Introduction

Time for another two-in-one review, and the fourth to involve an aftermarket cable. The first one involved the excellent MOONDROP KATO with the modular Kinera Leyding cable, before we had the more expensive combination of the HIFIMAN Arya headphones with the Apos Flow cable. Round three introduced the even more expensive set of the Lime Ears Pneuma IEMs with the artisan Hapa KnØt IEM cable, and I had teased at the time that the latter had come with a full-size KnØt headphone cable, too. Surely, I had to wrap up this set with another headphone, and the most expensive to date in the series?

Enter HIFIMAN again, and this time with the flagship-class HE1000se over-ear planar magnetic headphones. The HE1000se is a follow-up to the HE1000v2, which in turn quickly followed the original HE1000 that was HIFIMAN’s most expensive headphone before the Susvara and Shangri-La entered the picture. In fact, customers of the HE1000 were understandably irked with two revisions having come up within a couple of years, but HIFIMAN did introduce an upgrade program that runs to this day. The HE1000se is nearly four years young now. HIFIMAN has been busy updating the rest of its product lineup with the stealth magnets that make this the “se” version, and so many excellent headphones have come out since. We aim to find out today whether the HE1000se holds up in 2022 and also examine how Hapa Audio has brought one man’s creative visions to fruition with another truly personal cable in the form of the KnØt full-size headphone cable. Thanks to both HIFIMAN and Hapa Audio for arranging review samples for TechPowerUp!

Specifications