šŸ”¶ Hifiman HE6SE

Hard no on tubes and thx. Hifiman he adapter is more expensive and lower quality that just having custom bananas plug adapters made. What is your price range?

My price range is ā€œas much as is necessaryā€ ā€¦ I appreciate any recommendations.

Iā€™ve got a set of these coming. I also have a mt604 on hand. I can tell you how it pairs ar some point.

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If you want to buy once and just start enjoying, the burson soloist 3x at $1200 is a one and done solution with a down the road upgrade being the super charger being a very noticeable bump in overall clarity. If you want to spend less find literally any moderately powerful amp that has room for a pair of burson v6 vivid dual opamps (dip8 socket and they are quite tall) and you can be most of the way to the burson for considerably less money. Donā€™t think those opamps are a subtle change either. They are a night and day difference in sound characteristics. Itā€™s not one of those ā€œaudiophileā€ things that you have to struggle to hear. Not a single headphone amp under $1000 does these headphones justice as is but plenty can sound quite good with an opamp swap. Power isnā€™t necessarily your biggest enemy with these headphones, but it definitely helps. Sterile amps will always leave you unimpressed with these headphones. Iā€™ve seen it a dozens of times. Including myself. Note that Iā€™ve settled on the burson soloist with the super charger I find myself wondering how much I even like my $3500 he1000sesā€¦but before the burson I was really only able to get any serious enjoyment out of them on a parasound a21+ (after about $30k in speaker amp trial and error) and considered selling them when I only had an a90. I can do some amp shopping for you when I get home in a little while and find a solid opamp swappable amp if youā€™d like. V6 vivid opamps seem like they were made for these headphones and for around $160 new for a pair or around $100 used theyā€™re a decent bargain for what they accomplish.

I see you @M0N and you saved me with the parasound. Thank you so much for that.

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Good to hear lol, it really is a pretty nice amp for the he6 (and speakers of course, using the burson as a pre for that one?). Iā€™d also agree with your take with the amps for the he6, they really just need both high quality and high quantity power and thatā€™s not really easily achievable sub 1k imo. The burson is a good choice for the money as you mention

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ya know, i havenā€™t even tried that. wow i feel stupid lol. was using those for active monitors but gonna have to try that now.

Actually a pretty nice preamp when you adjust the settings, although you could do better on that front for an a21+, but the preamp can change quite a lot in 2ch, can make a pretty noticeable difference for driving an he6 off a power amp too

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great, now i have to fight the 1000 armed octopus living behind all my equipment tonight. i really need to clean up my wiring mess.

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Resolve and several other found the Sundara Pali pads to be the best among hifimanā€™s offerings. So thatā€™s one other option. If different pads donā€™t get the sound you want, thereā€™s always EQ which is what I went with. (EDIT: ignore the pad suggestion)

I still occasionally use my Sundara. But the HE6se way more alive sounding thanks to its great dynamics. So Iā€™m sure youā€™ll like them if you can fix the tuning.

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pretty sure the stock he6sev2 pads is the same as the sundara 2020 pali pads

You might be right. I checked again and the v1 used different pads but the v2 might be the same. I have an old Sundara so I canā€™t confirm

I wouldnā€™t use speaker amps for the HE-6seV2. I had the left driver fail after having mine hooked up to the parasound zamps for about 3 months. The SE models are not as power hungry as the originals. I would suggest the Burson Soloist 3x. If you sign up for Underwood Hifi email deals they have it on sale for 999.

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I am being helpful by giving my experience. You can choose to follow my advice or not. Itā€™s stupid of you to call someone elseā€™s experience stupid. I personally have had zero issues with the Soloist, so by my experience your comment about it is stupid then. See how stupid that line of thinking actually is.

Im just saying you have a sample size of one and no other controlled factors and youā€™re jumping to a conclusion and asserting it as fact. Saying speaker amps kill these headphones is getting in the way of some incredibly good combos that people would never find if they blindly take your word for it. I have absolutely nothing against you at all. But saying speaker amps kill these headphones is a fallacy and is objectively misinformation.

But your experience is just a valid as mine. I am sure if you go through all the threads about these headphone across all the forums you will find the same thing happened to others. Maybe next time you disagree with someone, you should use less aggressive and extreme word choices.

Thatā€™s fair and I apologize. That being said the 4 screw he6 I had was almost identical volume as my he6se v2 so the difference in power requirements is quite varied. With an impedance variance of +/-~15% and a sensitivity variance of +/-15% thereā€™s a lot of room for chance to have one easier to drive than others. Iā€™ll find the article when I can but Iā€™ve seen someone with all the fancy testing equipment measure their he6se v2 sensitivity at 79db/w and thatā€™s lower than 4 and 6 screw normal ranges by quite a bit. Of course thatā€™s anecdotal at best, but itā€™s another experience that wholly contradicts what youā€™re saying. On average, you are correct, but that doesnā€™t mean it applies to 100% of cases and to push the point further some of the amps Iā€™ve used were closer to 700wpc and mine didnā€™t spontaneously combust. And that was at 100% volume attenuated by a preamp. I really am sorry I acted like a child, I just woke up.

Thanks for apologizing. That is really rare on the internet. All of our accounts are anecdotal at best and you can choose to believe any of our comments or not. I will say this though, the Burson Soloist does sound much better than the parasound to me. I even had two of them running in mono and the soloist bested them. I never turn my Soloist off, so that might be why I have never had issues. The manual even says to leave it on all the time. My Liquid Gold X can almost drive the He-6se perfectly except for long bass notes which causes the amp to shut itself off, but the Soloist has no issues here.

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Yeah warm up is way too long. My soloist is gonna be turned on for years. No way Iā€™m waiting 2 hours after I get home to start listening to music, itā€™s part of how i unwind after a long day.

have you or anyone tries the he6se v2 on a rebel amp? curious how good that is relative to like an a90 or burson soloist

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It was better than the a90 but not quite enough color for my tastes. Driving power was decently solid and some EQ can get it to an alright spot.