Questions about the Drop Hifiman HE-4X Planar

[brainzap8]

Planning on buying new headphones, as i only have half broken HyperX's right now. The Drop Hifiman HE-4X have caught my eye. Good price, and good reviews.
But how is the sound in your experience? Is it suitable for gaming AND music? What about the soundstage?

Mainly... CAN I RUN THE HEADPHONES WITHOUT AN AMP/DAC?

My Motherboard: Z390-A PRO

Im seeing mixed opinions on the conversation of "to amp or not to amp" these headphones, and i dont want to waste the same amount if not more money on an amp if its not needed.
Any reply will help! Thank you!

[johnt]

You are overthinking it.

 

Get the headphones, use them, and if you find that the headphones don't provide enough volume for normal listening, then buy an amp. Don't worry about maximum volume... just make sure they work at your comfortable listening levels.

 

Then, save up some money and buy a dac/amp in two years.

 

The truth is a dedicated DAC and amplifier is almost always better, but without knowing the headphones, you won't really understand the benefits of the DAC or amplifier.

[rice guru]

5 hours ago, brainzap8 said:

Planning on buying new headphones, as i only have half broken HyperX's right now. The Drop Hifiman HE-4X have caught my eye. Good price, and good reviews.
But how is the sound in your experience? Is it suitable for gaming AND music? What about the soundstage?

Mainly... CAN I RUN THE HEADPHONES WITHOUT AN AMP/DAC?

My Motherboard: Z390-A PRO

Im seeing mixed opinions on the conversation of "to amp or not to amp" these headphones, and i dont want to waste the same amount if not more money on an amp if its not needed.
Any reply will help! Thank you!

I have the 4xx which isn't too different

. personally I think they need a bit of a pad change but after that it's pretty great. For the 4xx I would say to make it really sing you need at least 1 watt into 32 ohms which no motherboard really does. As planars really like a good amount of current. The he x4 from what was told is easier to drive. Calculating power requirements you should be fine for the most part out of the motherboard but an amp upgrade in the future wouldn't hurt something like a magni 3+ will be more than you need.

 The reason I reccomend a pad change is cause the stock pads are both uncomfortable and itchy plus the lack of seal can leave the headphone sounding anemic. 

https://www.brainwavzaudio.com/products/headphone-memory-foam-earpads-oval-micro-suede

 I reccomend these pads.but may require you to ruin original.pads to get the mounting rings off of them or get these https://store.hifiman.com/index.php/earpad-mounting-rings.html

[Spuriae]

I agree with both of the above:

• The X4 is uncomfortable (IMO). The headband is uncomfortable, the stock pads are small and scratchy, the headphones are heavy, the overall build quality is mediocre. These are general HIFIMAN issues and not specific to the X4.
• They will probably be on the quiet side when powered by a motherboard.
  • But they won't sound much *worse* outside of that. They are still one of the best-sounding headphones at their price point whether driven from a motherboard or an amplifier.

The best approach would be to buy the headphones, run them out of the motherboard, and decide whether you like them. If you do, then you can purchase an amp if you need them to be louder and/or replacement pads if you need them to be more comfortable. If not, return them.

 

Also look into the HE-400SE, which is about the same price on Amazon and is a very slightly improved variant of the HE-X4.

 

If you can say what Windows volume level you use with the HyperX Cloud, I can calculate what the volume setting for comparable loudness with the HE-X4 would be for you.

[brainzap8]

1 hour ago, Nimrodor said:

I agree with both of the above:

• The X4 is uncomfortable (IMO). The headband is uncomfortable, the stock pads are small and scratchy, the headphones are heavy, the overall build quality is mediocre. These are general HIFIMAN issues and not specific to the X4.
• They will probably be on the quiet side when powered by a motherboard.
  • But they won't sound much *worse* outside of that. They are still one of the best-sounding headphones at their price point whether driven from a motherboard or an amplifier.

The best approach would be to buy the headphones, run them out of the motherboard, and decide whether you like them. If you do, then you can purchase an amp if you need them to be louder and/or replacement pads if you need them to be more comfortable. If not, return them.

 

Also look into the HE-400SE, which is about the same price on Amazon and is a very slightly improved variant of the HE-X4.

 

If you can say what Windows volume level you use with the HyperX Cloud, I can calculate what the volume setting for comparable loudness with the HE-X4 would be for you.

Thank you this helped me quite a bit! I currently use the hyperX cloudX, with the volume usually at or below 40 on windows. I think that uncomfortablness is a big factor, but if they sound good then im all for them. I can always get different pads, and i personally like heavy headphones :). I did look at the HE-400SE, but they are 50 euros more expensive here than the 4X's, so you know...
Thank you for helping!

[Spuriae]

15 minutes ago, brainzap8 said:

Thank you this helped me quite a bit! I currently use the hyperX cloudX, with the volume usually at or below 40 on windows.

