Just edited that lol
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Come on guys, it’s not that bad. Some people actually set the amp volume at unity gain and adjust the volume from their pre-DAC. Actually for the price It’s tempting to get just to try it out.
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Ooooohhhh another flagship single DD. Count me interested.
Nah I’m talking about how they didn’t force any single ended out on this unit and just kept it balanced only.
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Sorry, I’ve meant to say “they’re out” as in “they’re available in”, not “out of stock”. My bad.
Anyway, many buying options. Only seen one review on it though, so maybe it’s better to wait on more opinions.
Edit: made a dedicated post to be more organized.
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I went through all the motions. I keep going back and forth about it. I went to bed thinking, nah, woke up and put it in my cart, but haven’t clicked ons the buy button just yet.
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Separate volume knobs for left and right channel, interesting.
I think that’s the most intriguing part about it for me. I have two pairs of Vokshod tubes, neither of which is a strong pair and I have to L/R balance correct, so I’m curious to see what happens if I throw all four tubes on this thing.
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Just so everyone is aware why so few tube amps are balanced end to end, at least at entry level.
It’s because push-pull tube amps cancel out all the harmonic distortion the tubes introduce.
So they tend to sound very dry/SS like.
I just don’t think a push-pull hybrid at that price point is likely to be any sort of improvement over a pure SS amp at a similar price. But I could be wrong.
How does that pan out with stuff like the C9 with it’s Korg Nutubes?
It’ll be much the same for any push pull architecture.
SET Single Ended Triode amps are just considered more desirable.
Push Pull is relatively common in speaker amps (though many have single ended input sections) and rarely in some higher end headphone amp designs like the WA33.
They still sound like tubes, but without the additional midrange bloom a lot of people who come from tubes = darkvoice or BHC associate with tubes.
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What???
HE-X4 129USD
91db is lower than 93… They just adjusted the impedance even lower. The info they put in marketing is not the best… 
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dual sided magnet. how will this affect the sound compared to the 4xx?
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I do like how it looks…though sorta wish the tubes were centered, but that’s just my OCD speaking.
I will wait on word on how well the balanced out put actually works.
Isn’t that the most problematic of Hifiman headbands though?
I know that people claimed that with the GL2000 that the dual sided version sounded better. How true this is, idk.
As @Mufflertape noted, the sensitivity has dropped from 93 dB to 91 dB (unless I’m mistaken, indicating a decrease in effeciency) while the impedance dropped from 35 ohms to 25. The top end of the rated frequency response has dropped from 35kHz down to 20kHz, not that it matters, as that’s still the range of human hearing. The weight may be a factor to pay attention to, as it jumped 50g, and I would still say my 4XX isn’t exactly a light headphone. Not crazy heavy, but not exactly light.
They claim that they made the sliders stronger, though those plastic caps are what I always remember being what people complained about, as they had a habit of falling off.
I’m sure by this point, it’s gernerally known that I’m in the band of not relying on these things, however: it looks like the newer model does have significantly less THD in the bass, and fluctuates to a lower degree.
Otherwise, it looks to have a smoother frequency response, extending into the sub bass without that roll off, or the 5.5k dip, the mid range looking pretty much the same.
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Yepp, but I guess they say its been improved so…no personal experience tho
Honestly speaking, this is an uninformed take but here goes…the double sided mag array is prob shit compared to the singled sided in the 4xx. Reason is the driver is less sensitive which has to do with the magnets. As far as the driver proper the traces are prob bigger and of a more conductive material to lower impedance. I do like the lower distortion in it, but the weight and saying its more efficent due to the mags is crap and not true per their own literature.
Immediately intrigued, of course. Very interesting to see the L/R separate volumed knobs. This is something you’d want to set and then control the input level to adjust overall volume. Flexibility for this is decreased quite a bit by the XLR only input. Won’t do this one right away, can’t justify it now, but… I’ll be watching close.