Despite not always being enthralled with planars, I’ve appreciated their capabilities. In fact, three of my favorite headphones, the original HE-6, HE-1000 v1 and LCD-4, function through this modality.

I personally enjoy the changes enabled by source gear, which I confirmed by blind testing. I notably appreciate using high-powered stereo amplifiers directly from speaker taps with low efficiency planars, which require strong current. The HE-6, for example, will bring most headphone amps on the market to clipping point, so it is popularly used with speaker gear. In my experience this delivers significant improvements mainly in dynamics and transients. Things sound more immediate and livelier even when volume matching. My current pairing is the Dangerous Music Convert 2 DAC, into the Bryston BHA-1 which feeds the 4BSST2 as pre-amp, although I would be open to exploring a dedicated pre-amp.

Having been fortunate to use HE-6 on multiple stereo setups, to me this setup brings out its aggressive and textured qualities the most. This is indeed a special headphone, and one of the most visceral I’ve ever heard. I've written an extensive breakdown of its sound on my blog, and appreciate it to this day.

The LCD-4 is also very special. Extremely resolving (despite a dipped upper midrange/low treble region), smooth in tone, with potent dynamic contrast (including bass). It’s a winning combo for me, although some will be annoyed by the tonal tilt.

And, finally, the HE-1000 v1, known as the “rich” egg-shaped HiFiMAN headphone, which I tend to agree with. Take something like an Arya, add some reverb in the bass, soften up the lower midrange, push out the stage laterally and you have the HEK v1. Not as lively as the other two, but the "wall of sound" presentation still remains special.

The three are always very enjoyable to jam out to. Feel free to share your experiences with planar magnetic headphones!

Out of curiosity: when 'connected to speaker amps', do you mean the headphone-in or the actual speaker connectors? And if the latter, how would one do that?

Speaker terminals are R+, R-, L+, L- so you can connect them directly. You can make your own cable or buy one. There is also the Hifiman adapter you can buy which is pretty much a resistor box to help protect your headphones/amp.

Speaker amps don't really make that much of a difference unless you are listening at stupid high volumes. 50W speaker amp into 4 ohms is 14v. HE-6 is 50 ohms, which means only ~4W of power. That is still a ton of power but there is no guarantee is is clean, and even then, do you really need to listen that loud (114db)?

I had a pair of HE-6se that had a lower sensitivity than the HE6 and I was fine with a 1W amp. The people who think speaker amps do more for the sound are just not testing properly, especially in a planar with a flat impedance curve so it isn't even a tube amp thing where it does change the sound, just not for the reasons people seem to think.

Cool! As long as you like the sound, go for it!

I connect directly by using a banana plug to 4 pin XLR adapter cable, to which I plug my headphones in. Just need to be careful with volume.

You haven't heard what the HE6 can do off of a proper speaker amp so you don't know what you're missing. It's not even up for debate, your 1w amp isn't doing them the justice they deserve.

Except I have because I also hooked them up to a 100w speaker amp with and without the adapter. It isn't up for debate because your view on this makes no sense. How is it that a speaker amp helps the sound? Explain it in detail, because there is no reason a speaker amp would help them sound better other than louder.

I can explain why it doesn't help the sound. If you can do the same on why it does, we can have a conversation. If your only argument is "because I heard it," then we don't because I doubt you did proper testing.

> If your only argument is "because I heard it"

Have you?

Did you not read my previous components? I tried. It doesn't make a difference at equal SPL. Which is in line with how amps and headphones work. Have you properly tested to make sure you are hearing what you think?

Well for one I spent $50,000 on speaker amps and literally every single one of them provided almost no benefits whatsoever until I asked for advice from someone with more experience than this entire subreddit combined and got a Parasound A21+. The other part of why it happens is that proper speaker amps have a huge amount of power reserve in their capacitance and dumping the amount of power needed doesn't come close to their maximum power so you're never starving the capacitors and losing dynamics because of it. The HE6 is incredibly high on current demand for a headphone and that drains capacitors really fast, fast enough that it severely gimps the amount of dynamic range due to the voltage swings being lower because of the capacitors never being fully charged and ready to discharge on headphone amps. I didn't spend $50k on speaker amps and another $50k on headphone amps only to settle on the Parasound because I'm imagining shit. I sold off every one of the amps I tried because they didn't do anything special, it's not about amount of power, it's about the ability to sustain it without keeping the capacitors in a constant scavenge stage where they're trying to recharge and never delivering their full voltage swings.

