everything seems to have improved ever so slightlyā¦except bass. The bass is real now.
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I received the HE400SE earlier this week and I have been thoroughly enjoying them. I think they are great period, but especially because of the price. I have these, the Sennheiser HD560s, and the Focal Clear Mgs, and while a prefer my Clears for overall sound, these are pretty amazing (better than the 560s which I do like). I could easily live with these as my only Headphones.
I also replaced the stock grills with the honeycomb ones (order from Ebay). I canāt really say if it improves the sound stage as my auditory memory isnāt good enough to AB test it between Grill changes. My first set of planars as well and thoroughly enjoying it. When I decided to get the clears I was agonizing between the Anandaās and the Clear Mg, and really happy with how things worked out.
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Oh, and they are super comfortable for my head. Clamping is perfect, the ear cushions are comfortable and I am not getting any hotspots from the headband. Just perfect.