The Orthodynamic Thread

[Smeggy]

yep, those things do heat up the exhaust pipe quite a bit

[swt61]

Good to know. That would be easy for me to do though, and I could keep the exhaust at just a few inches.

I'd also insulate the exhaust if that's the case.

[Voltron]

Good to know. That would be easy for me to do though, and I could keep the exhaust at just a few inches.

I'd also insulate the exhaust if that's the case.

Heh, that's the first time I've seen you use the phrase "just a few inches." Probably the last, too.

[Dusty Chalk]

Would you prefer he said, "balls deep"?

[swt61]

Heh, that's the first time I've seen you use the phrase "just a few inches." Probably the last, too.

OK, I'll keep it 1/8 TICE away from the wall.

[mrarroyo]

I believe the hose is kept hot to keep the moisture removed from the room suspended in the exhaust air, otherwise you could end up w/ a water puddle on the floor. Good luck.

[n_maher]

The hose is hot because the heat exchanger is taking heat out of the air in order to make it cooler. You can't get one without the other.

[guzziguy]

What about a cooler with the Markl mods?

[swt61]

All I know is that a big hose on something should never be looked at as a detriment.

[guzziguy]

I worked as a wild land fire fighter for two summers back in my college days. When it comes time to humping hoses up a steep hill, a big hose was definitely a detriment. In this situation, I'd take a 3/4" hose over a 3" hose any day.

[swt61]

Please explain the other situations where you'd prefer the bigger hose. I'm sure inquiring minds would love to hear about them.

[monsieurguzel]

So after spending a about a week with a loaner pair of HE-6 headphones, I have to say that I wasn't super impressed with them, especially in terms of construction. I feel like it is quite a marketing ploy to sell an existing pair of headphones (ie. HE-5) at twice the price. When I peaked into my loaner pair, everything about the construction, including the casing, the magnet arrangement, size of magnet, etc. were exactly the same as the HE-5. Which means that the only difference is that they are clad in a questionable leather, have some minor tweaks, and have a "gold plated diaphragm" which I don't really buy as a positive. Gold sure as hell isn't the best conductor for use in IC cables, and doesn't seem like a very good idea for a diaphragm which is supposed to resolve all the nuances of a musical passage properly.

All this pretty much means that my low powered WA5 amp which can power high efficiency speakers just fine, can't even handle the HE-6 at all which is a total bummer. Fang suggests 10-30 Watts @ 60 ohms, which seems pretty darn high for just headphones.

Call me upset, but I just don't really understand the point of this product, both in terms of price point and in amplification needs. I wasn't a big fan of them at Canjam and wanted to give them another try, but still can't seem to really appreciate them even on my own equipment. Oh well....one less headphone tempting me to be purchased

[HeadphoneAddict]

So after spending a about a week with a loaner pair of HE-6 headphones, I have to say that I wasn't super impressed with them, especially in terms of construction. I feel like it is quite a marketing ploy to sell an existing pair of headphones (ie. HE-5) at twice the price. When I peaked into my loaner pair, everything about the construction, including the casing, the magnet arrangement, size of magnet, etc. were exactly the same as the HE-5. Which means that the only difference is that they are clad in a questionable leather, have some minor tweaks, and have a "gold plated diaphragm" which I don't really buy as a positive. Gold sure as hell isn't the best conductor for use in IC cables, and doesn't seem like a very good idea for a diaphragm which is supposed to resolve all the nuances of a musical passage properly.

All this pretty much means that my low powered WA5 amp which can power high efficiency speakers just fine, can't even handle the HE-6 at all which is a total bummer. Fang suggests 10-30 Watts @ 60 ohms, which seems pretty darn high for just headphones.

Call me upset, but I just don't really understand the point of this product, both in terms of price point and in amplification needs. I wasn't a big fan of them at Canjam and wanted to give them another try, but still can't seem to really appreciate them even on my own equipment. Oh well....one less headphone tempting me to be purchased

He actually suggested 5-6 watts at 60 ohms, which might mean an amp that does about 50 watts @ 8 ohms. There was a big leap in performance moving from my 8-watt ZDT to my 55-watt Yamaha home theater receiver, and I did not need to get close to maxing out my receiver. If I listened to my Polk SDA speakers at -25 on the volume control, the HE-6 performed as well at similar volume levels with the same volume control settings (albeit 12 feet away for speakers and inches away for headphones).

With the ZDT normal listening levels were achieved with the volume knob at 3 o'clock and I could listen at max 5 o'clock without distortion; but it sounded softer, less dynamic and less transparent than when using the cheaper but higher power receiver to drive them. They just didn't seem to do so well on a high-end low-power transformer coupled tube amp.

The next prototype is already more efficient, and hopefully the final version will be noticeably easier to drive. On a similar note, I found that most 8-12 watt speaker amps were still insufficient for the K1000 as well.

[K3cT]

Does the new HE-6 still sound painfully bright like the older HE-5?