That works out to a maximum sound level of ~90.5dBSPL, for a HyperX CloudX at Windows 40/100 from a Z390-A Pro.

 

The HE-X4 would get to the same loudness at around Windows 90/100, so you should at least be able to use them at your normal listening volume when trying them out.

28 minutes ago, brainzap8 said:

I think that uncomfortablness is a big factor, but if they sound good then im all for them. I can always get different pads, and i personally like heavy headphones

The X4 may feel fine for you then, since the weight is a big factor in their comfort.

[Psittac]

I have the he400i (2017) and they're fine on high end motherboards slightly higher sensitivity and slightly higher ohms than the he4x. In my experience an amp is more about quality of sound vs onboard.  Balanced has some benefit but at the price range you are looking in it doesn't make sense to spend that much on an amp. I knew that I was going to make a hobby out of it so I jumped straight to XLR but if you want a solution rather than a journey I would pass on it

[HAL90000]

The people saying "Buy them and see what happens" don't understand how headphones work.  You absolutely need at least some amplification with any planar headphone whether it's an over/on ear or an IEM. The problem is bigger than "it's not loud enough". You're going to be introducing distortion and you're also going to run the risk of clipping the headphones in dynamic sections of sound. It's not safe to run the headphones like that, and even if it was, the experience you'll get will be terrible.

If you want to use regular wired headphones, you have a few low impedance high sensitivity options that will work with any 3.5mm jack on any device, like ATHM40X (better than ATHM50X) or even Grado SR60's. I would not go planar though.

If you want to run any headphone (almost any) I'd suggest throwing $280 at a Fiio K7. It is a spectacular DAC/AMP. Then throw $169 at the HE400SE which are a more modern model than the drop model and have stealth magnets for better sound.

 

Also, if you have bluetooth on your PC, you have other options such as Sony XM5, Momentum 4, PX7S2, etc or even Galaxy buds or a similar device.

[Spuriae]

2 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

You absolutely need at least some amplification with any planar headphone whether it's an over/on ear or an IEM. The problem is bigger than "it's not loud enough".

 

Amplifiers are definitely nice. Absolutely necessary for every planar? No.

 

Practical for someone on a limited budget? Probably not, unless something is wrong with their current setup or their existing electronics don't get their heapdhones loud enough. An Ananda plugged into a motherboard or dongle still sounds better than an HE400SE plugged into a good amplifier. An HD650 plugged into a motherboard or dongle still sounds better than an HD599 plugged into a good amplifier. The money is usually better spent on better headphones.

 

Technically speaking, a headphone amplifier acts as both an amplifier (voltage) and a buffer (current). For low impedance planars, current is usually the main limitation; additional voltage amplification is wasted. This is why there is usually little benefit to using low impedance headphones in an amplifier's high gain mode; although the high gain mode gets louder faster when you turn the dial, it clips at about the same level regardless (in other words, the main outcome is a less granular volume control).

 

You don't need more amplification if the signal is already loud enough. You might want a higher quality amplifier for reasons other than amplification such as output impedance, distortion, or noise; but amplification is nothing more than making a signal louder. If the signal is already loud enough, there is no benefit to more amplification on its own.

 

If the signal is clipping, the signal is noisy, the bass is underdamped, etc., definitely consider purchasing an amplifier. If you already have headphones you're happy with and feel like upgrading something else, definitely consider an amplifier. But don't purchase an amplifier upfront if it would prevent you from getting better headphones.

2 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

You're going to be introducing distortion and you're also going to run the risk of clipping the headphones in dynamic sections of sound.

Due to the 75Ω current limiting resistor on motherboard outputs, this isn't applicable to motherboards. Amplifier-related (analog) clipping should not occur on a typical motherboard; the overall signal will simply be lowered instead of clipping.

 

On a pure technicality, amplification in most modern solid state circuits is achieved by shifting gain out of the feedback loop and into the output, actually increasing noise and distortion (which is not to say that a better amplifier would have more noise or distortion). This is why the low gain setting on most amplifiers is better quality than high gain.

3 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

It's not safe to run the headphones like that, and even if it was, the experience you'll get will be terrible.

How can too little power damage a planar headphone?

Square waves do deliver more slightly power than equivalent amplitude sine waves, but a clipped signal will never deliver more power than the original unclipped signal.

3 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

If you want to use regular wired headphones, you have a few low impedance high sensitivity options that will work with any 3.5mm jack on any device, like ATHM40X (better than ATHM50X) or even Grado SR60's. I would not go planar though.

Low impedance dynamic headphones are a non-ideal pairing with motherboards due to their high output impedance; the impedance mismatch can cause a significant midbass boost due to the resonant frequency of the dynamic driver. For instance, the SR60X would have a 4.4dB boost centered at 100Hz based on ASR's data, if driven from a standard 75Ω motherboard. They are a good match for low impedance outputs like on smartphones, though.