I know how to test gear, I understand volume matching and have decibel meters and even a measurement head to measure volume with a pad seal. The differences are very real and immediately noticeable, they are not subtle, anyone can hear them immediately. The problem is making a blanket statement that they need a speaker amp, but that is only half of it, they need a GOOD speaker amp and several speaker amps I tried even over $2000 MSRP absolutely sucked and provided nothing over a run of the mill powerful headphone amp. It was also immediately noticeable on the Parasound that the Hifiman HE-adapter was lowering the quality over plugging directly into the speaker taps. I have spent more time trying to perfect an HE6 chain than most people spend nitpicking audio gear in their lifetime and I don't even feel like I'm close to the end but I do know for certain that if all I had was the 789 and A90 I originally had when I first purchased the HE6, I would get rid of the HE6 because without being driven well, they aren't anything special, but when they are, I prefer them over basically every single TOTL headphone, including the 1266 TC, Utopia, D8000 Pro, Empyrean Elite, haven't owned the Susvara but have demoed then at shops on my own gear and they are incredible and I'll eventually buy a pair but they aren't the dynamics kings like the HE6, and several others in the summit-fi realm. A lot of people don't understand that they have the thickest planar diaphragm in existence and all that mass is really hard to push and even harder to push to full excursion, it takes a very fast slew rate and and capacitance to dump power fast enough to make them worth owning. The diaphragm mass is why they can slam so hard. I have done significantly more testing than your skepticism would ever allow you to believe, all volume matched and tested properly.

My setup is fairly easy to A/B, I volume matched the BHA-1 output and the 4BSST2 output using my MiniDSP EARS (essentially find the level of software attenuation to speaker output that matches headphone out at 100% software volume). Granted it wasn't blinded, but it's pretty obvious and even easier than telling DACs apart ime (which I've successfully done blinded).

I also think the actual amp you use plays a role. What 100W speaker amp did you use, and what headphone amp did you compare it to? I did hear some pretty crappy speaker amps that did not compare favourably to headphone amps, for example cheaper class D stuff which distorts a ton.

>Granted it wasn't blinded

This is a huge issue though. For a short anecdote on that, I recommend watching the ~1 minute story from this video. There are several parts before and after that explain why this happens and why non-blind testing can't be reliably used. I recommend people watch the whole video if possible, but that one anecdote from the video is a pretty good one. The speaker is basically the guy when it comes to how hearing works.

>What 100W speaker amp did you use, and what headphone amp did you compare it to?

I don't recall the exact model but it was a NAD one, I think a bit older than their current one. Rated for 100W into 4 ohms. Headphone amps were SMSL SH-9, also used a JDS Atom, which is the 1w amp I mentioned being sufficient. I also had a Topping A50 that I used which has likewise the same.

>The other part of why it happens is that proper speaker amps have a huge amount of power reserve in their capacitance and dumping the amount of power needed doesn't come close to their maximum power so you're never starving the capacitors and losing dynamics because of it.

This doesn't follow though. If the headphone amp is attenuated to a specific voltage output, the part that gets to the headphone is the same. Voltage at amplitude and frequency oscillates the driver to make a certain sound by causing the driver to move at a specific speed to a certain point of excursion. The amount the capacitors are being utilized would affect the amps ability to handle the current/the voltage it provides, but if that were an issue, you'd have less power or the power would clip/distort severely. Speaker amps, at a given voltage, are almost always less clean power than a headphone amp.

>The HE6 is incredibly high on current demand for a headphone and that drains capacitors really fast, fast enough that it severely gimps the amount of dynamic range due to the voltage swings being lower because of the capacitors never being fully charged and ready to discharge on headphone amps.

This also doesn't follow. If an amp is able to provide equal voltage at a given frequency, it won't have this issue you are describing. Add on that DR is a function of signal and noise so the thing that determines that will be the amount of voltage the amp can provide. If both can provide the same voltage, and the device isn't also outputting a lot of noise, the dynamic range would be the same at a given voltage. Also, capacitors don't have to be fully charged. The prevent fluctuations in voltage delivery due to inconsistent flow of electricity. See this video. If this were an issue, your amp would cut out intermittently. Also, voltage swings being limited is the same as voltage out being limited and is the same as the clipping issue I addressed earlier.

