A big thanks to the community so far. Reviews like this are no fun at all and are VERY stressful. I really appreciate all the support in the comments so far 😊 I see my responsibility as being to you viewers first and foremost. I'm glad to help out manufacturers when I can but I don't think that over the long haul it helps anyone - consumers, makers, and retailers alike - to talk up gear with which I strongly believe many will be disappointed. So I will continue to call balls and strikes as honestly and as fairly as I can. Thanks again for having my back.

I really respect that you did this review and the fair manner in which you did it. I can understand reviewers who simply don’t review stuff they don’t like, because it’s a dilemma to spoil professional relationships. But reviews like this give us more context as to what is possibly problematic about the products we buy. Also props to Hifiman for letting you do this review, not a lot of companies would do that.

I love this review! We need honest reviewers like you 😁

I never take time to respond to these, but this one I think warrants a response. Thank you. It means a LOT that you did this video, and are willing to be 100% honest even on something you don't like. This has restored some of my faith in audio reviews. (I am also partial to your reviews because you have the EXACT same sensitivity to upper mids that I do. I find my hearing is very similar to yours.) I heard these at Axpona, and at CanJam and I agree. I didn't notice a channel imbalance, but it was so off to my ears I couldn't leave it on my head for more than a few minutes. It actually bothered me. PLEASE keep doing what you do! Bad reviews too! It's important to get opinions on this stuff that are not shills. (And of course the bigger the channels get, the more they seem to shy away from honest stuff like this.)

Thanks for this. I'm not a Hifiman fan by any stretch, maybe the Arya. Shills appear to abound on the internet, or maybe guys just like a colored sound I don't know. This review is the exception to the rule and I appreciate the candor. This channel is what reviews are supposed to be.

One simple way to tell if it's your hearing or the headphones is to simply put them on backwards. If the balance issue swaps around, then you know it's the transducers. Also although I don't experience this often on planars, sometimes cup positioning (forward, back, up, down on your head) can affect vocal centering perception.

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

That is an excellent suggestion. I tried it briefly mere moments ago and...the imbalance followed the right channel. Putting them on backwards this time pulled the center image left relative to my head but still right relative to the headphone. I didn't think it was my ears since again this is the ONLY headphone from any company I have heard do this and it did it on every signal chain combo I tried it on...for 3 sets. But, still nice to have extra confirmation my ears aren't going south yet.

Big thanks for reviewing stuff that you don't like. There are a lot of "reviewers" that hype stuff up to the max, only review things they really like and then give glorious reviews like it's the best thing since sliced bread - right until the next hype product arrives. I heard the Audivina at Munich and didn't find it extremely bad, but it certainly was no comparison to their open-backs. I also had a problem with its isolation factor and overall build quality (i'm a Hifiman fanboy and own a Susvara as a daily driver). Closed back planars are very difficult, the best thing that i've heard is the SJY Starry Night for ~500$ (a bit too much treble/upper mids, but below the treshold), every other closed back planar had some weird quirk (Audeze - shout, Kennerton - very metallic mids, DCA - zero dynamics, etc.) I appreciate you even more now as a trusty reviewer, keep it on!

Super review. Thanks.

This chap needs 50,000 subscribers!

Thank you for being so brave! It's really rare.

Ever since the announcement of this headphone I figured it would be bad…thanks for posting the honest review! Hopefully you still get new products from Hifiman to review going forward

Nice ands honest review!!! you have set a high standard for other reviwers to follow, hope you will also review Grados HPs too like SR325X, Hemp, RS2x I was surprised how good the lower end SR80E is paired to my Cayin RU6.

love your videos and the amount of details in them, i remember a while ago you said you'll compare the DAC's that are under $1000 and i can't wait for that, i'm looking for a DAC exactly at that price range, and just waiting for your comparison before i pull the trigger on the bifrost 2/64

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

Fingers crossed I'll get that done by the end of this month.

great review. will you review the new version of hifiman r10p headphone in the future?

It's incredibly difficult to make a good closed back planar headphone, that's why very few exist. Good honest review. Hopefully they go back to their r&d division and work out a way to make a better v2

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

Closed planars do seem to be a riddle no one has completely solved yet. Audeze seems to have come the closest but rely on EQ to get the job fully done. To the rest, putting out a headphone you must know is deeply flawed (seriously, how does HiFiMan expect us to believe that the makers of Susvara, HE1000, Arya, etc. somehow do NOT hear these flaws?) is a choice. It's yet another choice to ask $2k for it.

