HIFIMAN HE400i Over Ear Full-Size Plannar Magnetic Headphone

Brilliant headphone + quick delivery.

Those are my first open back planar headphones and they are worth any money.Give them a time to break-in and they will deliver fantastic clear sound.The big disadvantage is that HIFIman doesn't recognise Amazon as their dealer so they are not cover by their warranty.The other issue is the headphone cable.This is the next version of HE400i with a 1 x 3.5 mm jack to 2 x 3.5 mm jack. Cable is very stiff and quite short. An angled jack is a mistake if you are listening from you amplifier or computer. It maybe OK if you are listening from a mobile device.Because of the new cable, there are no aftermarket replacements. All of them are for the old one (1 x 3.5 mm to 2 x 2.5 mm jack) so be careful when you are buying them and double check which version you need.Because of the above I gave 4 out of 5 stars. If the cable would be a little bit longer, more flexible and with the straight jack then totally 5 out of 5.

This are very good headphones...but the plastic holding the ear pieces just break. It's a common flaw which I looked up after this happened. I never over used them. Always put back into the box. Then one day I felt a sharp pain in my left side of my head and realised they had snapped. Shame, but amazon refunded with no arguments.

Ok, so, these are planars. They are quite good. Sound is nice, accurate, bass is strong and they really pick up on details. I don't know what they are doing but man, I got a few surprises when I was watching some movies. All in all they are really nice. Also good build quality, I would gladly recommend them to anyone. So why the 4 stars then? Well. These aren't as good as they can be when you get them. In order to improve them you need to buy new pads and those plastic rings to mount them on (Cheers Zeos). The Brainwavz Angled pleather pads seem to be the rule of thumb on these. You can get the pads from amazon and the plastic mounting rings from the official hifiman store. But boy, when you get them, and hear the difference for the first time, then, these headphones become amazing.So the 4 stars on these are because you need to invest more money in order to make them sound as good as they can be. Oh and because they were squeezing my head sooo hard I had to physically unbend them.All in all, good headphones but after you tweak them, then they become great.