My wife and i are worth around $200,000 in cash and more altogether of course. This product is not for me. I do not feel comfy spending over $1500 on headphones. Can't become a millionaire by spending money when my finance guy is getting me over 20% on the dollar. Yearly. If i had around 1.6M in the bank, id possibly buy something like this to celebrate a milestone. Possibly.
@@计 yea it’s crazy. No headphone at this price is justifiable. Maybe a state of the art home audio system would be. You could at least “feel” the music, the bass, etc.
Your music choices are embarrassing. How do you dare listening to what you like. You should have listened to what I like, otherwise you’re not an audiophile 😉
The number of times I've been told that because I didn't listen to classical, only to classical, and only to specific correct recordings, every review I've ever made was useless...
@@metal571 I can feel you. Coming from a family with many well known classical musicians, classical music was always forced upon me. Despite many family members trying to explain to me it’s the only real music and everything else is just copies I never learned to enjoy it. Classical music always makes me profoundly sad, even the light hearted stuff. Why should I listen to it then, if it doesn’t bring me joy? I can still recognize the skill and art behind it. If someone buys an HE-1 just to listen to bird sounds or something, is that any less audiophile than someone listening to Mozart?
@Gabriel Gledhill classical music is not the measure of all other music, that is a pretty blind thing to say and shows you have no understanding of music as an art form. If you would look around you would see that all regions have their tradition and complex music that goes back for thousands of years, incorporating elements that classical music just ignores with its reliance on 12 tone harmonics, only simple rhythms and a set amount of instruments. Classical music is also citing folk music of the time or even made to please a certain Zeitgeist or whoever paid for the composition. In that it is not different from today’s music. It is just music made with a different process and filtered through time and endless rearranging. Also classical music is very limited, you can easily acquire a decent knowledge about almost all classical music that is played today in a few years. Also it is limited in the way it is composed, written on paper and then interpreted by a few instruments. There is very little you can do with timbre or rhythm in classical music. But maybe that doesn’t fit in your white, western self righteous world view?
It's inspiring when a company can engineer audio equipment with the best possible sonics, regardless of the costs. Would love to hear the HE-1. Cheers and thanks for the video.
Hi Josh! Great work with the He-1, it's the first time we can appreciate the headphones from this close! I'm not gonna tell you that you should change the songs you use to test headphones, that's a completely personal choice, just a tip: to really appreciate the vocal performance of a headphone you should try to include some lyrical duet, you'd have amazing tonal and dinamic range and an unedited and pure sound, so that you can fully evaluate the headphone performance! If you want any suggestion hit me up!
Here's my go to short demo music playlist (all live): Alison Krauss - Atlanta (Live album), Alison Krauss - Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn (Live Album), The Wailin' Jennys - Racing the Sun (Live @ Mauch), Dave Matthews Band - Warehouse (Live in Central Park), Joe Bonamassa - Slow Train (Live at Vienna Opera House, Joe Bonamassa - Ballad of John Henry (Live @ Vienna), Metallica - Nothing Else Matters (S&M), The Roots - You Got Me (Come Alive), 10,000 Maniacs - because the night (Unplugged), Diana Krall - Devil May Care (Live in Paris).
4 hours is not that much, considering that you had to also do all the video recording in that time. For any other headphone it would probably only justify a "first impressions", not a full review. Although let's be honest, no one is here because they were considering buying one, so a first impressions is sufficient. I'm just a bit sad you didn't get to use it more, also for your personal enjoyment.
4 hrs only, as you said, someone just gets accustomed to the product, so this qualifies as a teaser. They know his address, so what's the worry ;) A review would qualify for at least a week, to test it with wide range of music and sources. Full review at least a month.
Thanks for showing what songs you tested. Can you elaborate more on how the HE-1 compare to other high end headphones? Do you get close to their level with cheaper headphones? (AB 1266 / Susvara) Did you prefer any other headphones over the HE-1 in certain areas? Thanks again!
Brass can not be anodized. Anodizing process is exclusive to aluminum And titanium. Brass, however, could be electroplated, And I think that might be the case with the knobs on this system.
