At the end of the day, you have to try different amps, learn about different topologies and determine if something works for the headphone. Everything has a sound so the devil is in the details and how the amp is implemented. I think there are too many variables to be able to look at a spec list (especially since spec lists don’t have everything you would be interested in) and be able to determine if that amp will work with this headphone.
Personally, I try to look and see what people have had success with, what their preferences may be, and whether my wallet can handle it. If all of those align, I take a chance and buy used so that if it happens to not work out for me, worst case scenario I lose 0-10% and I gain more experience with different gear.
Oh, I have experimented quite a bit. But I haven’t found much amp preference as of yet. Most of the headphones I have tried were planar, and most of the amps/dacs were delta sigma. The two I liked most on the planars was xduoo ta-30 and the idsd micro signature. And they were the two “most different” amps/dacs. Smoother. I liked the sp200/m200 stack the least in comparison. It was prickly by comparison. A90/D90 was somewhere in the middle…
But, this is in a/b comparisons. Without that, I wouldn’t have recognized the differences. Basically, they are small differences and not really worth worrying about. But I think all those planars didn’t really need or benefit from specific amping.
I just don’t think I have experienced headphone and amp pairings that has shown me good or bad synergy as of yet. But, I may have specifically had headphones that don’t need much pairing help. (no ZMF as of yet).
Just collecting data. And trying to make sure my expectations are reality based.
I think Class A developed its reputation because of the percentage of good versus bad implementations, and because Class A is sought primarily (only?) by audio enthusiasts. As you state, its simplicity often equates to better results. Beyond this and as an economic consequence of inefficiency, Class A typically has lower performance specs at a given price. They also run hot.
I can’t recall seeing consumer products sold with checklist parameters such as “100 Watts into 4 Ohms” or even “40 Watts into 8 Ohms” use Class A. Many super cheap audio products use super cheap Class AB or D amps to maximize efficiency and run cooler. They also sound terrible.
Where price is not a first or major consideration or when sold to audio enthusiasts, products need to sound good or the builder wouldn’t bother and the product won’t last.
Unfortunately that still doesn’t give me a great picture of what you’ve experienced except that you’ve tried different flavors of mid-fi. It’s helpful to try different topologies and implementations of different dacs and amps but those will only give you different flavors. If you truly want something better, you should consider getting out of mid-fi and trying higher quality dac/amps that aren’t topping/smsl/xduoo.
Recommendations? The burson soloist is on the list.
I am value conscious. I want to spend the least to accomplish the goal. Right now, I want to see if any source can make my dunu zen or lsa hp-2 sound better than they do today with my qudelix 5k. The jot 2 with 4490 doesn’t do that. Neither did the m11 plus dap.
If mid-fi won’t do that, I would love to know where I have to go to accomplish that.
I’d be deaf before we found out when it’s topped out. But I’m certain at 10 watts max or whatever it maybe I have plenty of head room.
Your amp should be fine, but with the A90 it’s like 4.2 or 4.4 w not sure. I mean that’s a nominal difference but these headphones are hungry for sure. Gain is also a factor, the amp is 27 dB of gain and the dac is +13 dBu on high gain. Not sure if that amounts to 40 db of gain or what dBu amounts too. So I mean it’s getting a hearty flow of power.
So with the two things at hand, raising the gain increases distortion. But from what I understood, correct me if I’m wrong, that the planars won’t have that audible. Something along those lines. Because the background is honestly pitch black to me. But the flux labs definitely doesn’t have amazing measurements.
Also with the gain settings, mentioned in the comments above. I don’t understand gain the amp is 27 db gain I believe and as mentioned the dac is +13 dBu. Does that have affect on power output?
Also how come the 2 watts out of my TA-10R sound so bad with these headphones. I believe it was one of the forums which posted that the TA-10 was a suggested amp for the HE6 and that absolutely makes no sense to me. Nor was it a peer review or forum member providing this info. There’s a night and day performance between it and the flux labs. It’s definitely not an ohms issue cause my Elegia sounds great on the TA-10R
Well my HE6SE from the Adorama sale arrived. Mixed feelings all around for various reasons.
