[mavanmanen]

Hey everyone, Mitchell here, thought I'd start out by introducing myself. I'm a 23 year old programmer from the Netherlands, also like playing guitar, gaming and spending large amounts of money on mechanical keyboards.

Currently I am looking to upgrade my M50x headphones, they have served me pretty well for the past 4 years but I felt like it was time to upgrade.
Although I'll likely still use them when out and about in addition to my Shure SE215e's.

So far I have narrowed my search down to three pairs

• Sennheiser HD600
• Hifiman HE-400S
• Phillips Fidelio X2HR

It's a pretty tough choice deciding between all of these, they all come in at €300,- right now but I am not sure which would suit me the best.
Sadly I can't listen to them anywhere here though, that would surely have made my choice easier.

As for the use, I only want to use them at home. Besides music, I'd also like to use them for gaming and watching movies.
When it comes to the type of music I listen to, I'd say it's quite a wide range; metal(heavy metal, djent, death metal), rock, electronic(mostly synthwave), rap & hiphop(mostly horrorcore), blues, k-pop and classical.

The audio source will be a Fiio E10k, which will no doubt be upgraded in the future to something like the Schiit stack.

Hopefully this is enough information for someone out there to help me further in this search.

 

[serman005]

I own two of the three and have owned the third. I would say that the X2 would be best for hip/hop and rap because of its really solid bass extension. The HD600 is terrific for classical and acoustic music. Its stage is more intimate than say the HD598, but imaging is excellent IMO. The HE-400S is sort of the jack of all trades of the three IMO. It is outstanding for classical and acoustic/vocal music. Has a terrific stage. It also does metal justice (I use my HE-400S for this regularly and am quite happy with it).The last thing is the amplifier situation. Your amp will not really optimally drive the 300 ohm HD600. If you are planning to use an HD600 with your amp you may want to think a bit more about that Schiit stack--sooner rather than later. Just my take and YMMV, of course.
Of the three, the most versatile IMO is clearly the HE-400S. It is easily driven by a phone or DAP. No dedicated amp is necessary.

 

[mavanmanen]

Thanks for you great reply, do you think the HE-400S will fare well for gaming? Or the X2's better because of the extra oomf they can provide for the bass?

 

[serman005]

More immersive with the X2 but I think the overall experience is better with the HE-400S. Again, that's just my take and your mileage may vary.