 

High impedance high sensitivity headphones are usually the best pairing with motherboards because the voltage divider effect is minimized. High sensitivity planars (like the Ananda) are also a good pairing due to their impedances' comparative lack of frequency-dependence.

4 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

If you want to run any headphone (almost any) I'd suggest throwing $280 at a Fiio K7. It is a spectacular DAC/AMP.

It's certainly a good product at its price point. But then again, for a limited budget, spending more on the headphones and less on the amp is usually the best approach.

If an amplifier is really needed, a $200 amplifier is probably not the right choice to pair with a $100 headphone as someone's first real headphone purchase.

4 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

Then throw $169 at the HE400SE which are a more modern model than the drop model and have stealth magnets for better sound.

The 400SE technically predates the X4. The 400SE released on the Chinese market in versions with or without stealth magnets, and there isn't a significant difference between the two. It's mostly a marketing checkbox to try to imitate the fazor/waveguide designs from DCA and Audeze. Outside of China, the 400SE released with stealth magnets only, followed by the X4 release without stealth magnets.

8 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

Also, if you have bluetooth on your PC, you have other options such as Sony XM5, Momentum 4, PX7S2, etc or even Galaxy buds or a similar device.

Sound-wise, most of the popular open-back audiophile headphones sound better than any Bluetooth headphone currently on the market.

 

Sound quality aside, OP wants to game. No PC's built-in Bluetooth natively supports aptx-LL (which is deprecated anyways); the latency on Bluetooth devices is too high for many games.

[rice guru]

2 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

Sound-wise, most of the popular open-back audiophile headphones sound better than any Bluetooth headphone currently on the market.

Just want to add to this point Bluetooth especially audio experience on windows is utter garbage not only will you deal with latency that Bluetooth has which is really noticable in games and extremely so in rythm games, but you have to deal with windows and Bluetooth at the same time both 2 finicky piece of tech that don't want to cooperate well with each other. 

[rice guru]

12 hours ago, HAL90000 said:

You're going to be introducing distortion and you're also going to run the risk of clipping the headphones in dynamic sections of sound.

This is more of an issue with dynamic drivers and only when you really pushing an amp but will rarely if not never really damage a headphone. Distortion on planar is much harder to do. 

[brainzap8]

13 hours ago, Nimrodor said:

 

Amplifiers are definitely nice. Absolutely necessary for every planar? No.

 

Practical for someone on a limited budget? Probably not, unless something is wrong with their current setup or their existing electronics don't get their heapdhones loud enough. An Ananda plugged into a motherboard or dongle still sounds better than an HE400SE plugged into a good amplifier. An HD650 plugged into a motherboard or dongle still sounds better than an HD599 plugged into a good amplifier. The money is usually better spent on better headphones.

 

Technically speaking, a headphone amplifier acts as both an amplifier (voltage) and a buffer (current). For low impedance planars, current is usually the main limitation; additional voltage amplification is wasted. This is why there is usually little benefit to using low impedance headphones in an amplifier's high gain mode; although the high gain mode gets louder faster when you turn the dial, it clips at about the same level regardless (in other words, the main outcome is a less granular volume control).

 

You don't need more amplification if the signal is already loud enough. You might want a higher quality amplifier for reasons other than amplification such as output impedance, distortion, or noise; but amplification is nothing more than making a signal louder. If the signal is already loud enough, there is no benefit to more amplification on its own.

 

If the signal is clipping, the signal is noisy, the bass is underdamped, etc., definitely consider purchasing an amplifier. If you already have headphones you're happy with and feel like upgrading something else, definitely consider an amplifier. But don't purchase an amplifier upfront if it would prevent you from getting better headphones.

Due to the 75Ω current limiting resistor on motherboard outputs, this isn't applicable to motherboards. Amplifier-related (analog) clipping should not occur on a typical motherboard; the overall signal will simply be lowered instead of clipping.

 

On a pure technicality, amplification in most modern solid state circuits is achieved by shifting gain out of the feedback loop and into the output, actually increasing noise and distortion (which is not to say that a better amplifier would have more noise or distortion). This is why the low gain setting on most amplifiers is better quality than high gain.

How can too little power damage a planar headphone?

Square waves do deliver more slightly power than equivalent amplitude sine waves, but a clipped signal will never deliver more power than the original unclipped signal.

Low impedance dynamic headphones are a non-ideal pairing with motherboards due to their high output impedance; the impedance mismatch can cause a significant midbass boost due to the resonant frequency of the dynamic driver. For instance, the SR60X would have a 4.4dB boost centered at 100Hz based on ASR's data, if driven from a standard 75Ω motherboard. They are a good match for low impedance outputs like on smartphones, though.

