For what it was worth, I had a few music lovers over and 90% of them ended up picked the HE-1000 as their favorite. Before going into the slew of superlatives that describes this headphone, I would like to commend HiFiMAN for listening to their customers and actually improving on a great headphone.
When you get to headphones of this caliber, it’s really difficult to just pick one because they all sound great. I felt the Abyss was leagues above the rest and after listening to the HEK V2 and Focal Utopia, I will have to retract that statement.
The gap has closed enormously. This is an amazingly seductive and musical headphone. Music just flows beautifully and effortlessly out of these headphones. What’s even more interesting is that it sounds better with a HFC Trinity Helix.
So how does the HEK V2 stack up to my current champion? FIGHT!
My conclusion is that all these damned headphones sound good and I wish they were more affordable so I could keep them all. 🙂 Overall the HEK has lost most of that softness that was annoying me previously.
It’s now an even more amazingly enjoyable headphone with very few faults. The HEK is very musical but doesn’t match the layering of the Abyss. I actually ended up switching back and forth between the two for most of my listening. I couldn’t really decide…which was a big step from putting the Abyss in another league in my shootout a couple years ago.
For everything else, the HEK is more fun, tonally accurate, and seductive. With the Prion4 on the Abyss, it does lack a bit of low-end texture and body, but impressive sound regardless. Instruments and vocals also don’t sound as natural or real as with the HEK.
The only thing the HEK lacks vs the Abyss is that expansive sound, micro-details, and layering. But what it lacks, it makes up for in sheer beautiful and euphonic music, which is important for all audiophiles. It’s probably the most harmonious headphone I’ve heard so far.
For the insane, throw in a HFC Trinity Helix and experience the HE-1000 at a whole new level. With the Helix, it’s easy to prefer the HEK over the Abyss…but the price point of the Helix precludes me from such a setup. Kudos to HiFiMAN for all the positive adjustments to this beautiful headphone. I’m sure original HE-1000 owners will enjoy their worthwhile upgrade to the V2.
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