Hifiman HE6SE vs ANANDA

They are the same ohm and sensitivity


Sorry, but I don’t care what the online specs say. I have owned both headphones. Just try and run the He-6 off an apple dongle…

Also, you are missing reading those stats too. The sensitive is what matters the most. The Ananda is 109.19 compared to the much lower He-6se at 83 dB.

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There’s about a +/- 15% sensitivity across the board on drivers and some he6se have been measured at 80db/w and I can personally say that my he6 6 screw was about identical to my he6se v2 sensitivity wise. If you have an he6se v2 on the low side and an he6 on the high side of sensitivity you could easily have a lower sensitivity he6se than he6. It’s a lottery.

I have now used three He6seV2, so I don’t think there’s too much of a lottery. If someone wants to buy these and use them on an Apple dongle, that’s their choice.

The most enjoyment I got from the he6,he6se,and he6sev2 was from a Qutest>Saga+>Adcom gfa545II setup…for fun,slam,speed,energy…i also used them on an xi Broadway and though it was more detailed and resolving, it did not quite have the same speed,energy,and slam as on the power amp set up, therefore, to me, it was more enjoyable. So im sharing my own personal experience with these headphones. If one is considering an he6 variant, I would only suggest a speaker amp. If someone doesn’t want to use a speaker amp, I’d suggest another hifiman instead, assuming they would wanna stay with a hifiman.

I would advice against a speaker amp only for the SE models. They do not have the same drivers as the OG HE6 versions. They are more efficient. I had a He-6seV2 on a speaker amp and the left driver died after 4 months, so I would not risk it on the SE models since they only have an 1 year warranty. The Soloist 3x sounds better and is safer than my speaker amps.

Gotcha. I would say too that I’ve know several people now that have had issues with the adorama he6sev2 on regular amps and speaker amps. Def does have it’s issues.

I would love to get an OG he6, but they are super expensive now. Hifiman also got rid of their tooling for the He-6, so if your drivers fail then you are just out of luck. I wish someone would reverse engineer the OG ones and try and make something similar.

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I’d like to give an update. I currently ended up having both now lmao. I’m running both of them using an IHA-6 and it’s doing great. Quick question tho, I might end up selling the Ananda and the IHA-6. My next amp is the Liquid Carbon X that does 2.8W balanced. Should be enough to power the HE6SE since it just needs 2W right?

Would an LCX amp at 2.8W balanced work?

I don’t think so. I have a Liquid Platinum that runs at (I think) 4.21W at 56 Ohms and IMO it can’t do them justice. Getting them loud and making them sing is two different things.

That’s odd considering it only needs 2W max tho. My IHA-6 doesn’t really go past 10 on the dial. Have you tried a different amp? But then again, Cavalli’s LCX when measured only gave half the reported output in balanced so maybe that’s true for most of their stuff?

Just tossing a +1 for the HE6SE over the Ananda. HE6 is more resolving, presents space better, and is a more engaging listen. IMO. I use a BF2 and SA-1.

Also, just thought I would post a link to Hifiman’s speaker adapter.

https://store.hifiman.com/index.php/amplifiers/he-adapter.html

Specifically lists the HE6SE for use. Not sure if anything magical is happening inside that box that would be different from just adapted wires though.

Found a bit more info on what’s in the box.



There is a difference between getting loud and sounding sweet. If I didn’t own the iFi unit, I might have been quite happy with the LP.

Ahh that I do get. I’d probably not have gotten the iha6 if i didn’t have my eye on the he6se. Having both of them now, I don’t regret it. But having so much power in the iha6 makes me wanna get more cans lol

With the iFi Pro iCAN it is a mix of crazy power AND bass boost AND the 3D effect that makes the HE6se V2’s so fun, to me.

The LP has tons of power. Actually it has so much gain that it’s really not much fun with very efficient headphones or IEM’s.
It has a Lot more power than the Drop LCX as I used to own that.

I thought about getting the Ananda’s, but kept reading that everybody moved up to the Arya eventually, so I thought, why bother.

Then @MON mentioned that he preferred the HE6se V2’s over the Arya’s in certain area’s and so I jumped on them. With the iCAN, special features enabled, it is an Amazing pairing.
I never felt that with the LP.

I’d really rather suggest keeping the iha-6 if you plan to pick up a he6, it’s going to do a much better job than something like a lcx and better than platinum from my experience. The he6 is just picky when it comes to both quantity and quality of power, so no matter how much you try and push through it power wise, if the quality aspect isn’t there it won’t really impress, which is why it sounds somewhat lackluster on more midrange amps, I do think it starts to get pretty impressive with the aforementioned pro ican, soloist 3xp, etc, that range of amps

Without knowing the resistor values, that looks like a reasonable speaker tap.
Is just twice the asking price I would expect for one.