 

High impedance high sensitivity headphones are usually the best pairing with motherboards because the voltage divider effect is minimized. High sensitivity planars (like the Ananda) are also a good pairing due to their impedances' comparative lack of frequency-dependence.

It's certainly a good product at its price point. But then again, for a limited budget, spending more on the headphones and less on the amp is usually the best approach.

If an amplifier is really needed, a $200 amplifier is probably not the right choice to pair with a $100 headphone as someone's first real headphone purchase.

The 400SE technically predates the X4. The 400SE released on the Chinese market in versions with or without stealth magnets, and there isn't a significant difference between the two. It's mostly a marketing checkbox to try to imitate the fazor/waveguide designs from DCA and Audeze. Outside of China, the 400SE released with stealth magnets only, followed by the X4 release without stealth magnets.

Sound-wise, most of the popular open-back audiophile headphones sound better than any Bluetooth headphone currently on the market.

 

Sound quality aside, OP wants to game. No PC's built-in Bluetooth natively supports aptx-LL (which is deprecated anyways); the latency on Bluetooth devices is too high for many games.

Thank you so much for this reply!
The thing is, the Hifiman HE-X4 only caught my eye because of their price and good reviews. If there is any other better headphone for what im looking for (150-170 euro max, music, gaming) then ill be all ears to hear recommendations! Im new to HI-FI like you mightve noticed, but one thing i know for sure is i like when the headphones aren't muddy sounding. I do currently use Peter's Peace APO EQ, which helped open up the sound possibility with my hyperX's, so i know that you can sorta "change" the sound of specific headphones, but for instance i hate the sound of the Sony XM4's (i am not looking for bluetooth... latency issues and such, just gave an example). But any headphone with good sound, and no extra hassle needed could be nice!  
And thats the thing... i saw SO MANY videos/reddit posts/comments on the question if headphones need amps or not... so i thought id ask here. And it for sure helped. I personally do not understand how amps can be so damn expensive and how a "good starter setup" is a damn near 300$ amp with 100$ headphones. So thats why im trying to either look for headphones that dont particularly need an amp, because then i wouldnt mind spending more money on the headphone itself; or trying to find headhpones and a super cheap amp, i dont need nothing too special... just something that sounds good (objectively or subject.), has a nice sound stage and just all that good stuff. Casual listening, but i want an uplifted experience. You get me?

*Much love to everyone trying to help, thank you!* 

[rice guru]

On 4/20/2023 at 1:45 PM, brainzap8 said:

Thank you so much for this reply!
The thing is, the Hifiman HE-X4 only caught my eye because of their price and good reviews. If there is any other better headphone for what im looking for (150-170 euro max, music, gaming) then ill be all ears to hear recommendations! Im new to HI-FI like you mightve noticed, but one thing i know for sure is i like when the headphones aren't muddy sounding. I do currently use Peter's Peace APO EQ, which helped open up the sound possibility with my hyperX's, so i know that you can sorta "change" the sound of specific headphones, but for instance i hate the sound of the Sony XM4's (i am not looking for bluetooth... latency issues and such, just gave an example). But any headphone with good sound, and no extra hassle needed could be nice!  
And thats the thing... i saw SO MANY videos/reddit posts/comments on the question if headphones need amps or not... so i thought id ask here. And it for sure helped. I personally do not understand how amps can be so damn expensive and how a "good starter setup" is a damn near 300$ amp with 100$ headphones. So thats why im trying to either look for headphones that dont particularly need an amp, because then i wouldnt mind spending more money on the headphone itself; or trying to find headhpones and a super cheap amp, i dont need nothing too special... just something that sounds good (objectively or subject.), has a nice sound stage and just all that good stuff. Casual listening, but i want an uplifted experience. You get me?

*Much love to everyone trying to help, thank you!* 

This reply lacks a bit of nuance that I'm trying to sort of remind people the whole loudness being a good measure if an amp is good enough this is why it's so confusing why you need an amp or not. The dt 990 is a nicely debated headphone whether or not a strong amp is needed or not most people will say this one needs an amp but I sure how much amp is needed. Reason why? Look at this measurement . The impedance is highly varied across the frequency response. This is more of a problem with dynamics though with planars actually pretty easy you just look at the sensitivity and impedance put it i to a calculator and you get a decent idea of how much power you need just like I did in my fist reply as the impedance stays the same across the board generally. Where with dynamics they do not. Dynamics also have their sensitivity measured at 1 khz which is usually where the impedance is at its lowest.all this to say the whole "if it's loud enough" mantra is really not the best way to determine whether you need an amp with most headphones.  Sure to get volume out of certain frequencies is rather easy but to power the rest of the frequencies reliably then that's where an amp comes in handy.