The stuff Hacker News actually recommends.

Headphones

HiFiMan HE-400i

5owners with an opinion
100%of verdicts positive
0/0positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for sound and comfort.

Where people moved

Came here from

What people wrote

Neutral
I’ve got a schiit stack for my 400i’s (apparently they are designed to be drive-able by mobile amps but it is definitely right at the edge of what my desktop could do). It is hard to say how much is placebo. I definitely see how having a “plugging stuff in” ritual could get you in a different headspace. But FWIW, I ended up having the 400i setup in another room that I wasn’t able to use every day, just because of the vagaries of pandemic era “adjust the apartment for multiple people working from home” stuff. One of my strongest “oh this sounds better” moments came from realizing I’d gone through a couple room changes and (without thinking of it) been sitting next to the 400i’s, all plugged in and ready to go, for a while and just using the Sennheisers without thinking, hahaha. So there was not much ritual in that case. Could have still been influenced by placebo or some sort of pseudo-nostalgia thing, though. IEMs are even stranger, right? I had them mixed up with earbuds for a long time and assumed they were all just junk, but of course they can get really good sound quality by virtue of their position. Don’t need to push a big diaphragm if you are right up there in the ear canal!
Likes it
HIFIMAN Sundara’s (planar magnetic) are only like $299 on Amazon. So if it is a scam it isn’t a particularly effective one, I mean the audiophile sector has people selling magic speaker stands for thousands of dollars; if HIFIMAN wanted to rip people off they surely could do a better job. I’ve got some HE400i’s from them. Unfortunately I can only compare against some closed back Sennheisers (HD 380 pro) so it is not really an apples-to-apples thing. But the difference is pretty obvious, there’s more diaphragm and more power behind it. Bass ends up sounding a bit more crisp.
Likes it
The most comfortable headphones I have are my open ear Hifiman He-400i. Minimal clamping pressure, and they’re more breathable due to being open backed. I can wear them for hours without issue. The downside is that they only work if you can get away with open backed headphones. They’re useless if sound leak is an issue or if you’re on an airplane or something. But for working at home in my office by myself they’re ideal. And they sound way better than anything else I’ve tried.
Likes it
Open back headphones, Hifiman HE400i (2020). It's really cool to discover more details in my favourite songs. I think I paid ~€200 for it. My previous headphones were the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x ~€100, and you can definitely hear the difference in quality, but I think it is probably past the point of diminishing returns. Synthesizer: Sequential Prophet REV 2 (8 voice). I have it for 1.5 years now and I still feel like there is a lot left to explore for me in the synth, cool sounds to discover/create, I think I'm gonna buy the expansion board (+8 voices) as a birthday gift to myself
Recommends it
I don't recommend the HE-400, but the HE-400i instead. The HE-400 has the old Hifiman headband, the old pads, and the old cable, and suffers from a boomy bass issue. Replacing the pads and cables (absolutely required, new pads fix boomy bass issue some but not all, old cable breaks easily) raise the cost to be almost as much as the HE-400i, and you can't ever fix the headband issue. The HD650/HD650 and AKG K701/Q701/Kxx/K712 family however I do agree with. Also, the DT770 isn't fully closed, its semi-open. The DT990 also isn't fully open, its semi-open. They are merely closer to each end of the spectrum, with DT880 in the middle of semi-open, but they're ALL semi-open. Disclosure: Former DT880/600 Premium owner, current HE-400i owner.