So far I have yet to get to turn Mjolnir past 10:30 on the volume knob, although I am metering my usage to refrain from playing them very loudly until they’re broken in. Seems like there’s plenty of volume and power here.
I’m trying to acquire a Mjolnir 2 so I can use a collection of tubes I had for my old Lyr 2 that recently died. I think there could be some real magic here with some orange globes or la radiotechniques.
There’s nothing special about planar headphones that makes them less susceptible to reproducing distortion from an amplifier.
It would be noise, not distortion, that affects how quiet the background would be.
For a given gain setting (on amplifiers with switchable gain), amplifiers increase the incoming signal by a fixed amount (assuming you do not move the volume setting). So, yes, varying the input signal level will change the potential output power.
If your amplifier is rated for a 2V RMS input signal for it’s maximum output, then feeding it a 1V RMS input will halve the power it outputs at its maximum setting.
Because it is not just about how MUCH power.
If it’s anything like the TA-10, then the TA-10R’s headphone amplifier has very high noise and distortion when delivering even MINIMAL power (below 1mW) and it just gets worse as the power goes up to the maximum of 1.5W at 50 ohms.
A more basic way of saying that is that, it’s a poor amplifier to begin with so expecting it to sound better as you turn up the power is just denying reality.
Objectively shitty amplifier performance is what it is.
While I think it’s a pretty awful sounding thing regardless of what it is driving, the Elegia need 1/100th the power of the HE6SE V2 at 80 dB/SPL, so noise/distortion are dropping, not increasing, at that point on the performance curve.
So, again, it’s not just about having a certain level of power output. It’s about how well the signal is reproduced at that power level.
Yes the last two portions are kind of hard to wrap around. It may be the noise or what are talking about with that ta-10r. Also the volume is fully maxed and it’s not only not loud but like I said everything sounded not distorted or a dirty background. Unless those things have a frequency response situation. To me the best way to describe it is like listening to music at venue while standing at the entrance and with the proper amp it sounds like music is playing in a cathedra front row. Which may just strictly be the open back vs closed back experience.
I’m guessing you mean by signal is what’s coming into the amp by dac. Which is balanced inputs
Don’t want to even go on about this on this thread as this isn’t a classroom.
However my confusion is stemming from this.
I just tried medium gain on the dac today just to see where I’m at and the volume knob is almost at 5.
You are saying at these crazy watts I would be at 120 db spl which is virtually deafening.
But when the amp is almost maxed out there’s no chance 10 watts is coming out. So what the hell is the 10 watts for
Maybe simplify this when do I get 5 watts out of the flux? Since that seems to be what you’re saying is somewhere near the reasonable listening level
Also, a question, maybe something which would be beneficial for sound quality. Would it be better to put my dac on medium gain and the amp on high gain or do high gain on the dac and medium on the amp? Does it even make a difference when it comes to noise?
Probably never; at least not while the headphones are on your ears.
5W out of the Flux amplifier, into the HE6SE V2 is not a “reasonable” listening level, it would be more than 120 dB/SPL - which is literally painful and would be damaging your hearing immediately.
In actual use,I would wager that you’re not getting much over 1W out of your amplifier into the HE6SE V2 with most of your listening (maybe for musical peaks, if you listen louder than is typical).
That’s fine, normal, and desirable.
Because what you want is an amplifier than can deliver the power you need, cleanly and continuously. The easiest way to get that is to use an amplifier that has more power capacity than you’ll actually be using, such that at your actual listening level it will be operating in the sweet spot of its performance profile.
So that extra 9W of capacity, that’s “doing nothing” is actually giving you lots of headroom so the amplifier isn’t stressed in delivering the power you need - which usually results in it sounding better than being pushed close(r) to its limits.
