Ah, this post should have probably been made in this thread:
A couple questions about these… Does anyone know if the Violectric V280 would drive these sufficiently? Also, I have the Arya, is there enough difference between the two to merit having both? The price of them at the moment is very tempting if they’re an improvement in some aspect or provide something different.
I made an EQ to play with tonight:
Red Line is the simulated graph. Gray dashed line is my preference target. Purple dotted line is the original FR.
I’ll be getting pads/pad adapter tomorrow and will play around with that too, as well as a Jot 2. 
Ok, so I got Oratory’s HE6SE v1, Crinacle’s HE6 6-screw raw datas, and plotted them vs my HE6SE v2 data. Just note, I am using the cloned fake GRAS 43AG coupler… and using a compensation file crin gave me (which has some repeatability issues?), so take with grain of salt.
green = HE6 | purple = HE6se v1 | blue = HE6se v2
Do you think that it’s worth getting for someone who already has an Arya ? I loved the Arya since I got it but I recently got the V280 and Wow !! Now it sounds sooo much better to my ears than it did with the thx 887. Trying to figure out if the He6se would be different enough to warrant having since the Violectric should push them well.
hah. They are different enough that maybe you could have both. Arya has a bigger soundstage and more subbass. I think it probably still does better for orchestral music.
Ok more squiggles
Blue is stock config
Red is removing the grill
Orange is with grill on, and using these thick 40mm angled leather pads (Deafen on amazon)
The grill mod works alright. I am doing it. I replaced it with the honeycomb aluminum grills I got off ebay and they measure the same as grill-less.
The thicker leather pads sound pretty decent too but make a very loud driver crinkle sound which I don’t like.
Jot 2: it powers this thing quite well, and I can even use low gain on it, though closer to maxing it out – and it starting to sound mehh at near max out.
On high gain, i am less than 50%.
Jot 2 does a lot better job than A90 i think. I like mahhh dynamics.
The Arya with the egg/teardrop shape makes it feel like you’re wearing headgear (minus the forehead and rear protection).
Where did you get that material for the grill? I think I found it, $29 for a pair?
Curious also the consensus between these and the Sundara?
For reasons that are unlikely to become clear anytime soon, I happened to have $700 or so of returns for Adorama at the same time they were doing one of their “flash sales”, that included the HE6SE V2. That dropped their “optimistic” $1,799 MSRP to $699 … and that, coupled with the effects of being in the midst of a fairly in-depth Scotch tasting session*, loosened my resolve and I ordered a set.
I had forgotten that I had done so, so I was a tad surprised when they showed up this morning.
While I have a fair bit that’s good to say about them, caveated with the reality that they need to be driven off the right amplification, for now I’ll say the most prominent first-impression I have is that these have introduced me to a new phenomenon in headphone listening …
… and that is …
“Pad creak”.
Any movement of my head, or of the headphones themselves, and the PADs make creaking sounds. Loud enough to hear over music. Not something I’ve ever encountered before.
While I suspect this will abate quickly with a bit of wear (especially where the left hand pad is much worse for this than the right), it’s a first for me, and entirely undesirable.
Kudos on the literary suspense buildup. I was wondering where this was going and was a bit shocked to see you in these parts, but then the Scotch session revelation. Comical:
They are super tricky to drive!!! I have been definitely getting all kinds of different results with them, some good, some not so good lol. Excited to get any feedback you have on these and making the most of them. I got that killer deal too on an impulse without the scotch, so if I can get them to sound good with an amp I own or will own soon I may keep them!
That’s what you get for drinking and ordering expensive headphones! 
At least it was this and not a Sennheiser HE 1.
That was my takeaway.
Jealousy.
Oh, right! HE6sevtwoo… Pads and stuff.
Yea I get this too of you push in the pad. It happened to me with empy and heddphone too. Seems like driver flex to me though than the pad doing anything so maybe not the same phenomenon