HiFiMAN RE-600 Quick Review

HiFiMAN RE-600 Quick Review

Thanks to Head Direct for the sample.

Brief:  HiFiMAN’s finest IEM to date.

Price:  US$400 so about £255 or £302 if HMRC spot it

Specification:  3.5mm mini plug, Mini adapter for regular earphone jack, Frequency Response: 15Hz-22KHz, Impedance: 16 Ohms, Sensitivity: 102 dB/mW, Weight: 0.48Oz (13.7g)

Accessories:  13 pairs of tips, 10 filters, balanced to normal adapter, cable wrappy thing and a little case.

Build Quality:  The best so far for HiFiMAN, the cable is supposedly all Kevlar coated and what not.  Still it’s a bit stiff for my liking.  The woven outer is nice to the touch but overall this doesn’t scream awesome build quality, its very ordinary visually.

Isolation:  For a dynamic very good.  Rather better than its predecessors too.  Still it’s not up there with the BA stuff but this I’d be relatively happy with a short flight.  Naturally more than enough for typical usage and to get yourself run over if you aren’t used to looking where you’re going.

Comfort/Fit:  Excellent.  This was one area where HiFiMAN had issues previously.  The 252 in particular was a nightmare for fit but the 600 has gone back to an old fashioned straight in the ear design.  Yey!  Just stuck in ears and that was it.

Aesthetics:  These in comparison to the 400 look fancy but compared to other things out there these look very pedestrian.  Not unattractive by any means but these don’t make me have much of an opinion on the matter.  They are glossy black.

Sound:  This is the bit where HiFiMAN stuff tends to shine and here is no different.  The 600 is possibly the best IEM I’ve ever heard.  It does everything exquisitely.  Everything thing on it is tremendously good.  The bass is spacious, offers scale and power yet fabulous clarity and agility.  It rather shows up what other high enders can do as this is a dynamic and that oft make bass more vigorous low down.  The quality is so outstanding and yet it can dial up enough to really power a bass line when its called for.  Then the mids, well they are like an improved 262 and they were about the best mids in existence already.  Here they are a little warm and a little liquid over perfectly neutral but by Christ they sound good.  They are so phenomenally enjoyable, even more enjoyable than they are technically proficient.  They are masterfully brilliant.  The highs too are staggeringly good.  They don’t appear in the abundance some may like but the clarity, detail and ability to that most difficult of things, produce a natural decay, is first rate.  Again of the high enders which are normally BA, it’s just not something a BA driver does well.  I’ve never thought a BA driver can ever truly do that shimmery decay of a cymbal perfectly in the way an excellent dynamic can.  It’s amazingly good stuff.  The downs now, the bass is rather bigger than neutral so purists may not be pleased but also it’s no IE8 to please bass heads.  The mids like all the best middy IEM’s out there are a bit over beautified and not strictly neutrally accurate.  The highs which may be stunningly good but haven’t the abundance some want and they are not so in your face apparent.  The 272 sounds immediately hyper detailed because it’s so much brighter.  Treble heads will crave greater abundance.

Other things, its soundscape is tremendous for an IEM. Its dynamic capabilities are outstanding.  Its detail levels are such that despite being a relatively friendly sound sig to poor recordings and sources are so high that if you feed it cack it will let you know.  So no 128k mp3’s!

Value:  Debateable.  Is any IEM really worth US$400?  Actually its biggest obstacle is its sibling the RE-400.  Side by side the 600 may smash it but the 400 is super good and super cheap.  Still if you want one of the best sounding IEM’s money can buy then arguably “value” doesn’t really matter anyway. 

Pro’s:   Sound quality, its practically perfection.

Con’s:  Rather flavoured and if you want this quality you have to pay for it.