What you are fundamentally missing is that the amount of power your amplifier is actually delivering has little to no relation to how it is rated - excepting that the rating should be considered an upper limit.
The position of the volume dial only indirectly controls how much power is delivered. With a sufficiently insensitive, current-hungry, transducer you could hit 10W before you were half way through the volume dial. I know of no headphone that is that inefficient. Even the Susvara, which is the least efficient I can name off the top of my head, only pulls 5W at 120 dB/SPL.
The input signal level and transducer sensitivity are critical factors. Something like the Elegia would hit 120 dB/SPL at just 34mW.
Depends on the behavior of the DAC (I have no idea what you’re using, DAC’s don’t usually have “gain” settings). The trade offs between the different settings will be between noise, distortion, dynamic range and SNR. So, yes, it can make a difference in terms of noise.
Other than choosing the combination of settings that results in the lowest overall noise and distortion, and the greatest overall dynamic range and SNR, which you can do from specs or measurements of the respective devices, you can just try the settings to see which you like the best.
My first impressions, to bring the thread back on topic:
For about 8 years I’ve had a Lyr 2/Bifrost Uber setup that I’ve used with HE400, HE400i, and HE-4XX.
Recently my Lyr 2 up and died, so it was finally time to do something. Turns out that something was impulse buying the HE6SE on Adorama sale, forcing me to find new amplification.
I had been itching for a while to try one of Schiit’s higher end multibit implementations as well as “upgrade” to balanced, so I nabbed a Mjolnir V1/Gungnir MB combo. I got a good chance to listen to the HE-4XX to acclimate to the new sound before I received the HE6SE.
Right off the bat, out if the box I was impressed by the heft and build quality of the set. I know it’s commonly criticized but coming from lower end Hifimans it’s definitely an upgrade. Sure the headband creaks slightly when I pull apart the earcups to put them on but I really couldn’t give a hoot about such a minor issue. The cable is hot garbage but I think everyone knows that.
Immediately I noticed the prominence of the gold traces - It looks like they designed the earpads with a transparent inner mesh just to show it off - no other hifiman pair I’ve owned or demoed before had this. It definitely makes one feel “fancy”.
When I started listening, the biggest difference from the 4XX was the presence of bass. Besides that, it just sort of sounded like a more refined 4XX. It didn’t blow me away, and my first impression was nowhere near as wowed as the very first time I listened to planars.
This is where my feelings get mixed, because after I spent some hours listening I decided to do some A/B against the 4XX, and… Well, the 4XX sounds damn near unlistenable next to the HE6SE. Instead of a big “WOW these new headphones sound great!” moment it was a “WOW my old cans sound like shit!”
Habituation is like that. If one spends an hour with Setup X, it will start to sound better, okay, or just fine. But no matter how long you listen, with back-to-back comparisons the differences between X and Y jump out. Brains adjust and recalibrate to recent inputs. They also stop noticing bad smells over time.
I often observe the most marked differences when reverting back to the older lower performing unit, as opposed to perceiving the same magnitude marked improvement with the newer higher performing unit.
The 4XX may still sound listenable when experienced stand alone.
That’s absolutely the case here - I experienced a similar thing going from the HE-400 to the HE-400i, at first it just sounded like a better, more refined HE-400 but after I did some A/B the HE-400 sounded noisy and unhinged, almost difficult to listen to next to the more refined 400i. I shouldn’t have set my expectations for this upgrade to be any different than that, but I had hoped it would be. I think I will just require more listening time to really see how good the HE6SE can sound.
I think in this case some of the issue may be my transition from Bifrost Uber/Lyr 2 with pleasant sounding tubes to a Mjolnir 1/Gungnir MB combo. I noticed in my initial listening with the 4XX that it sounded significantly clearer with less grain, but several passages or electronic sounds were less pleasing to listen to, due to sounding so sterile and precise.
