I’ll be honest, I was way nicer about the HE400SE than I actually feel because I didn’t want to put off too many people new to the hobby that stumble across this review if they happen to see it, but it legitimately felt like a chore to use the HE400SE. Every time I caught myself thinking, “Okay this is $109 maybe my standards are too high,” and put on my KSC75 as a sanity check I cursed at how much less terrible the KSC75 is. My partner’s wireless Bose headphones sounded more normal. As someone who legitimately was a big fan of Hifiman stuff in the past, I can’t believe how disappointed I was in the HE400SE.