[Letitroll98]

Me.

I was a little worried if I had bought the right headphone, then I unboxed them from their very impressive packaging, leather(ette) box and all.  The first listen, cold out of the box had me convinced.  After the first five hours it only got better.  Hifi Man recommends 150 hours of break in, I have two thoughts on that.  I think the first few hours gets you 80% of the way there, and the rest of the break in period gets you the other 20%.  Second, there's no way in hell I can remember what they sounded like 150 hours ago.  Maybe some general traits, but nothing definite or infallible.  I'm just going to enjoy them.

So what do they sound like?  Perfect.  Not that they're the perfect headphone, but that they're perfect in their target.  They wanted to fix the 400's treble and tighten up the bass.  They wanted an evenly balanced frequency response across a major band centered on the midrange, excellent imaging, expansive soundstage, tons of detail and impact, all with a sweet, light tonal balance.  Hifi Man succeeded in their goals.  It's a marvelous headphone, lightweight for a planar, comfortable, we'll built, and very attractive in appearance.

Not perfect stuff?  Very little.  After 5 hours there's still a slight glare in the upper treble, not offensive, but noticeable.  We'll see if that dissipates with more break in.  And while the comfort is very good, it's not excellent, I find myself adjusting after an hour or two.  Not bad at all, but not as completely comfortable as some lighter weight dynamic cans I have.  Lastly the cord is way too short for home use.  I have to move my chair and sit right next to the equipment rack.  It was obviously designed for desktop or portable use, way too limiting.  I'll investigate aftermarket cables asap.

Lastly, some of you may have read my Grado thread.  They're still in the mix.  I decided I can have two starters on deck and decide if I want both, or one is a clear winner.  Stay tuned.

[Audioclyde]

I've had my 400is for a couple of months now, and I really find them a joy to listen to. I used to have the HE500's and liked them a lot but sold them in anticipation of these. The 400is are very comfortable!

I have a fabulous pair of Lawton Audio LA-7000's that are incredible sounding and also very comfortable--and much more expensive. Yes, they are better than the 400i's, but I could be very happy with just the 400i's!

I'd like to hear the 560's, but decided to save the difference in cost plus I was afraid the 560's might be a bit too much away from the slight warm sound I prefer.

[Letitroll98]

I've heard that the 560's are more detailed and a touch cooler sounding, albeit with deeper bass to offset somewhat.  I had a chance to hear the 560's last summer and was so focused on the 400i's that it didn't occur to me.  Duh.  By any chance did you buy an aftermarket cord?  Anyway, best of luck and happy listening to your cans.

[Audioclyde]

I have a Q Cable French Silk (Steve Eddy) cable that I've had a few years and am very happy with. My amp is 12' from my listening chair, so I haven't tried the stock cable that came with the 400i's, so I can't really offer up a comparison.

[Letitroll98]

I've found a couple of candidates for a longer cord.  Hifiman makes a couple themselves, one is a silver coated copper for $60 plus shipping, and another is a balanced OCC copper with a 1/4" TRS adaptor on the end.  The second seems a little clumsy, the first says for HE300 and HE500, don't know if they have different connectors than the other HE series.  The other candidate is a 10' using Canare wire on eBay for $43 shipped.  I'm leaning toward the Hifiman product.

The sound changed a bit after playing on repeat all night long, and on my head most of today.  They definitely mellowed out, with a slight reduction of the minor glare at 6-8kHz.  I have a hard time listening to these headphones, I just get lost in the music, forgetting that I'm suppose to be analysing the sound.  I compared them with my previous favorites, my modded JVC HA RX900's.  Although they held up well in comparison, I could always listen to the headphones with the JVC's.  Not so with the Hifiman, the music seems so natural, so much of a whole, that you forget you have headphones on.  I was struck by the tonal accuracy, every instrument sounded like it should, the vocal inflections of the singers were clearly heard, not some muddy mess.  Yet with all this detail, the music just flows naturally into your head, without any thought that you're hearing increased detail and nuance.

I'm not so much of a basshead as a percussion nut.  I love drums and percussion instruments, anything beating on skins, wood, or metal.  As with planar speakers, these planar headphones do percussion perfectly.  Fast and impactful, with excellent tonal reproduction.  I've been wanting to use the velvet hammer chestnut and now I can.  They hit you in the head with impact, but in a more accurate tonal presentation that softens the blow.  You can hear how the drummer tuned the skins.  And the same imagery holds true for all of the other instruments as well.  Piano has that wooden sound you hear when your system is just right, violins have a sweet sheen with just the right bite.