Although it would be foolish to think tubes that alter sound to my liking would not also benefit the HE6SE, which is TBD whenever I can manage to snag this Mjolnir 2.
Yea, seems like a lot of people don’t know what they are talking about. Which is giving me misinformation. Cause when I was buying the amp for this so many reviewers(YouTube) were saying that it needs more than 5 watts to be good. Yet you’re saying it never reaches 5 watts cause that’s way too loud.
Not sure where how to achieve 10 watts or if 10 watts is the peak based on certain dynamic range or headphone fluctuations. But it’s not a big deal for me I was going to purchase the A90 at minimum any how because of this information I was given which seems wrong.
I am using the JNOG original with the AKM chip. The dac has gain settings, I believe, based on how it reacts to the to the low med and high settings.
I thought it’s good to have headroom so I always leave everything on high. Can’t honestly imagine it can sound any better than what it already does and don’t think I noticed much of a difference with dac on medium gain. Also I’m sure if I put both on medium gain my volume is going to be fully maxed out at probably a level which is below what I listen at. I will try and A B test it
Edit: and also, the 789 for instance even though being such a clean amp would not be able to drive the these headphones right? The amps are too low? From previous comments above that was the factor, from what I understood.
The headamp GSX-mini (4w @ 50 ohms) runs the HE6se adequately. The HE6se is less sensitive than many floorstanding and desktop speakers from a sensitivity standpoint. The HE6se needs a minimum of 2watts. Never hurts to have a bit more.
There is a really good reason for why watt ratings can be a bit confusing for headphones, as there is different types of loads on drivers, or any speaker for that matter. A headphone that is playing pink noise will draw a very significantly different amount of power compared to the same headphone at the same volume playing a bass drum. This is due to the displacement of the driver, the further the driver moves the more power that is required to get to the destination and then return.
But how does it draw more power if it is only rated for XYZ?
Remember how all well made amps have large film caps in them? These caps are actually taking the load in the short durations that the power supply of the amp falls behind the need of the driver. This is why cheaper amps do not do well with separation as they are unable to fully load a cap before providing a discharge.
If you really want to try something kinda interesting, add high cap caps to the power rail in an amp, you can actually increase the responsiveness of the bass just by cap modding.
This kinda leads into the question of why do some suggest such high power requirements? This is fairly simple, and it is a shocking one, not all amps are built with the same capacitance! many cheaper SS amps are very good at constant supplying of wattage, but when an inrush is required they get a V-droop due to insufficient available power, leading to a sluggish response. For the most part, high mids and highs are unreliant of capacitance unless a demanding current falls under the same current/driver.
(For those of you that are familiar with computer cpu/gpu rail spikes it is actually very similar, imagine the HE6SEv2 is a 3080 )
Using an amplifier with 5W of available power is not, by any means, out of line (nor is 10W). But that’s not the same as the headphone DRAWING that much power. Again, if you read what’s been said above, both in general discussion and in direct responses to you, you’ll see that’s more about headroom and keeping the amplifier operating in its sweet spot - which improves the overall performance - even if that power is NOT being used.
It has three output level settings, “full” which gives you the full output from the DAC, and then “medium” and “low” which are attenuation settings.
“Gain” would mean increasing the native output beyond the DAC’s “full” setting, which is not what happens there.
From a power perspective it’ll drive them just fine from its balanced output. That doesn’t mean it’ll sound great doing it. There are plenty of more powerful amplifiers that don’t sound great with the HE6/Susvara either.
It’s worth noting that one of the best ways to drive the HE6/Susvara is via the Bakoon AMP-13R. Which is not a monstrously powerful amplifier. 4W into 60 ohms is what you’ll get from that. Yet it makes those headphones absolutely sing vs. much more powerful stuff that, frankly, sounds like ass.
Well finally decided to jump in and try one of these, when it was on sale very briefly yesterday on the Hifiman website. Got an open-box, full warranty HE6se for $580! Will be curious to see how it plays on an Eddie Current Studio Jr.
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