I think you did a great job choosing a wide variety of quality recordings for this test, and it’s always a good idea to listen to tracks that you’re familiar with when making such nuanced comparisons. One of my favorite recordings for testing any kind of playback system is Beck’s song “Paper Tiger,” in case you’re interested in checking it out :-)
@@starkid9736 I actually like that you mentioned that, and I never blame anyone for liking or not liking a track! One of my brothers has VERY similar musical tastes to my own, but we still sometimes send each other tracks the other doesn't like at all, and I always kind of like that nice reminder of our differences. I will say though, Paper Tiger really is a great one to use as a reference when mixing, mastering, or comparing listening systems, even if you don't like it one bit! 🙂
I really, really enjoy your videos. You seem like such a great guy. You present very technical and potentially subjective information in a very relatable and respectable way. I'm always looking forward to your next video. You're so nice, I almost think that you are Canadian (like me) 🤔😂👍
Josh, you need to include at least some metal in your playlists. Most headphones have problems with playing a lot of sounds at the same time, hard and fast sounds, or wide range of sounds at high bpm. I understand that this may not be your kind of music, but it is a very important parameter to assess headphones
As allways it depends on the recording quality/technique and the headphone used. For example: The last two Tool albums sound great on headphones and scale up with the headphone's abbilties ( TOOL are playing in a league of their own, but other examples would be Helmet or Porcupine Tree/Steven Wilson in general) Slayer or Sepultura can be fun on so called "fun" headphones and sound like garbage on a DT1990 or stax L700. But in general it's harder to find Metall albums, which were recorded with an "audiophile" intention and so the more your system leans towards being neutral and resolving, the worse your experience with most mnetal recordings will be - but that is really just my opinion based on my experience with the pretty limited number of albums, that stayed in my collection over the years)
my biggest pet peeve with metal - these headphone reviewers don't do metal, and more often than not the albums are badly mixed i don't need to spend money on headphones if I listen to trap beats and autotuned vocals
The build-in amp limits the potential of HE1. BHSE + VOCE will give you north of $4,7000 for your Streamer (Antipodes), DAC (LampizatOr), cables ( Tara Labs), ground boxes (Synergistic Research), power conditioning systems (IsoTek), and racks (Artesania Audio) and produce a MUCH BETTER sound. Spend your $$$ wisely.
Just some throw away thoughts to hopefully complement what ol' Josh has said here - He's dead right - the HE-1 just doesn't jump out at you, ok, true - I spent only an hour with a He-1 here in Melbourne and the source was 'erm ok' - An Astell & Kern AK380 with the matching Crystal dual 3pin XLR cable out the back to the HE-1 - Tracks? Eric Clapton's Unplugged Miles Davis - Some kind of blue Radiohead - Kid A I don't know, I wanted more. Flipside, again small note to Josh - HiFiMan Shangri-La - the Chinese competitor, ok so the source was different, again we didn't do it justice but we did better - Bryston BDA-3 DAC with a set of Cardas Clear XLR's with the custom Georgie Cardas gold plugs - better for sure -.... Woaaaahh - fly away with me! Only system that reached the pinnacle that all us 'audio freaks' chase again and again - A suspension of disbelief. Sure one of those 300B tubes will blow one day and you might need to rob a bank...
Great review: Thanks for the going through the thinking behind your chosen playlist for the HE-1 review --- I will check out the that Chris Jones track (and the album). Btw what is the monitor ?