[monsieurguzel]

To me it sounded nowhere near as bright as the HE-5 which I previously owned. The HE-5 at first really impressed me with 'aparent' detail retreival, but I then realized that it was just the overly harsh brightness that made them feel detailed. They were great at louder volumes but oh so fatiguing. To me the HE-6 takes a nice step forward as it is a more laid back and neutral headphone than the HE-5 before it. It does all frequencies quite well, but to me there isn't one specific thing that it does outstandingly over anything else.

I'm sure its a great headphone but needs some very serious power to properly drive. Which makes me wonder how come two headphoens that aparently use very similar technology can differ so much in power requirements. Is it that the HE-6 magnets are a lot less strong than those on the LCD-2 or is it just that the gold diaphragm is extremely hard to drive. But even so, what are the advantages of a diaphragm that is super hard to drive compared to the extremely thin one of the LCD-2 which can sound decent out of an iPod?

[spritzer]

You only need to alter the gap between the diaphragm and the magnets a little bit to loose a lot of sensitivity so there could be tweaks done to the drivers you could never spot unless you opened them up. I don't get the benefits of marketing a headphone like this though where a B22 or a Dynahi/Fet are your only realistic options for driving it.

[K3cT]

To me it sounded nowhere near as bright as the HE-5 which I previously owned. The HE-5 at first really impressed me with 'aparent' detail retreival, but I then realized that it was just the overly harsh brightness that made them feel detailed. They were great at louder volumes but oh so fatiguing. To me the HE-6 takes a nice step forward as it is a more laid back and neutral headphone than the HE-5 before it. It does all frequencies quite well, but to me there isn't one specific thing that it does outstandingly over anything else.

You know, that suspiciously sounds like the HD800 although I rather like the latter actually. Dear sir, how about coherence? When I tried the HE-5 the last time, it was also an issue as the sounds didn't seem to gel together properly. More than often you got a sound panning left and right but left a hole in the middle.

I'm sure its a great headphone but needs some very serious power to properly drive. Which makes me wonder how come two headphoens that aparently use very similar technology can differ so much in power requirements. Is it that the HE-6 magnets are a lot less strong than those on the LCD-2 or is it just that the gold diaphragm is extremely hard to drive. But even so, what are the advantages of a diaphragm that is super hard to drive compared to the extremely thin one of the LCD-2 which can sound decent out of an iPod?

Seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot for making it a pain in the ass to drive. And that "reason", if it can be called that, about HE-6 catering to the folks with an HT receiver sounds like bullshit honestly.

[dBel84]

The least sensitive of the vintage fare is the one that started it all = wharfedale isodynamics. These have a relatively thick diaphragm which is "crinkle cut", have a monstrous air gap of about 5-7mm and use what f look like a sheet of "fridge magnet" . Smeggy will be the first to tell you to plug them into the speaker terminals of your powerhouse amp, they do however sound good from my amp ( Alex's tube hybrid ) . My initial impression of the HE5 is that they had potential but needed to be damped - this would reduce their efiiciency out of necessity. I do not know what has gone into the HE6, I wil be getting to audition them. I am anticipating that my amp will drive them reasonably well based on the isodynamic's performance. I do have a few power maps at my disposal so I will at least have them as a back up.

I posted these images on the original ortho thread = wharfedale isodynamic

..dB

[HeadphoneAddict]

The HE-6 is less bright than the original HE-5, but brighter than the HE-5 LE - with treble on a similar level to the HD800 but without the 6K peak. Bass is a bit stronger than the HD800.

[monsieurguzel]

I always find it amazing seeing photos of old ortho headphones from back in the day when companies had the funding and machinery to make these very intricate drivers. Nowadays, the drivers from Audeze and Hifiman are handmade and so much more crude looking, which doesn't mean that they perform any worse than the old ones. But it makes me wonder what if a big company decided to properly invest in Ortho technology, what could be done with the precision of new machinery along with new found materials (ie. thinner materials, stonger magnets, etc.)

[K3cT]

dBel84, is that the Wharfedale ID1? A friend has it but I don't have the opportunity to test it yet.

[dBel84]

Nowadays, the drivers from Audeze and Hifiman are handmade and so much more crude looking,

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. I have been most fortunate to see the LCD2 driver and it is far from crude - in fact it is more advanced than any vintage ortho I have seen ( and I have seen a couple ) , on top of that it incorporates a few tricks which are damned impressive to enable it to have additional extention. The traces are very linear ( akin to those of old ) fine and the pattern covers a substantial portion of the membrane. It sounds the way it does because it was manufactured to do just that. I don't know about that later HE series but the HE5 was a shock to me when I first saw it - looked home etched with broad traces and very simple pattern. It sounded significantly better than it had any right to.

..dB

edit = ID1 is a misnomer - it is the wharfedale isodynamic but yes, called ID1 by many and I have even succumbed to this nomenclature in the past. The reason being that the second release from wharfedale was called the ID2 and thus the first HP is referred to ID1 by some / many .

edit 2 : and this may very well be your friends

[monsieurguzel]

Well from me peaking into the HE-6, I couldn't tell the difference between that and the HE-5 other than the gold color. I might wrong though....I can post a couple pics later on...

[dBel84]

pics would be cool ..dB

[Kabeer]

Yup the LCD-2 drivers are very well made , and professional looking. Nothing at all to put down about them