Ordered a pair of Hifiman He-560s, received them today only to find out the right driver was heavily distorted and crackling for 5 minutes of listening, then completely went out. Highly disappointed considering how much I spent on them. From what I could hear from the left ear they would have sounded amazing. I am thinking about exchanging them via Amazon, but the poor QC has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Should I exchange them or use the money to buy a different set? What do you guys recommend?
At first I was looking at the Sennheiser HD650s before the He560 caught my eye.
I'm running them via PC > Audioquest Dragonfly Red > Schiit Magni 2 Uber
The Hifiman he400i is an all around better headphone except for maybe soundstage.
I would highly suggest giving the hifiman another chance. I cant really comment on tube amps I have never owned one from what I hear they can change the sound which may or may not be a good thing.
I own a pair of K712 pro's and HIGHLY recommend them - also look around for prices. Here in Australia they retail for $800 but I got mine out of Hong Kong for $360 shipped.
From what I've read K712 Pro > K7XX. Smoother, faster, more precise (and still made in Europe if anyone cares). Although the K7XX are still great headphones for the money.
I have the K712 Pro and I think they are absolutely amazing headphones. They ain't cheap, but I'd say they're about as worth it as you can get.
As for Hifiman, ehh. Reading through Massdrop it seems that their collabs are both pretty terrible. The headphones are brighter than the sun and the earbuds are apparently almost guaranteed to break within a week, if they haven't broken by the time they get delivered. I realize neither product are the HE-560, but with the recent products I'm a bit wary.
K, there is a lot of misinformation in this thread.
For starters, the HE-560 is actually built fairly well. What ever is causing your headphones to distort is not a matter of build quality.
I do not like an new hifiman headphone with the exception of the HE-1000 but obviously you would not be buying those. All of the newer headphones sound very flat and boring. Anytime an HE-560 or 400i owner hears the HE-500 headphones, they are usually left speechless and frustrated that they spent so much money on crappy headphones.
And this has happened more times than I care to count.
The AKG K712s are highly over rated and IMO do not sound good at all. The trebble is pretty sharp, and they are pretty bass light.
The HD650s are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy better and easier to listen to, and you can get the HD6XX (which are HD650s) on massdrop for 200 bucks.
The Darvoice amp is not a good amp. In fact it is actually a really shitty tube amp with lots of good marketing. It is also an OTL amp and would not pair well with anything offered by AKG. You would really need something with a much higher impedance like the sennheiser headphones.
If you want a decent tube amp at a low cost that would suit a pair of HD6xx headphones, then I suggest you either look into a bottle head crack kit and assemble it yourself, or sell your magni and try to get yourself a used lyr 2.
If you save up a bit more, you could get the antique sound labs MG HEAD DT OTL MKIII. It sounds utterly amazing and performs way above its price point.
The K7XX is NOT a tweaked K712 - it is a minor redesign of the K702.
In 2012, AKG released the 65th anniversary edition of their K702 to instant acclaim. Built with a bass boost, improved comfort, and matched transducers, the limited edition K702 became a legend in the audiophile community for its sound and build quality. Following the success of the Q701 drop in June, we asked AKG if we could configure our own edition of the K702 65th, and they agreed based on their faith in the Massdrop community. Configured by Massdrop, manufactured by AKG, and made possible by you, the AKG K7XX Massdrop Limited Edition Headphones bring you rare sound at an even rarer price.
I just ordered the K712 Pros and will pass on the tube amp for now. If I don't like them I can send them back to Amazon. I also picked up an Audioquest Jitterbug as well. I'll just save the rest of the money to upgrade to a Schiit Jotunheim with a dac module after my tax returns. I would like to give planars another try later down the road, perhaps a pair of Audeze.
With the K712's (and almost all other AKG cans) make sure you have a quality headphone amp. A lot of complaints about AKG having harsh highs and muddy or non-existant bass is due to not having a powerfull enough amp. Even though these are low impedence headphones, you need a high power amp. An example of this is running my 712's through my Xonar Essence STX on low vs high power is a night and day difference.
Interesting. I have a pair of 553 Pro's from massdrop and they are 32ohm headphones. They are currently just plugged into my motherboard and it is not a fancy isolated audio PCB section motherboard either. That said I have not heard any extreme badness fromnit over 3 pairs of headphones of varying qualities over the years.
I am however looking to get into DAC/AMPs to see if I can get any use out of them. Never tried before so I have not had hands on time for side by side comparison of with and without. So I got the uDac3 that was on massdrop a while back. They have the 5 up now but it is more than double the price and I am just seeing if I like them even. I have heard this is comparable to the Fiio E10K which I hear a lot more about than the uDac3. So I am looking forward to that.
I have plans to hand build an O2 amp/DAC. They sell a kit on JDSLabs I think it the place.
I've built a couple of O2s. The stock parts are plenty decent, but there are some tweaks to make it even better. Price goes up a little and you'd technically be breaking the "No Derivatives" license of the O2 though.