Hifiman closed backs have always been suspect

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

Certainly nowhere near the level of quality of their open designs. But this one legitimately brought a whole additional level of suck, and at $2000 😬

HiFiMan has never made a good closed back. They’ve never even made a decent closed back. Unfortunately this one follows the same trend.

To your credit, i will look differently at your channel from now on 👍

three thumbs up 4 honesty

Appreciate the honest review. I know hifi man can sometimes churn out some meh products every once in a while with their closed back offerings but this really doesn't make their brand look great. And us as audiophiles in this small nitch community don't want to see some of favorite brands shown in this light. It makes us a a customer really wonder about what happened designing and testing this headphone. What really gets me is you asked four 4 unitd and their all did the same! And than blame some of your many amps? If I was hifiman I would be looking into this asap. None of us want to see similar reviews like this of their products. When I first saw this headphone was with jude at headfi showing it off along with the new hifiman 600 amp/Dec before canjam (and released at the show). Best thing is recall this model and look into it before shipping any more. It would be interesting to see how future reviewers and the company deal with this. Perhaps jude at headfi could help as he seems to have a good relationship with cep dr. Fong. Thanks for honest review and all your hard work!

So basically they are trying to bring their cable standard to their sound Hifiman need to step up areas like quality control, presentation

Hifiman must check if all three samples are from the same production lot. I am a quality systems expert and would love to know if you have the serial numbers. If so, look for sequential indicators. Please circle back with any updates. Love your videos. Thank you.

Will you try the closed back sony mdr-z1r, im interested your opinion on it

If one of the speakers has its + and - wires reversed, it could mess things up. If you have software that can do phase inversion, per channel, it would be something to try but it probably won't change anything. Other reviewers don't like it either but maybe the phase is wrong by design and they all got assembled that way. Probably not...this one just might be their dud!

do i see an aurorus borealis in the background? im curious what you think of it, 🙏 for review

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

🤫😉

I had the Audivina and everything you say is true. I was harassed and ridiculed when I criticized this product on Head-fi. You have balls. It makes me wonder how there are so many people who don't hear instantly that these headphones are a disaster. Tone deaf.

This went just about exactly the way I expected given everything I've heard about the Audiviva. I've nothing to go on besides my gut, but my suspicion is that whatever material they decided to use for the cups is having a massive detrimental effect to the FR. This strikes me as a case of form over function. They made up their mind on what they wanted it to look like, chose the materials, and then tuned around it as best they could.

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

🤷‍♀

Oof. Sounds like a miss. Are you getting the Arya Organic?

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

Most likely, yes. My understanding is the holdup has been/is having sufficient stock to start sending review units out.

@The-Oreo-Man

Жыл бұрын

The Arya Organic is amazing bro, I got the first 10 sold units😂

@rumblerumble2276

Жыл бұрын

@@The-Oreo-Man have you tried the Arya Stealth? This is what I own and I'm wondering what the difference is.

@The-Oreo-Man

Жыл бұрын

@rumblerumble2276 Funny that you mention that because my AMP/DAC sadly Short circuited and killed my Arya Stealths. Now the Arya Organics has a bigger Soundstage. To compare the Stealths is about your arms stretched out all the way. The Arya Organic is about 2 of your arms stretched out together. People say it's not as big as the V2 but I haven't heard the V2. Oh, my gosh, The tonality I say is perfect! It hits it right on the head! The Signature is so Organic, It's way better in the treble. The treble doesn't overplay the mids and bass in some songs like hard rock I listened to. The tonality is weirdly better than the Susvara which was made in 2010 and costs 6000 dollars. So in the end, it's basically like a refined Arya Stealth but like wave better like, actually something that people will enjoy. I upgraded completely blindly buying the organic and man, is it great. But wait for more reviews Because my original AMP/DAC may have been a faulty one. That made the treble that shouty But I think it was just that shouty. And there's a review already on KZread. Just search up Arya Organic and it should show up.

Hello sir. If you could only use one brand for the rest of your life which you will pick? Mine will only be audeze. What is for you and why?