>I didn't spend $50k on speaker amps and another $50k on headphone amps only to settle on the Parasound because I'm imagining shit. I sold off every one of the amps I tried because they didn't do anything special, it's not about amount of power, it's about the ability to sustain it without keeping the capacitors in a constant scavenge stage where they're trying to recharge and never delivering their full voltage swings.

It is about being able to supply power. That is what amplifiers do, they amplify the power given to them by the DAC. They should do so completely transparently. I believe you hear the difference you think you hear, but I don't agree that it is because of the amp. That is touched on in this video. You like what you like, you can't argue preference, but proper testing needs to be done to see if what you are hearing is due to the reason you think you are hearing it. Currently, I would argue that it is not.

>I know how to test gear, I understand volume matching and have decibel meters and even a measurement head to measure volume with a pad seal.

This isn't how to match volume. Use a multimeter that is accurate in the audible range or an oscilloscope. This is especially true if the headphone is the same and being A/B tested through a transparent switcher. Since you are using the same headphone, what matters is the voltage out.

>The problem is making a blanket statement that they need a speaker amp, but that is only half of it, they need a GOOD speaker amp and several speaker amps I tried even over $2000 MSRP absolutely sucked and provided nothing over a run of the mill powerful headphone amp.

I disagree. There are a lot of cheaper speaker amps that are better than the touted audiophile gear.

>It was also immediately noticeable on the Parasound that the Hifiman HE-adapter was lowering the quality over plugging directly into the speaker taps. I have spent more time trying to perfect an HE6 chain than most people spend nitpicking audio gear in their lifetime and I don't even feel like I'm close to the end but I do know for certain that if all I had was the 789 and A90 I originally had when I first purchased the HE6, I would get rid of the HE6 because without being driven well, they aren't anything special, but when they are, I prefer them over basically every single TOTL headphone, including the 1266 TC, Utopia, D8000 Pro, Empyrean Elite, haven't owned the Susvara but have demoed then at shops on my own gear and they are incredible and I'll eventually buy a pair but they aren't the dynamics kings like the HE6, and several others in the summit-fi realm.

And it is perfectly fine that you feel that way and I wish you luck in finding your perfect setup but none of what you have shown is an objective thing you can say other people should follow because it hasn't been properly tested. If getting that set up makes you happy, then go for it.

>A lot of people don't understand that they have the thickest planar diaphragm in existence and all that mass is really hard to push and even harder to push to full excursion, it takes a very fast slew rate and and capacitance to dump power fast enough to make them worth owning. The diaphragm mass is why they can slam so hard.

I do understand how thick their diaphragm is, but that is also why their sensitivity numbers are what they are, which is ridiculously low. But that is already taken into account when you refer to the loudness that the amp can push the headphone to.

>I have done significantly more testing than your skepticism would ever allow you to believe, all volume matched and tested properly.

This is incorrect. Your testing was not proper.

Those are some of the midrange NAD integrated amps, should be okay. But I've owned the C375BEE which was their TOTL integrated for a bit and I saw significant improvements going to different stereo units like the MC225, KSA150 and the 4B. If ever you're in the Montreal area I would invite you to blind test this chain with what you consider a sufficient headphone amp.

I will keep that in mind. I don't get to travel much (at all actually), but if I ever am in the area, I'll send a PM.

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>First, dismissing someone’s auditory perception in a hobby that is literally all about auditory perception is pretty silly.

I didn't dismiss it. If you read further down, I explicitly say I believe they hear what they think, I just don't agree with what they think their reason for it is.

>But second, higher powered amps make a huge difference to demanding headphones.

Any two amps that are not super flawed that are able to produce a set voltage without audible distortion, noise, or clipping, will be the same. Having more to turn on the volume knob remaining doesn't increase the sound quality. Why would it?

>Amps that don’t have enough power just can’t keep up with high current demands — bass doesn’t decay right, very dynamic passages sound congested, and yeah, you can’t get as loud.

Not being able to keep up with current demands but being able to keep up with voltage results in clipping. I have addressed that below.