Products like these are made for individuals of different income levels. Individuals making 10’s of millions or more don’t want to spend $1000 dollars ….are these headphones better yes probably but it’s diminishing returns after $1000 at an exponential rate 😯
Never be insecure about your preferred music. Always listen to whatever the flying F you like, and never give a second thought to what others say. Oh, you should have listened to this and to that ... you will never be able to please everyone. Always keep that in mind. Find your own groove, because that's the gist of music: it's a personal thing. And of course, when evaluating audio, listen to tracks you know and are familiar to, so you can get a proper grasp of things. I remember my high school days, when my real journey into audio began - getting above t-bag gear, my first sony portable cd player (an e220), starting to buy cd's instead of cassettes (oh yeah baby! remember those things? rewinding them with a pen ... boy, those were the days ) looking for .wav files and so on ... My classmates used to make fun of me because I listened to Boy George, Prince, M. J., Rammstein, Metallica, Tool, Smokie, Aerosmith (the usual mix of big artists) and so on, and not the usual rap and pop garbage that was churned out on a typical "conveyor belt factory" production. I never gave a damn, I still don't give a damn what others think, and probably will never do that bout anybody. Audio is a subjective thing. You either like it, or don't ... Out of the trio (you, dms and z), I like you the most. You have a unique way of describing the sound and how headphones ... well ... sound, that I think is very good. Keep it up! Peace ...
Were you afraid of having a copyright claim if you said you listened to stairway to heaven hahaha. No rock No rap no metal. Closest thing was the weekend and even he is very vocal. How do you think these headphones would sound for Guns and Roses or Chicago?
Would you recommend either AKG 812, HD800s or DT1990 for mixed Gaming (immersive singleplayer games, Action games, competitive Shooters) or which other would you suggest ?
Just watched your "Future of Audiophile Headphones" video. I'm wondering if you can get a better idea of whether or not headphone manufacturers can achieve the same kind of "large sound" they can get from a full size planar in something the size of the iSine series, if you compared a better tier of headphones, like the LCDi4 vs LCD-4. I'd like to know if the LCDi4 can compete with full size decent planars myself, because I'm thinking of getting them. Bonus points if you throw in a comparison to the new LCDi3.
Anybody who buys just one set is selfish. Unless you can listen with your friends and share the experience you are an idiot. Talk until the cows come home. What is the point?
Because of you I listened to Pentatonix' version of Mad World and I had to laugh and wished that I hadn't. It was like a dorky choir boy version of a decent song. Gary Jules voice sounds so much cooler and sings with so much more emotion. Music is nothing if it doesn't make you feel something. I'm sure you can find a high quality version of it and it would sound way better than listening to Pentatonix.
How does Hifiman manage to charge 50k for the shangri la with such a shitty webite lmao if it weren't for youtubers like you i wouldn't trust them w my credit card details.
Thanx for the job , Josh , appreciate your effort ! Well , u didn't pick one good electronic bassy soundstagy track and one tech metal track to test intensive instrument stream separation pronounciation capability , otherwise , thank you very much !
The Untold Truth? We lost Josh! He’s now a clickbaiter 😢 Seriously though, this headset, other than the price, is not that special sound-wise. You could spend $50k less and get ridiculously good sound (maybe better) from the likes of Abyss. These are all about exclusivity. If you can afford it, more power to ya. I’ll stick to my Jubilees (thanks, Josh).
Really? $59k? Okay… LG C1 $2800 SVS Prime towers $2600 (pair) SVS PB ULTRA 16 $2900 (each) Onkyo RC-50 $1300 Cables? $200??? Blows this headphone out of the water? 💯
Been binging a lot of your vids lately, absolutely dig them! production quality is top notch. also just wanted to drop a recommendation for test/reference track: Glass Eyes by Radiohead. Beautiful strings, intimate vocals, along with very specific sound placement and panning effects to gauge imaging
Great to see finally someone reviewing this headphone system. Kudos to all the effort! I was fortunate to listen to it for two days and I was shaken by the sound quality it delivered, but it has been more than a year so don't remember correctly. but it depends on what kind of songs you are listening to. I remember the first day the salesperson made me listen to his own songs like Justin Beiber and lady gaga.. that wasn't sounding very great but the next day I got my own songs and I was brown away.. almost came to tears. However, I feel Stax SR009 does a fabulous job not nearly as good as HE1 but very close in my opinion. One can rather spend their hard cash on sr009 without much regret. For me, My ears have been spoilt now, I know what can be the highest level of sound quality produced from a headphone and my Hifiman He400 sound like disappointment whenever I remember the hound of HE1 but that's what I can afford right now.
