The Package

HiFiMAN sticks with the good old HE1000 box for the new V2. The box provides a good amount of protection as it is sturdy and packed with foam.


One of the small nuisances with the old HE-1000 was that the cable was a little on the stiff side. It seems HiFiMAN listened to the feedback, having swapped to a cable that is really soft. The cable quality and termination seem up to spec for a $3000 headphone.


You could argue that the regular TPU cable jacket makes it look kind of bland and I must agree, but here, it is clearly a choice of function over looks. TPU's excellent dampening characteristics reduce the amount of microphonic noise that travels up the cable and into the headphones. It is also much more compliant, which should make for a more comfortable listening experience since there is less pull on the headphones.


HiFiMAN is sticking to micro-jack termination for the headphone's side of the cable. It is a great choice in terms of convenience as you can make your own cables with very little soldering know-how. Structurally, they are somewhat compromised, but experience has shown me that they can handle more abuse than you would think; i.e. I do drop stuff occasionally.

Closer Examination

HiFiMAN's design team definitely managed to cook up a good combination of wood, aluminum, and steel with the HE1000 V2. The biggest aesthetic change from the V1 to the V2 is definitely the overall reduction in ear-cup thickness. This makes the V2 look sleeker, and it does reduce weight by 60 grams, which might not sound like a lot, but is definitely noticeable when you put them on.


Pads have come to the forefront of development over the past couple years with more and more elaborate designs being put out by pretty much every high-end headphone manufacturer. HiFIMAN is no exception, and the new V2 ships with a brand-new pad design. The V2 pads are more angled and feature a different type of foam along with polyester covers. When swapping the V2 pads over to the HE-1000 V1, you do get a slightly tighter sound and better depth definition, though it is a minor improvement only. There is also more room in the V2 pads, which makes them a good upgrade if you have a headphone they fit. I do suspect that the wear on my V1 pads amplify the changes I am hearing when swapping between the two.


The backside of these headphones is protected by an aluminum cover with a very high open ratio. Behind the aluminum grills is a plastic mesh that should keep smaller particles out of the driver.

As far as headband designs go, HiFiMAN found a pretty good solution. Both the new HiFiMAN models feature a suspended, unpadded soft strip that is suspended between the metal headband. This works really well by maintaining a reasonable amount of contact pressure between skull and headphones, across differently sized heads. The V2 has an even larger adjustment span.


Cable quality is still good. The new cables are softer and the leads float around inside the jacket, which is strange. Sound-wise, they are on par with the older ones. I fear it is worse off durability wise, but only time will tell.


Pad designs have increased tremendously in complexity over the last couple years. HiFiMAN's latest and greatest pads follow the trend started by Audeze. They are very angled and feature several kinds of materials. For HiFiMAN, this is the first non-velour-finished, non-pleather pad. The pads themselves are an integral part of the entire system, both in terms of ergonomics and acoustics, and the reward from swapping to the new ones is great, their ergonomics improvement alone making them a worthy upgrade if you can get your hands on them!