HIFIMAN HE1000 Stealth Open-Back Headphones

[VSG]

Only if you listen to the wrong people. Trust your ears, not someone's opinion. Frequency response will not change with break-in, but EVERY other aspect of the sound will such as soundstage, instrument separation, glare/peakiness, and overall refinement, all with can not be measured.

Again, I am sure you found it to happen but let's not make conclusive generalizing statements like this. If you would like to discuss it and other psychoacoustics, perhaps another thread is a better place rather than the comments section of a review.

 

[Bansaku]

I am sure you found it to change but I did not after the many hours I put everything through, including this set. I'll agree to disagree on the review being flawed as a result of just break-in

HiFiMAN recommends 150-200 hours break-in, and you stated you had 50 hours. Maybe flawed was the wrong word to use, however I stand by my experience with owning about 10 different HiFiMAN headphones over the past decade. Oh, and it's not just the drivers I am referring to but the pads as well.

 

[VSG]

HiFiMAN recommends 150-200 hours break-in, and you stated you had 50 hours. Maybe flawed was the wrong word to use, however I stand by my experience with owning about 10 different HiFiMAN headphones over the past decade. Oh, and it's not just the drivers I am referring to but the pads as well.

Hifiman can do 150-200 hours of break-in before selling the products then, no reasonable consumer should be expected to do this themselves and potentially risk losing the return period. As for the pads, these employ a hybrid composition that only breaks down the foam over time. I have pads of various use times here and can tell you the best performance is from fresh pads every single time. Hifiman's own engineering team shared results of the pad composition and usage behavior over time with me to re-affirm this. Any way this will be my last post on the topic, it's obvious we both disagree on the topic and our various experiences do not reconcile with each other either.

 

[ir_cow]

Only if you listen to the wrong people. Trust your ears, not someone's opinion.

My ears says its all in your head lol. Magnets only get worse over time, not better. Thousands of hours with my living room speakers and they still sounds the same as day one.

I would love to see this retested after 1,000 hours of use just to debunk it.

 

[trsttte]

Frequency response will not change

If frequency response doesn't change what does then!? If the frequency response is the same, the headphones can only get louder/quietar, no "smoother treble" or anything - that would be seen in the frequency response

Magnets only get worse over time

That's not necessarily a bad thing but i'm being pedantic (and on that theme, unless you put them in an oven or something magnets won't noticeably degrade during your lifetime )