AWESOME, I'm here from the "part 1". Nice things are nice, the way I describe High-end Hi Fi is, it's not impressive it will just sound nice. Anyhow thank you AND the good folk who helped you bring us this lovely insight into a lovely world.....of loveliness
Very cool that you mentioned Foggy Dew by Sinead O Connor and the Chieftains. It’s a very political and rousing song and especially sad now she’s passed away. The HE-1 is also built in Ireland to my knowledge, maybe if I’m nice to them I’ll get a test of them soon. I often wondered how viable it would be for a coffee shop to have a VIP listening room with them, how much would people pay for an hour say? (Don’t wanna be that guy but Sinead is pronounced Shin-ade like Koolaid rather than “sin”).
What Streaming Service did you use for these Headphones? Tidal MQA, Quboz Hi-Res Audio (FLAC), Apple Music Hi-Res Lossless (ALAC) & Apple Spatial, Or Amazon UHD, Dolby Atmos, Sony 360 Reality Audio?
Much appreciated, Josh. Thought of maybe replacing my Empyreans with silver dragon (now it sparkles & is wider) with Abyss 1266 TC to truck with. HE&1s are supposedly the best headphones known, overall. Wondered how close the 1266 came toward perfection in comparison. This helps me even just stick with Empyreans.
The silver dragon is cheapish, not great. The HE-1s might not be the greatest headphone out there depending on who you are. They are perfect when it comes to the mids. That's it. So can be a well-powered Susvara and a RAAL SR-1A. The Susvara is not as spacious but the holographic tone can come close with a good amplifier and good cables. Though the build quality is far from the HE-1. The Raal SR-1A from the HSA-1A are better than the HE-1 in all but three aspects, Bass Quantity, Bass Quality, and emotional involvement. Since the Raals cannot really do much bass, besides the fact the tonality is just that bit brighter, lighter. Unlike the more... liquid quality of the HE-1. Some argue the HE-90s were better, but those are rarer than a blue flamingo. Not to mention, they *argue*. Haven't tried HE-90s so I can't say. The Abyss. Or, perhaps the most emotionally involving headphones if you want to headbang. Their mids aren't the best, but they should be more holographic than the Empy. Further, from the finest of amps these can potentially bring out as much detail as the HE-1. They are bassier, brasher. Just Holy shit! Which is not great when you want to sit back and relax- unless you use some serious tube amp/ DAC synergy. Also, they are a bloody vice. The SR-009s are wonkier than the ABs. The SR007s are tonally better than the 009s, but do not reach AB-1266 levels of technical performance. The Mr Speakers VOCE is TOO DAMN DAMPENED. Almost to the line of wonkiness. The concept behind the Jecklin Float QA is interesting. Oh Susvara, so close to greatness. But you turned out to be a toy. The RAAL/HSA-1A can be a worthy contender at $7K. Check for Bass levels.
In any evaluation of headphones or other gear you’re considering, knowing what to evaluate with is key to expose the flaws of the object under test, if there are any. The playlist is key to the exposure and your familiarity with this and what and how it exposes is also key. Using unfamiliar songs you have no specific, much less intimate time with, is an exercise in futility. He’s absolutely correct in that. Good luck getting much cooperation on the take home evaluation thing. Not saying those dealers don’t exist. However, in this day and time, they are exceedingly rare. Only the delusional believe to the contrary. The ugly of the world who have brought this on can take the bow for this being the case rather than it being otherwise. Say hello to reality. I digress. Familiarity is key to evaluation, so choose your songs based on your perceptions and see if it helps or doesn’t. You may find your list may require different songs based on the component under review. It does apply to more than just headphones. Hello.
Let's just say I have at least 3 commas in a trust... still wouldn't dare spending that much on just headphones. Took a lot of hard work to make all that money, can't be where I am at today if all I did was spend money.
I never really got the he-1. It really never seemed all that special to me. The design seems so generic, it looks like and hd 600 on a tube amp or something, and to know that it is outperformed in many ways by headphones in the 5000 dollar price bracket makes it look completely embarrassing. To be 60,000 US it needs to be more perfect than the 5000 dollar headphones and it isn't. I wouldn't even bother with it if I had the money to buy it.
