On the left, the HE-5XX that I received today. On the right, the HE-500 (Audeze headband and velpads). Both were driven by 4-pin XLR connectors from the Cavalli CTH, Cavalli Liquid Platinum, Marantz MM7025, or the THX AAA 789 at various times during my initial listening session.
First things first. The box is rather spartan (no cloth material as shown in MLE’s review), which resembles that of the boxes from previous Drop collaborations (HE-4XX and the Edition XX). The following also greeted me out of the box:
As you can see, one of the screws of the right button is exposed just from hanging the left cup. To fit on my head, the cups are spread further apart, which further exposes the screw. It looks like that the right button is about to fail.
What follows is my stream of consciousness initial impressions of my newly arrived HE5XX to a friend:
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Very cheap feeling, probably one of the cheapest feeling headphones that I’ve held in my hands (like Fischer-Price cheap feeling). Both the HE500 and the HD6XX feels much more substantial than the HE5XX. The upshot is that the HE5XX is light as feather where one would have no problems wearing it all day.
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L/R indicators are not immediately noticeable (later found written on dark on dark text, see above pic) but one can tell which side is which from the cup angle.
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There is indeed a chemical smell on the headband (definitely not new car, lol), but it isn’t strong nor does it fill my apartment with it.
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The HE5XX lacks the slam of the HE500.
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The slam of the HE5XX improves when driven from my Marantz (140WPC at 8ohms) but still noticeably trails that of the HE500 on the same amp.
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The resolution/detail retrieval capabilities of the HE5XX trails that of the HE500, which is by no means a resolution monster.
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There’s less body in the mids of the HE5XX than the HE500. When switching from the HE500 to the HE5XX, the mids sounded thin and the upper mids and treble on the HE5XX were a little more peaky than the HE500 on Sun Kil Moon’s “Duk Koo Kim [YT]”
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The CTH and LP add much needed body to the HE5XX
Later on, I found that the right connector on my HE5XX is becoming a little wonky. Also, the right button makes the right gimbal swivel considerably looser than the left gimbal.
I’ll add more later…
EDIT: Couple of hours later, I smell the chemical odor from the HE5XX in my apartment (kind of almost towards burnt plastic smell but thankfully not as rancid) with the cans sitting a few feet away from me.