Selection Guide

I recently purchased these from headroom and wow.
The HE-500 headphones to my ears are a very natural sounding headphone. The distinction between neutral and natural here being that everything has expert placement along with it's slight warm tilt make this a very pleasing headphone for nearly any listening session.
The sound quality of these monstrous cans is just phenomenal, the bass is very punchy and has a great grain and texture it; yet not overpowering it has a mild emphasis over the rest of the spectrum. The midrange is a bit of an enigma. I'm so used to headphones with a much rougher and pronounced in your face midrange and vocal range in particular I was a bit taken back to the placement of vocals. Most vocals on these headphones are not recused but sound like they are set back on a stage almost. The Upper frequency's have sparkle and zing to them but not sibilant with GREAT upward extension.

Build quality on the HE-500 is pretty great as well. I have had full metal headphones that feel flimsy even though I know they are not. The HE-500 really FEEL metal; Ridged, heavy, and meaty. Really pleasing to hold and feel like I could fend off a pack of Wilder Beasts with them. The Leather is not real leather like advertised but protein leather like that sound in cars, it may not be real but it's really comfortable

The Comfort of the HE-500 is also pretty great all things considered. They can clamp a bit too hard on the noggin but the leather and velour pads are great. I prefer the Leather as it's a bit softer over all I feel and the cups distribute pressure pretty evenly around my ears. The headband does not force it's self down on me head and they really don't feel that heavy wearing them.

The packaging is somthing else I liked about these. I was originally extatic for a headphone that came with a box, A REAL LIVE WOODEN BOX FOR A HIGHEND HEADPHONE I PAID $700 FOR!!!!! but it didn't come with one....I was a bit sad but the trade off's are well worth it. A new silver cable!, A SET!!! of leather ear pads, and a SET!!!! of Velour earpads. The bat design for the ear cups is also improved over the flimsy bent plastic ones, to less flimsy machined/molded plastic!. The carrying case included is pretty tough as well. Yes it's a $40 case but that does not mean it isn't built rather well.



The drab backs to this headphone I feel REALLY needed to be taken into consideration. Amping, boy oh boy do these headphones need amping. Running them out of my little Dot MKII I was getting a very respectable sound, but it was not anything close to what I would consider $700 worth let alone the original price of 800. Lack luster bass, the vocals were set back VERY far yet not recessed...it's a very odd sound, and a much more zippy highend akin to the sr80i's. Keep in mind the Little Dot MKII only pushed about 100mw of power at 32 ohms, The Schiit Lyr I'm using now pushed about 6WATTS at 32 ohms. This really made a large difference on this headphone I feel. The bass opened up a substantial sum, the midrangeg was pushed forwards...not so in your face but not as far back as unamped or with the MKII and the midrange became VERY smooth and continued it's liquid smoothness well into the upper frequency's. The big draw back to this is the Lyr is another $450 another option is the NFB-12 but that is also $200 and has been reported to not synergize with the HE-500 as well if your really looking for that natural sound.

Over all I love these headphones and feel they really are a world class sound at a sub world class price; not by a whole lot but still a drop. 1star off for SQ as they require quite the amp to run, and 1 star off comfort as they can squeeze quite hard.