tldr; HE6 reborn. Still power hungry, still special. V2 improvements help.
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Best praise vs top criticism for HiFiMan HE6se V2
“The previous Hifiman flagship was the HE-6 and the new flagship HE-1000 was a different design and not similar to the HE-6. Plenty of love towards the HE-6 still existed since both products operated in different spaces plus different price points. When Hifiman announced the Edition 6 but in the day, I was at CES at the time and watching the reaction in real time was a sight to behold. We were at $1200 MSRP on the HE-6 and having the successor being $6000 was a massive step up that pissed off a lot of people. The reputation back in the day with poorly made Hifiman products was still in full swing and if you want to witness the biggest case of someone putting their foot in their mouth, go to the Head-Fi thread: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hifiman-edition-6-headphones.831355/ When Tyll was around, he did an interview with Fang and it was a bit meme'd on since Tyll asked why was it so expensive. The response was "because it sounds so good" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjlDRV8ao6g The thread on HF went full really off the rails especially once Fang jumped in there and started defending the product and his brand. It went a bit south and the biggest dumb moment came when he compared his treatment on the forum to his grandfather in the cultural revolution: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hifiman-edition-6-headphones.831355/post-13171681 Thread went real south and mods did close the thread as nothing good was going to come of it after that post. Few months later the name was changed to the Susvara but people still remembered how poor of an announcement it had at CES so there was still a lot of negative opinion on the headphones. Price did remain at the $6k price and the headphones have sold well since then, least in relative terms as one would expect for a product at that price.”
“It SHOULD, however it almost certainly doesn't in terms of providing full dynamics. I thought exactly as you do. I never listen above 85db or so for peaks, pretty reasonable and a FAR cry from 110db. So after hearing so much about how power hungry the HE6SE V2 is, I figured that my decent desktop amp at the time (Geshelli Archel 2), making 2+ watts at 32 ohms would be PLENTY for my listening style. I was wrong. The dynamics were incredibly flat and I was rather disappointed. Soon after I got a Schiit Lyr 2, which made 3x+ the amount of power at 50 ohms and the difference was night and day. Punchy dynamics and incredible speed, it was crazy seeing how good they are when properly driven. But it wasn't just the power that makes the difference, it's the ability to deliver current at low impedances. I listened to my HE6SE V2 on the Erzitich Perfidus amp, which only makes a few hundred milliwatts (at all impedances) and it drove them beautifully at the volumes I listen to. It's not strictly about power ratings, but the ability to provide either the current or voltage swing a particular headphone needs to sound best. There are some dongle DACs that run the pickier planars well, but not a lot of them. They almost always struggle providing sufficient current, even at moderate volume. The iFi Hip DACs are pretty good for driving planars if you want to still stay portable. Otherwise, I believe a small desktop amp would be your best bet.”
1,024 Reddit opinions analyzed • Last updated 3/24/2026