HiFiMAN HE400S Planar Magnetic Headphones

HiFiMAN has been at the forefront of planar magnetic headphone technology for many years. Several of its headphones have been featured prominently here in Hi-Fi+ by our own Chris Martens. Recently HiFiMAN and its creative leader, Dr. Fang Bian, have been competing tooth and nail with a handful of other top-rated manufacturers in the high end arena and to say they can hold their own is an understatement. The company’s current flagship HE1000’s are without question one of the top headphones at any price in the market today. While it is exciting to see how far up the sonic mountain these top of the line products can reach, for most headphone aficionado’s these prices are prohibitive. Enter the HE400S. Priced at an affordable £249/$299, these comfortable and easy to drive new headphones are just the ticket to get a taste of champagne on a sparkling water budget.

REL T/9i subwoofer

On the one hand, this is a review of the REL T/9i subwoofer. On the other hand, this is a review of the REL T/9i subwoofer. Because this is a review of two REL T/9i subwoofers. More specifically, this is a survey of how most people get deep bass very wrong, and how a pair of well-integrated RELs are the exception.

Let’s start with the T/9i itself. The top dog in REL’s new core T/i series, the T/9i is a solid square piano gloss cube with a new front firing 254mm long-throw drive unit with a steel chassis and a large inverted dust cap. This is joined by a matching 254mm downward firing passive radiator. Adding depth to the cabinet makes the cabinets act like a concert hall, designed to properly dissipate rather than propagate the back wave.