Lastly, soundstage and imaging.  The soundstage is acceptably wide, close to the best I've heard, and is exceptionally deep with rear sounds well below the mix.  Where these cans really shine is imaging.  There's that air around every piece that delineates the space that each instrument or singer occupies.  This aids in that whole listening to the music and not the equipment thing.  A hard thing for us gear heads to get to, we always want to tweak something.  With the HE400i I just want to let the music play, a high complement indeed.

[JohnR]

Hey Dan, cool    I'm interested to know if you find out the cable makes any difference. I like the short cable myself.

@Audioclyde, I wouldn't say the 560s are warm.

[hibuckhobby]

Having owned a pair of HE500's for several years, I'd have to say that to my ears,
the silver coated cable is more transparent in the highs.  The Canare solid copper
cables I have are a bit warmer in the midrange and the highs are less open and present.
YMMV
Hibuck....

[Letitroll98]

Thanks hibuckhobby and John.  Just as a quick and dirty stopgap solution I bought the 20' extension from Radio Shack.  It does work as an emergency solution if I simply must listen at my desk, but it's akin to listening through my iPod, dynamics and soundstage truncated.  Tone is not bad, but loses some of the magic there too.  But it made me think about possibly buying an extension rather than replacement cable, as there might be more options there.  Wading through them now, but it looks like way more possibilities.  Any thoughts?  Too many connections?

[JohnR]

Yeah I dunno, with little headphone cable experience myself. I'm waiting for a new DAC/amp and then going to get some balanced cables, there's a chap on eBay sells them for what seems to be very reasonable prices, I'll dig up the link in a few.

[JohnR]

This might actually be the person you already mentioned - http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/6-Foot-Custom-HifiMan-Headphone-Cable-Soft-Version-1-4-TRS-Plug-/111507370554?pt=US_Headphones&hash=item19f65b723a

The name looks familiar, I think I've seen him mentioned... anyway you could ask him what he thinks about the effect of extensions vs just getting a longer cable.

[Letitroll98]

Same cable, I was looking at a different seller, there are a couple of guys making extensions out of the same star quad Canare cable.  I didn't like the loss of detail reported with this cable, and I was leary of the reported brightness of the silver coated copper cable from Hifiman.  So I bought an Audioquest extension cable on sale from Music Direct, discounted from $109 to $39, how can you lose at that price.  Hopefully here by the weekend, I'll report on the sound in these pages.

[eclein]

Good stuff...new gear that sounds great, all good. When I had my HE5-LE's my experience was awesome they sounded perfect for me. So much so I was only listening to them. I stopped using portables and iems etc....don't get me wrong I loved them but selling them was a good move for me. Now with the DT1350's and Momentum on Ears I have choices and that got me back interested again in all types of cans and the 400i's are on my list of possibles going forward.
 I know its probably heresy to say really nice stuff about Bluetooth headphone sound but the pair of JBL E40BT's I have really surprised me as far as sound quality. I love the sound, the comfort could be better I guess, but these are gen 1 and hopefully they will work on that.
 I really think a HE-400i pair is in the cards for me sometime as the sound is so good coming out of Hifiman gear....I still want some Grado PS500's too.....and then...and then.....LOL!!!!!
Congrats on your new gear Letitroll!!!!

[Letitroll98]

Thanks Ed.  Funny you say that, I'm going to be looking at some Grados next week.  I thought maybe something polar opposite from the Hifiman to give me some listening choices.  I'm thinking the more mellow sound of RS2's over the PS500's.  You should really listen to some 400i's if you have a chance, a much improved product.

Looks like my cable won't come in till Monday, so it's moving the chair all weekend.  Been leaving them on repeat all night and they haven't really changed all that much so far.  Maybe the mids have recessed a tad, not as much up front.  And I'm pretty sure the treble glare is diminished.  With a fallible memory couldn't say for sure, but that's my impression.

[Letitroll98]

The Audioquest Mini3 10' extension cable arrived yesterday.  Cold, out of the box it's a really nice cable, after being on all night it's even better.  Soundstage and bass are revealed to a greater degree, as is detail.  Lower midrange is recessed ever so slightly dropping the vocals back a little and probably resulting in the wider soundstage.  Upper treble is also a tad softer, not affecting much in the overall balance, just a little nicer.  None of this affects detail in a negative way, in fact detail retrieval is even better with the Audioquest in line.  None of these changes are above the just barely noticeable level, so the basic character of the Hifiman cans are retained, just better.  The takeaway is for an on sale for $39 cable I solved my need for a longer cable and improved sound quality all in one fell swoop, extension cables can work well for headphones.