The soundstage is good to very good, depending on how you look at it. Considering the price, it will definitely be one of the strongest virtues here. Mostly because when it comes to space recreation, it’s where the advantages of the HE400SE planar drivers innate resolution will be clear. When listening to Malia and Boris Blank “Convergence” album it was also noticeable that the soundstage was well-focused, rather in front, and not especially wide. Yet – what is noteworthy – the layering here may actually be light years ahead when compared to many headphones in the price range of HE400SE, especially when we consider comparison with closed dynamics. I also believe that the uncluttered and resolute nature of the HE400SE sound is really beneficial to the soundstage recreation here.
Listening to some more bass-heavy tracks provided me with another interesting conclusion. While we may argue that the sub-bass is slightly rolled-off, there’s also no mid-bass bloat and the contour of the entire bottom range is really well preserved. Bottom end character is in line with the way the HE400SE sound in general – crisp, controlled and open. Nils Lofgren Band’s “Bass & Drum Intro” was actually quite spectacular, especially on drums, which were rendered in a very realistic, plausible manner – especially the climax of this track was rendered with life-like openness. Quite a feat indeed.
This is where we come to what I believe is the biggest advantage of the HE400SE. It’s their overall open, quite direct, yet clear character. You know, we can fuss about this or that particular small trait, but it’s the overall feeling that really counts here.
Conclusion
Maybe let me put it this way – when you compare HE400SE price to the amount of music that HE400SE simply lets through its planar drivers, you’ll soon realize that they may actually be something of a singularity in the whole headphone market. And I purposefully did not use the term “budget headphone”, since what’s also interesting here is how the low price may affect our initial judgement. Let me remind you now the question that I asked before: what if the HE400SE cost twice the price? They would still good and worthy of a recommendation.
There’s also that another thing that inevitably comes as a reflection with this review’s conclusion. It happens quite often in audio world that the expensive products are associated with high-quality (and every well-heeled enthusiast will sooner or later get to know that this is a false assumption). Similarly, sometimes really competitively-priced gear suffers from “too cheap” badge. Is it diminishing returns mechanism in play by itself, or any other factors – maybe it’s not the time and place to judge that.
However, what I can firmly state is that the HE400SE is something much more, than you textbook Best Buy product. I believe that this can be some kind of a subtle, yet powerful statement from Mr. Fang Bian regarding what can be done if we connect the terms “headphones”, “planar” and “accessible to everyone” into one product. The thing here is also the fact that the HE400se voicing is also spot-on in the sense that while it will appeal to a wide range of listeners while still being unique. These are great cans in general and are a serious contender not necessarily considering its price point. Since, as I stated previously – even if they cost twice the asking price, they would still be more than a fair offer. And definitely a very serious statement of the HiFiMAN’s prowess when it comes to making a really complete, good sounding headphones in more than reasonable money.
All things said and done – a definite Best Buy.
Adam Kiryszewski
Model: HE400se
Retail price: 109 USD
Manufacturer: HIFIMAN https://www.hifiman.com/
Product page: https://hifiman.com/products/detail/310
Manufacturer’s web store page: https://store.hifiman.com/index.php/he400se.html
Disclaimer: Hifizone.pl is not affiliated with HIFIMAN in any way. We got our sample of HE400se kindly from HIFIMAN in return for our honest review.