A Geek Goes Flying

HE400se Picked up “ B-stock ” HiFiMan HE400se headphones (stealth magnets, planar magnetic ). First impression: Whoa. I’m hearing detail I never noticed before, in an album I’ve spun a thousand times (Tori Amos, Under the Pink ). The immediate response by the drivers to things like the sharp attack of Tori’s piano keys is crisp and controlled in a way I’ve never heard before. Driving them with the Schiit Hel 2 DAC/Amp . They’re 25Ω (or 32Ω? The site says one thing, the box another), but have a sensitivity of only 91 db, so they’re somewhat hard to drive . The Hel seems up to the task, though (though I do have it switched to high gain). I also have a balanced cable coming that might make them usable with the ES100 or AP80 Pro or Surfans F28 or ...? Meanwhile, Apple Music’s EQ doesn’t quite line up with the 10-band oratory1990 provides , so I kinda approximated it. I’m sure I have tweaking to do and I lack the instrumentation to confirm how close to (or nowhere near) the Harman Curv...

The current gold standard seems to be the Harman Curve , and enthusiasts have gone to considerable effort to measure different headphones and create equalization curves to try to bring their “cans” more in line with that ideal . One huge repository of presets is found in the AutoEQ project . For instance, the Sennheiser PC38X headset I use at the office has multiple enthusiast-provided EQ settings: Sennheiser PC38X (velour earpads) [ oratory1990 ] (though oratory1990 disclaims : “The ‘Github-page’ ... is created and maintained by u/jaakkopasanen. It’s his thing, has very little to do with me, actually.”) Sennheiser PC38X [ oratory1990 ] Sennheiser PC38X [ Rtings ] On a Mac, the excellent application SoundSource not only allows a system-wide EQ, but it incorporates the AutoEQ database; if your headphones are in the database, a ready-to-go set of EQ parameters is a couple of clicks away. I haven’t been able to find where SoundSource stores these presets, nor does it appear there’s an...