I recently got this headset, and wow is it good. My only issue is when certain people talk on discord, I can hear a really high pitched ringing. I fiddled with a bunch of settings, computer audio and discord, and nothing seems to solve the issue. It is primarily if not all in my right ear only. Is there something wrong with my headset, or was that ringing always there I can just hear it cause the headset is THAT good? I haven't had any issues with any other application, though I have yet to test if I can hear the ringing on a different version of discord, say on my xbox instead of my pc. Only other issue I've had is occasional static, but I can't tell if it's from the headset or the show/game/etc.
Apr 24, 2024
Relative to a truly difficult to drive planar like the HE6, these are cake. Relative to a Grado, these things are horrible. Without an amp that spews power, these are sort of hard to drive, but the "planars are hard to drive" claim is not true so much as it used to be. With the tech being focused on so much more heavily, it's definitely come closer to your average large dynamic.
With a competent amplifier that can cope with higher end headphones needing weird amounts of power, you should be able to drive a lot of planars fine.
You have two amplifiers per channel in "balanced" operation, where "unbalanced" amplifiers only need one. "Balanced" is frankly a dumb name for it. It's differential amplification. You run a signal and an inverted signal simultaneously, which apparently equates to "balanced." The purpose is noise rejection, but some claim it helps sound. It can mean more power than another amp, it can mean lower distortion than another amp, it can sound better than another amp, but none of these are automatically true just because it's used.
Personally, I don't believe it helps, but I have nothing against its use. I just think it's worth knowing what's going on if you decide to go that route.
The Phonitor Mini and Jotunheim drive them the best out of my amps though some of them are higher end. The V200 is pretty damn close though. The balanced drive of the Jotunheim delivers a lot more power to the planars and it can be heard. Single ended operation on the Jotunheim is no slouch either in delivering power. The Phonitor Mini is a colder amp but offers a more detailed or analytical sound. I like the more detailed sound but the power of the Jotunheim really makes a difference with the bass on the HE-4XX.
Heck, even my Audio-GD ROC sounds really nice with them, but low end control is a tad lacking. It's not entirely the amps fault though. The HE-4XX may be low impedance and easy to drive, but feeding them more power really makes them shine. The power output of the ROC is't quite enough to make these shine.