I can confirm they do have channel imbalance, it was about 3dB per side

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

Good to know I'm not crazy... At least not on this matter 😆

I personally don’t think closed back headphones are worth it. Just go with IEM or noise canceling IEM if you need isolation. If you need to record vocals, then just use the closed back Beyerdynamic 770 for that. But for audiophile listening, open-backs are the way.

If you want to contact me, I can measure my set for you and you can ask questions or whatever, I have the frequency response but I haven't got the exact imbalace data still as I normalised both channels to upload it my squig site.

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

I looked for an email address on your About page and didn't see it. You can find mine on my about page or message me on Head-Fi. I'm interested in these measurements.

Predictable pan. I was hardly surprised to see this as pretty much all of the self-appointed audiophile reviewers have poo-poo’ed this set. 😂 The same people routinely pissed on many other headphones I like (Beyerdynamic T90, Audioquest NightOwl, others) so I routinely ignore the conclusions. 😅 But I don’t hold it against the reviewer, to be clear - I just find that I rarely have such a narrow expectation, particularly for closed backs, that I agree with reviewers on headphones that become memes. 😂

Closed Sundara is sort of a miss also from what reviews are saying.

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

For me that is the case, yet I think it's not so far gone that it won't fine a niche for itself. Audivina...oof.

@trellusg

Жыл бұрын

I dig my Sundara Closed Back but I’m also not surprised it has not done well - closed backs are notoriously difficult to tune and there are wildly different expectations that in my view don’t make sense for closed backs.

Sharur?

My experience may be anecdotic at best, and this may come as silly, but I also tried some Sundara closed backs and I was very disappointed of them. Hifiman seems to be in general very lackluster with closed back designs. Besides, for me, that terrible vomit-hue honey bee colour is just a no no.

I didn’t find this review very enlightening - I got no real sense of the sound as you did no comparisons to any of their closed backs (Sundara CB, RE-10D) or alternative closed backs from other manufacturers. For example, another reviewer on KZread compared this to Stellia (says that Stellia is more resolving but that Stellia has wonkier tuning), and says he would pick this over the Meze Liric (same price) but not over Verite Closed (more expensive). I have no problem with negative reviews but you really mailed this one in and it’s not really a full review so much as a gripe session. 😅

A Hifiman closed back? Oh... how exciting...😂 They really know nothing about how to design closed backs. It's like the make an enclosure and slap it in an open back without second thought. Sounds a bit like and HD820 in that the isolation makes them pointless even if EQ can make the sound nice.

@enjoshi-godrez8775

Жыл бұрын

The ceo said its impossible to make the tuning like the open backs. Makes you wonder why they bothered considering people expect good tunings from a hifiman.

@planewreck4214

Жыл бұрын

Every closed back himan fails… why? Why can ask other company make good closed back?

@hartyewh1

Жыл бұрын

@@enjoshi-godrez8775 LCD-2 Closed is decently tuned as are some Dan Clarks so it's doable. That said, I agree that they could just delete their who closed back range and no one would lose anything.

@williambracken9339

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for telling the unvarnished truth about these headphones. I hope Hifiman listens to you and quickly comes out with a V2 that fixes the worst of these problems. I was really hoping these would do most of what the better egg-cupped Hifiman planars do, but with the isolation of a closed back.

@wavetheorysound

Жыл бұрын

@@enjoshi-godrez8775 it does seem there are some large compromises with closed planars in particular. There are some very good closed dynamics, but the closed planars I've heard need LOTS of help. DCA Stealth has good tonality but no dynamics to speak of; Audeze LCD-XC 2021 has very forward and shouty mids with lean bass (but can sound stunning with some basic EQ); Meze Liric is in the running with Audivina for worst ways to spend $2k; Sundara Closed has mediocre isolation and midrange tonality issues...so no one has solved this yet, but Audivina does not move the needle in the positive direction much, if at all. I suspect that the closed back problem of "very large speaker in a very small room" becomes even more challenging given the size of many planar drivers. For every increase in driver size there needs to be an even bigger increase in "room" size, which is not conducive to headphone design.

Hifiman should stop trying to make closed back headphones, they are destroying their own brand, they are also one of the most ugly headphones i've ever seen.

I tryed it at a show. And I thought "this tuning is Interesting/weird." I wonder why you said that in your review🫣 oof... that makes sense Now that I think of it Because I only got to listen to it for like, 5 minutes...