artnoiAug 15, 2021
I have owned these headphones since 2018 or 2019, and I have come to love these headphones not for music playback, but for movies. The reasons I don’t use it with music is simply because it’s not really transparent, which sucks because I like music with transparent headphones, especially my Etymotic ER4SR.
HE4XX really shines with movies - planar magnatic bass response and spikes in the high frequency range makes watching action films really enjoyable. Speech is also very clear, and the “soundstage” is just right.
Subjectively, HE4XX masks poor quality audio better, which makes it good for movies audio which is not always very well recorded and mastered.
HD4XX is also quite comfortable to wear throughout the movie sessions. Only recently has I found its true potential as a movie headphones, before that they just sat unused. I now use it regularly for watching anime or movies. Now I wonder if my K7XX is the same (I don’t really like K7XX with music so I gave it away to my counsin).
So if you want a pair of comfortable headphones for movies, just give HE4XX a try. Note that I use my headphones with a desktop amplifier - if you don’t own one, you may not be able to crank the volume up wekk enough (without distortion) and your experience may differ with mine.
I enjoy music better with HD600, but when it comes to movies, I like HE4XX more, simply because the sound makes movies much more enjoyable. Maybe it is because HD600 is a lil bit too “in your face” sounding, and the “soundstage” is not very impressive for movies.