HE1000 Stealth Magnets Version Open-Back Hi-Fi Planar Headphones

Just wow! Extremely comfortable and really good sound

Living in London I am blessed to have the opportunity to book a demonstration in store (no, not at Canjam, where the noisy crowd create conditions that are too poor for critical listening). I took my trusted HD800S with me. The store had the new EF600 amplifier ready for the demo, which took me 3 hrs. I started with the most expensive unit, the Susvara. This is a highly revered model which is fairly hard to evaluate because you are always left with the doubt that the amplifier wasn't up to the task. Some owners drive these out of speakers amplifiers with a special connector and, in dact, this may also be the cheaper way to drive them as you do not need a high-end speakers amplifier for this task, while for headphone amplifiers you would. No doubt the Susvara sounded convincing but switching to the HD800S and listening acoustic Jazz I didn't think I was missing much. The Susvara is a bit more detailed but not enough to justify the price and the amplification hassle. Moving on, the HE1000SE was next. Very interesting soundstage, not as wide as the HD800S and Susvara but surprisingly more holographic and convincing. Now you are no longer sitting in 30th row in a large auditorium, but very close to the musicians and with the extra involvement that this entails. Ok, I would definitely choose these over the HD800S. I compared the 2 in many songs and in none I preferred my old trusted Sennheiser: I can tell that technology caught up and they are no longer the ultimate tool even for orchestral music. It does not hurt that the Hifiman has also a bit better bass, not evident when listening Classical but onvious when moving to Jazz, and I also did not notice the 6k Hz peak that the HD800S are known for. Fantastic headphone: at that point I saw myself leaving with them. Should I even try the cheaper HE1000 Stealth? Waste of time? Well, I had time and thankfully I did. The HE1000 Stealth can be described as the ultimate HD800S: for me it fixes all the weakness and, importantly, by doing so it is no longer the one trick pony that the HD800S is. Perhaps it is an exaggeration but I have onky recommended the HD800S to classical music lovers: it was designed for that and it does it supremely. The HE1000 Stealth is the first headphone with a wider soundstage and with added depth than the HD800 and HD800S. Yes, for me also this record no longer belongs to Sennheiser. The remarkable difference is how chamaleontic it is. Put it with more modern music and the bass suddenly comes hitting and the headphone becomes very involving, even more than the HE1000SE. I do not listen ekectronic music but fir the sake of the test I tried some Blank & Jones and these impressed: I could actually keep on listening beyond the test period. Jazz is inceedible with these, far more detailed than the Sennheiser and likely on par with the HE1000SE. And that was enough for the HD800S: surclassed by the rivals, I put it back in its case. The debate was now only between the 2 HE1000 models. This took me a whole hour. Overall the differences are 2: soundstage width and bass quantity, and in both areas the Stealth is preferable to me, while costing considerably less. The HE1000SE has more soundstage depth, resulting a bit more enveloping. It is slightly more composed in its excellence: it is more of a Rolls Royce while the Stealth is sort of an Aston Martin: still elegant but not betraying the sport car essence either. The quality of bass is on par. I tested some tracks of Nenad Vasilic and Dietr Ilg, my favourite contrabass players, and could not pick a winner. But in electronic music you can easily hear that the Stealth has a bit more impact. If you thought the LCD-X had good, unbeatable bass (I did), be ready to change your mind: they got beaten. With electronica I found it even more striking. The choice for me was the Stealth and still now, 3 months later, it never ceases to impress me. I own many other headphones and still use them but none gives me the chills like the HE1000 Stealth can. I also have bought the Arya Stealth and Organic later on. The both can't match the resolution and soundstage width of the HE1000 and in my view in particular the Organic is not worth the price because too close to the HE1000 Stealth in this aspect but not in performance. I also found bizarre the name choice: in audiophile terms "organic" is used as synonym of natural or analog sounding. Well, the Arya Organic turned out to be by far brighter than than the HE1000 and even more when compared to the Arya Stealth. I am 53 y/o by the way, if it sounds bright to me I can't imagine how it will be received by younger ears who may throw some heavy metal on them. So, yes, in my view this is the current best way to spend your headphone money if you listen acoustic music and possibly not only that because, as I said, the have highly impressive bass when called for.

These headphones are fantastic for certain types of music. The detail is sublime. The separation of each of the components of the music is second to none. Each of the layers are sent through your head which brings a smile to your face. The spacial soundstage is amazing. The bass and midrange are the best I’ve heard. My gripe with these is the higher frequencies can become overbearing. I found these very difficult to listen to for more than 20 minutes without getting fatigued. It’s such a shame, because they performed perfectly well with most types of music. However with dance tunes and cymbals etc in abundance, I found them way too bright. Also, being open backed, you can hear external sounds which can spoil the enjoyment.

Je ne pensais pas qu'une paire d'écouteurs puisse générer autant d'émotion. Que se soit Nora Jones avec Come away with me, ou Maria Callas et son interprétation de La maman morta, ou encore Le vent nous portera de Sophie Hunger, de l'émotion vous montre dans les yeux à chaque écoute. Pour la première fois, je prends le temps d'ajuster le son en fonction de la voix naturelle afin d'en apprécier toute la subtilité, la puissance et la douceur dans une même écoute.

tienen una gama de sonidos espectacular, con un un buen amplificador, los tengo conectados a un AUNA, y son una maravilla, se oye la música fenomenal no se escapa ni una nota y ningún timbre, se notan todas las frecuencias graves , medianas y agudas, sin molestarse entre ellas, la espacialidad es asombrosa y las voces están en su sitio, al lado de los instrumentos también sin interferir, las grabaciones que tengo hace años, suenan mgosgosuchísimo mejor, ahora escucho a Leonard Cohen y es una maravilla con su voz grave. El precio por ser lo que son, esta muy bien, en algún sitio he visto que cuestan casi 400 euros mas. La construcción es buena y parece que duraran. Los cables que lleva son flexibles como de goma, de momento van bien y son largos los he tenido que enrollar un poco. Ahora escucho a Fausto Papetti y su saxofón es magnifico, en fin muy contento con la compra.

