Introduction

There have been a lot of in-ear monitor (IEM) reviews on TechPowerUp recently, be it wired or truly wireless with TWS sets. This happened for two reasons—the IEM world is absolutely bonkers in how quickly new things come up via short R&D time periods, and I was working on improving my headphones frequency response measurement setup. You may have noted in previous headphone reviews, be it that of the HIFIMAN Arya (2021 stealth magnets), Meze 99 Neo, or Drop x Sennheiser HD 6XX, that I had mentioned as much. Things are better now in that regard, and what better way to start off than with one of the most popular budget-oriented headphones sold today? Thanks again to HIFIMAN for providing TechPowerUp a review sample.


The HIFIMAN HE400se is the latest iteration of the original HE-400 that helped make HIFIMAN, then known as Head-Direct, the major brand in consumer audio it is today. In fact, our very own review of the HE-400 came about nearly a decade ago, and the author was the one who got this very sample in before I took over. He had listened to the HE400se, decided it was quite good, and sent it over along with the HIFIMAN TWS800. This is clearly a set of headphones people are enthusiastic about, so much so that Drop has its own take, and there is a China-only version of the HE400se to further complicate things. What we are examining today is the international version most people will be able to purchase, and we begin the review with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications