šŸ”¶ Hifiman HE6SE

The Audeze $200 rig basically will fit o HE6se cups? Any drilling needed? I am coom with that

Pad changind was a choreā€¦not really completed.

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happy cooming friend

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Pads look good. they are a pain in the ass to swap out. U running UPOCC or a hybrid?

Iā€™m not a big modder myself, but I know Iā€™ve seen Audeze headbands on hifiman headphones. Getting there is a different story. Hereā€™s a post from someone else modding an Audeze strap onto a Hifiman:

Audeze sells the yoke rods for $20, but not the yokes themselves.

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UP OCC Got off a guy on Yahoo Auctions JP for a great price.

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So Iā€™m no golden ears but after some listening on the Crest CA2 power amp, I can say that the soundstage gets a bit wider for sure, and I think the bass is a hair tighter / more textured. The difference between the balanced out on my Matrix mini-i 3 pro and the V280 is about the same as the difference between the V280 and the power amp imo. Which is to say, very little difference.

Imo the grill and pad swap were more noticeable as far as fixing the sound for my tastes. There is a definite advantage going to a powerful speaker amp, but I havenā€™t found it to be worth it. The Marantz MM7025 and Crest CA2 improved the soundstage and helped the bass response be a bit more impactful / detailed, but with the size of the Marantz and the fan noise of the Crest I canā€™t justify either at my desk. Maybe there is a holy grail amp out there that does something to these headphones that I havenā€™t comprehended yet, but I think Iā€™ve dug that rabbit hole deep enough for now.

I was ready to sell these after a week with them, Iā€™m glad I didnā€™t. They need burn-in. The soundstage and bass benefit greatly from removing/replacing the stock grill. Try different pads on them to tame the highs and bump the bass a bit.

My mini-i 3 pro outputs 1.9W at 33ohms and the V280 outputs 3.1W at 50ohms, so a far cry from the huge amounts of power recommended everywhere.

There is definitely the possibility that my ears are just dumb but I enjoy these just fine on the gear I have, and donā€™t see the need to plug them into a 500W tornado machine.

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789 is 3.5 watts at 50ohm
a90 is 4.8 watts at 50ohm
magnius is 4.2 watts at 50 ohm but is kinda noisy
jotunheim is 4 watts at 50 ohm (and i hate this amp)

options are out there for powering them for fairly cheap but most importantly CLEANLY which you will just not get out of most speaker amps

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It is pretty easy to do with the OG Hifimanā€™s. The hardest step is getting the easily-stripped screws off. Back then, some of the old Hifiman screws were glued on (loctite?), so others used something like a soldering iron to melt the glue and remove the screw. If the screw was already stripped, Iā€™d imagine them using a damaged screw extractor kit as well. Although, the screwheads of the OG Hifimans were tiny compared to the ones used currently. I also did a Audeze headband swap with my HE500:

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The Parasound Zamp v3 puts out about 7 to 8 watts into 50 Ohm and are under 300 on Amazon or even cheaper used. You could also get two of them and run them in Mono to get 90w instead of 60. They are also smaller then most Schiit amps.

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If anyone is looking for a nice cheap-ish cable with fast delivery, I recommend this guy https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NVHFPHJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

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Seconded. I LOVE this cable. Itā€™s my ā€œend gameā€ cable. :rofl:

I got my fenestrated sheepskin pads on Wednesday and my honeycomb grills last night, got everything assembled, and I like the results a good bit. I began with the pads, struggled terribly installing them, then watched a video and installed in 2 minutes. The comfort and build quality of the Dekonis is an immediate improvement, but I wouldnā€™t have stuck with the pad swap alone as I thought it really muddied the bass and negatively impacted just about everything I liked about them stock. But once I got the honeycomb grills on last night I really enjoy the combo.

Iā€™ll start by saying that I think you may be best off starting with the headphones in stock mode. I would consider the stock package fun-leaning reference. It does all the things you want an audiophile headphone to do, but the added bass and slam separates it from the other Hifiman headphones Iā€™ve heard. Swapping the pads and grills moves it way further into fun territory. The imaging and detail take a slight hit, but that may be an unavoidable result of opening them up so much. The open grills tame the bass I was experiencing from just the pad change, but it still gets a little messy, especially with tracks with distortion/reverb.

All in all I like the change. Itā€™s accomplishing what I hoped in that itā€™s renewing my interest in a headphone I wasnā€™t using that often. The comfort is greatly increased and the sonic changes are enjoyable, if not an improvement. I didnā€™t want to sacrifice the slam, and thankfully itā€™s still there after the mods. Lastly, while I wouldnā€™t want to do it often, the mods are totally reversible so itā€™d be easy enough to change back if I decide itā€™s too much for me. At the very least, it no longer looks like my HE-4xx

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Day off and took apart an old interconnect. Added Banana plugs to the end. XLR (F) to speaker taps. everything checking good on the meter.

Still sketchy plugging them in direct into a 100w @ 6ohm SS amp. Just wanna see what it does and not smoke the drivers. Advise?

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Pics? Donā€™t cross the lines lol

Lines def not crossed

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I meant with the soldering lol, though that looks nice :+1:

silver soldered to the post. should be good. output is 100wpc at 6 ohm and im pushing a load 2.5x more. dont wanna be he idiot roasting marshmallows over the planar grills haha

HE tap box is made to receive 8ohm ā€¦ but dont have their box and understand you can wire direct.

just seems sketchyā€¦

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Yea, just got be careful with volume too, if you hear anything weird/scratchy just turn volume down and disconnect/turn off everything lol

With my set-up I do a full power up sequence first, the amplifier being the first component on and wait at least a minute if not 2 before plugging headphones into the speaker tap box.

I have NOT tried direct to speaker taps. If I did I would make sure I had those plugged in and still plug the HP in last after the entire system has warmed up.

Take-down is the reverse. I unplug the headphone first and get its wire clear of all equipment. Then the amp gets shut down first with all other pieces afterwards.

Any other sequence has caused me damage at some point in the past 2 years. Volume is always on minimum across the board and I take my time to minimize it before power down too. YMMV but my method has proven safest, for preventing any pops or spikes to the HP

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I run my HE-6ā€™s directly from the speaker taps for the past couple of years and my sequence is the same as yours (see below). The HE-adapter is really only to protect the output transformers for speaker tube amps that expect to see a resistive load. Without a resistive load, the output transformers are liable to short themselves.

Power on speaker amp > wait for a minute or two (or when the amp ā€œclicks,ā€ not all of them do this) > plug in my HE-6ā€™s to the 4-pin XLR speaker tap adapter.

When Iā€™m done with my listening session, I do the reverse sequence.

The above steps was provided to me by someone at my local Hifi store and I havenā€™t had issues since *knock on wood*.

To those who are thinking about driving their HE-6 via speaker taps, remember to check for DC leaks in old solid state amps. Below 20mV is the rule of thumb for speakers. I assume lower the better for a headphone.

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