This is my first "expensive" headphone i.e. over $650. Including tax I paid >$1,525 for these plus I replaced the factory ear pads and cable for another ~$150. So now it's a ~$1,675 headphone all said and done. As comparison material I have Meze 99 Classics and Sennheiser HD660S and HD660S2. This HE1000 Stealth blows all of them out of the water (as they should, considering the price difference). The Sennheisers sound dull, dark, muddy and boring in comparison. While livelier than the HD660s, the Meze doesn't come close to the HE1000 in any tonal category and obviously with its closed-back doesn't have a soundstage. The Hifiman HE1000 Stealth has a very nice wide soundstage with the large planar driver and open back design, probably also helped by the airy and extended high-end (treble). The treble isn't fatiguing to my ears. The extended treble makes the music lively and I find myself listening for long periods of time. I can hear all sorts of micro details including the "size of the room" in the recordings. Goosebumps! The bass is very strong. It is good and tight and well controlled but it does overpower the mids a bit too much to my taste. You definitely hear the bass guitar before you hear the vocals. I'm a bass player and I love to be able to hear the bass lines in such great detail. It is better than anything I've ever heard in my life, including other headphones and expensive speakers and bass amps. I can hear every bass note and even fret and grip noise in the recording (good!). But I also like to hear human voices and those seem to be pushed to the background a bit. Maybe this will change with a longer break-in/burn-in period. The headphones improved a lot after playing pink noise through them for multiple days at moderately loud levels. How you perceive these HE1000 headphones is obviously dependent on your source material (I use Tidal hi-res streaming) and your DAC/Amp combo. I use an expensive LAIV Harmony DAC and a relatively affordable Little Dot MkIII tube headphone amp (while waiting for the LAIV HP2A). The little tube amp has no trouble driving these large planar headphones to very loud levels. I also tried the HE1000 on my Parasound solid state DAC/Amp and it sounds very good, although I prefer my tube amp. With the EQ on the Parasound I dialed back bass and treble to bring forward the mids and that worked great to emphasize vocals more. In terms of comfort and quality I did not like the factory ear pads or the cable. The cable was too long, felt cheap and sounded thin. I replaced it with a silver plated OFC 6N copper cable that immediately made it sound better. The factory earpads have a rough textured surface that doesn't feel nice on my skin and I also think they're not soft enough. I replaced the standard pads with Dekoni Elite sheepskin/memory foam pads. Much better feel and sound. This is definitely the best headphone I've ever tried, but I wish it would sacrifice a little bit of bass to bring forward the mids more.

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Ho queste cuffie da due mesi, e ho aspettato il rodaggio prima di scrivere una recensione. In realtà dal primo momento mi sono reso conto della caratteristica principale di queste cuffie, che posso confermare a due mesi di distanza: sono ipnotiche!! Lascia che ti spieghi cosa intendo con questa parola. Ipnotiche nel senso che annullano la separazione tra te e la musica, e quindi ti trovi immerso nel suono, e a un certo punto ti dai un pizzicotto e ti dici ehi aspetta un attimo, sono qua! :-) :-) :-) Precedentemente avevo le Hifiman Ananda, che consiglio davvero perchè sono ottime cuffie e al prezzo attuale assolutamente regalate, ma queste le surclassano. La seconda cosa che mi ha colpito di queste cuffie sono i bassi. Si, i bassi. La risposta in frequenza è lineare, per cui il basso c'è quando deve esserci. Ma mi piace tantissimo la sua qualità. E' un basso secco, profondo e veloce. Ti permette di distinguere perfettamente le singole note di basso, per esempio il basso di Steve Harris (Iron Maiden) nella parte finale di Dance of Death, tutto perfettamente distinguibile, fantastico! Un' altra cosa che piace di questa cuffia è la sua dinamica: è in grado di darti emozioni live, e al proposito la cosa più calzante che posso dirti è che da quando le ho prese le sto usando tantissimo, molto più delle Ananda. Che ribadisco che sono ottime cuffie. Perchè questa è la prova vera, l'esame di realtà autentico: se una cosa ti piace la usi. Se un disco è fighissimo ma non lo ascolti mai, beh non lo ascolti mai e questo è. Invece queste cuffie le uso spesso e questa è la prova definitiva che le amo. Sono cuffie che vanno bene con tutti i generi, dal pop al rock al metal, con brani intimistici come pure con la grande orchestra. In particolare la classica la trovo davvero emozionante! La dinamica e la capacità di coinvolgere emotivamente sono ai massimi livelli. In varie recensioni qualcuno le trova troppo aperte, personalmente non sono d'accordo. Il suono è limpido, molto definito, ma non dà l'impressione di oversharpening, per fare un esempio fotografico. Insomma, le ricomprerei assolutamente e ti consiglio di fare altrettanto.