>Honestly if you can’t tell the difference between a powerful amp and a run-of-the-mill chifi while driving a demanding headphone, I’m not sure what you’re doing even commenting on gear

Not being an elitist to others, that's what. I literally made a meme about people with your attitude and it was one of my most upvoted things.

Nothing in your post explains why it would make it sound better, it only shows that you need to look into how amps work.

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>How about this: there is audible distortion when an amp is being asked to drive a load beyond its ability. There are headphones that are beyond the ability of many amps. You will not see this on a sine wave sweep, but it’s clear as day with a real input signal.

But you literally do see this with a sine sweep? Though they tend to pick one signal and increase the power of that signal until it clips.

Do you understand how testing for max power before clipping works? If not, I can probably find a resource for you to learn. The way headphone amps are tested is pretty cool.

The amount of power a headphone amp outputs before this is what results in how loud it can drive a headphone. All of what you are talking about is already taken into account when I talk about two amps being set to a specific voltage output. It was what I was referring to when I said the advantage is loudness but I don't listen that loud. A JDS Atom can handle ~7v before clipping, maybe a little more if you allow for 1% distortion. That is 104dB on the HE-6. I don't listen that loud ever.

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My part of the post where I stated that you'd need to be able to explain your stance was to avoid people who spout this and that with no substance. We don't have a conversation and your derogatory attitude is not helping.

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How is he being “derogatory “? By not agreeing with you? It’s his experience.

>Seems like people read ASR and think they’re automatically a genius that sees through the hifi BS, but if you actually just listen to the damn thing you’ll realize what a fool you are.

If that is an honest question, it is because this is assuming that I just read some ASR then think I am a genius when I am really a fool because I cannot hear what they hear despite not being able to show any counter evidence from what I showed as evidence that what they were saying was incorrect.

Also they are calling me a fool for not agreeing with them.

Derogatory is to take a disrespectful attitude, to disparage. It can also mean to try to detract from the standing of someone. Calling someone a fool for not agreeing with baseless claims is derogatory in both senses.

I reiterate, I am not saying these people aren't hearing what they think they are, I'm saying what they are hearing is not caused by what they are claiming and it is a different part of the processing chain. To prove otherwise, it needs to be properly tested. I have linked a video multiple times where one of the most expert persons discusses this very topic and why it is so important to make sure things are tested properly.

Thanks for sharing this! Always good to see your posts. :)

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I often play my Susvara and HE6se v2 through an entry level Cambridge Class AB speaker amp (nothing over the top in the least), and generally hover around 50-60% volume, which gives me a comfortable ~75 dB average, with spikes in the low 80's. Similarly, I do find the sound to be subjectively fuller in the low end, and smoother overall, through extended long-term listening. Especially when watching action movies or shows, the dynamic and visceral snaps/cracks of gunshots and explosions sometimes do cause me to involuntarily flinch a bit, which isn't always observed in other setups - at least in the context of these hard to drive planars. And this is compared against headphone amps that are not lacking in powering, on paper, like the Schiit Lyr 3 and Jotunheim 2.

What I wonder is if the design of speaker amps just inherently have "a sound" (whether if by topology, design, component choices, etc.) that contributes to these types of sound impressions, rather than it being simply a characteristic of having excessive power on reserve. Any thoughts on this?

Those cans crave current and I wonder if speaker amps not being as current-limited as a lot of headphone amps plays a part.

Then again, my recently-acquired Cavalli Liquid Gold (OG) (LAu) puts out 8-9W at 50ohms and my HE-6's sound pretty good on it when comparing the LAu against my Bryston 3B-ST. However, the Bryston 3B-ST (120W at 8ohms) is a far better value proposition for an HE-6 setup at the $500 used price I paid for it.

Thanks Mr Webster. Now go read your dictionary and listen to your sine waves.

So what was the point of asking that question if all you were going to do was the same thing? I don't get what you intend to do with things like this. Just ignore it and move on with your day instead of acting in bad faith.

> Those cans crave current and I wonder if speaker amps not being as current-limited as a lot of headphone amps plays a part.

Ah yes, great point! Definitely need a refresher on this, for myself. :P

Nice find on the OG LAu! I was interested in the more recent LAuX but never pulled the trigger, and completely forgot about it. I'll pick this one back up in the new year.