For such a low price this headphone deserves 5 stars for sheer bargain prowess! So long as this is plugged into a decent amplifier the sound opens up and is terrific! By contrast, anyone expecting to plug this into their cell phone or laptop computer is missing the point, without decent amplification this headphone will not sound as great as it can(more likely dull, actually!). I am driving this through an IBasso Bushmaster D14, which in turn is amped via an RSA Mustang P51 on high gain. I find this combination with the HE4XX heavenly, also because the P51 almost completely eliminates the Sabre DAC's glare. So my recommendation is to buy the HE-4XX, but only if you drive this through a decent DAC/AMP combo!
Activities:Casual Listening, Critical Listening, Gaming, Movies & TV
Music Genres:Electronic, Pop
checkVerified Buyer
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
Value is amazing
An extremely good headset for those who want to up their sound game without diving too deep into the audiophile scene. Many people dont want to buy amps and do all this extra research on top of spending loads more money just to have better sound quality, and if you are one of those people, this headset is for you.
Build quality- I’m not gonna put the quality at 5 stars because they aren’t perfect. They’re cheaper headphones so I’ll cut them some slack and say the build is actually quite nice for the price point.
Sound Quality- Yet again, another very good sound for the price, crystal clear sound with an extremely good amount of bass for an open back design, even when comparing it to some more expensive headphones it was astonishing how immersing the soundstage was.
Comfort- The comfort on these is great, most cheaper headphones use an elastic band that digs into your heads and don’t allow much swivel in the ear cups. These are the opposite, it has a cushioned headband, the cups swivel perfectly for every head shape, and the tightness of the way the headphones clamp on your head gives the perfect amount of pressure that you can forget you even have them in your head. Only if you neck is strong enough of course, as these are a little heavy.
Music Genres:Electronic, Hip-hop, Metal, Pop, Rock
checkVerified Buyer
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
Sound great, price is solid, but build quality and comfort doesn't keep up.
They sound fantastic, great for music with bass, not because it crunches everything for a lot of bass, but because it can punch with bass without killing the rest of the mix more than other headphones can. I'm not a "needs a ton of bass" guy, nor a "bass kills music" guy, I'm more of a "some music is meant to be bass heavy" person and these cans are good in that regard. Say, a metalcore band with a strong bass drop in a song will sound better on these than on many other higher quality headphones in this price range.
For gaming these are also solid, especially if you like game with major set-pieces or even competitive gaming. Honestly for competitive, though, I was never as happy with these as other offerings like those from Sennheiser, but they do their job. Issue is, if you try to equalize treble for something like footsteps, these really become fatiguing because they can be sharp if you let them. Soundstage is great too, being open, but they're easy to hear for the people around you.
Durability and comfort is a weak point, albeit not terrible on either front. I can't say I don't drop headphones sometimes (no pun intended), but the way the cans and the adjustment piece fell off the band is nothing short of a design that needs revisited. The headphones are too heavy to let three small screws that can see extra applications of force handle them. I've heard this is an issue with Hifiman in general, which they've supposedly worked on but it's just something to consider. I imagine if you never drop or adjust these more than once, you'll be fine. Overall that comes down to how clumsy you are and how much you use them. On that note too, they're kind of heavy and the cushion in the band is barely a thing. They will start to make your head sore after prolonged use.
Activities:Casual Listening, Critical Listening, Gaming, Movies & TV
Music Genres:Classical, Country, Jazz, Pop, R&B, Rock
checkVerified Buyer
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
Surprisingly durable while still sounds great.
This pair sounds great when I first try it back in the day and it still sounds great today.
unbelievably I've been using this for almost 6 years already.
Music Genres:Classical, Country, Electronic, Hip-hop, Jazz, Pop, R&B, Rock, World
checkVerified Buyer
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
Multidimensional Jack of all trades
I truly enjoy this headset is a jack of all trades. To start off the comfort, is like having giant pillows on your ears, none fattiguing sound and comfort, wearable for many hours with joy and happiness. The sound is very well balanced good base extension without being g boomyor overly done, the mids and highs are very nice and clean and clear, I noticed this specially during long gaming sessions while playing MW3. The sound is like I said before multidimensional very open and yet direct at the same time. During my musical experience it was pure bliss and beautiful to listen to but if you want to explore and experience this kind of listening, you will likely need a headphone amp and dac combo. I personally used the schiit Hel for gaming and for music I used the topping DX3 Pro+ and I can tell you that wow it nearly blew my mind as I was immediately transported to audio nirvana. I hope this review help you and I do hope you get yourself a pair of this amazing planar magnetic magic for your ears. You won't regret it.
I enjoyed these headphones a lot, my first set of nice headphones that I bought for my amp. Great listening experience for all my metal music and very immersive for gaming as well. The positioning and soundstage is leaps and bounds better than any gaming headset I've ever used, which I guess doesn't say much as once you try real headphones you can't go back to those.
However there are some serious design flaws with these headphones that don't need to be there. The small screws that hold the driver's to the headband WILL fall out. The headband is sealed around these screws so you can't even just screw them back in without butchering your headband.
Simply leaving an opening for these screws and maybe going with some bigger ones would have prevented almost ever RMA or warranty claim with them. Sadly, the cost savings were concentrated on making these unrepairable without destroying them. Two small screws and a light dab of adhesive isn't enough to keep them together.
search
search
search
search
Really sad because they otherwise are a great headphone, that with a small modification would last.
MakisWow that's not good I am sorry this happened to you and thankful for you posting about this issue I will check mine and keep an eye on that area. Otherwise I truly agree with you the sound stage is amazing. Gaming with this set is super fun I am truly enjoying mine. Btw I do hope you get them fix or a replacement through warranty.
Like them very much !
At a certain low frequency, the right earphone made something like a squeak sound.
Support have responded fast and sent me another pair.
Enjoying !
Music Genres:Classical, Electronic, Jazz, Metal, Pop, Rock
checkVerified Buyer
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
star_borderstar
Great Sound, Bad Comfort
Headband gets really uncomfortable after about an hour at the top of the head. Needs more padding. Or better yet, segment it into two sections left and right like on the Sennheiser 58X, which are 5/5 for comfort.
As far as sound quality goes HE4XX has way bigger sound stage and clearer sound (more resolution). I would prefer HE4XX if they would be as comfortable as the 58X.