Just killing me with the pics. Looks so nice.
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@antroid and @Resolve how much of a stage improvement is the Arya over the Ananda and also the Verite Open or Closed?
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Can’t speak to the VC, but the Arya is a noticeable improvement when it comes to depth capability over the Ananda. If the Ananda is a 5/10, the Arya is like an 8/10 as far as depth forward is concerned. It’s enough to justify it over the Ananda in my opinion. The downside is you get a touch more treble peak around 6khz, but apart from that its tonality is still excellent.
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Thanks @Resolve , So essentially it’s a slightly brighter headphone then the Ananda but you get a significant larger soundstage, can the Ananda be tone controlled up to give a perceived larger soundstage? What about vs the VO who’s soundstage is larger and more we’ll done?
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VO’s soundstage is bigger than both, especially on an amp like the Pendant. Both the Ananda and Arya are focused more forward in front of you, while the VO has more lateral depth and distance. I wouldn’t exactly say the Arya is brighter than the Ananda, just a bit more peaky specifically at 6khz. Overall the tonal balance is about the same, measuring slightly counter-clockwise relative to Harman (a good thing in my opinion). You also don’t get a larger stage necessarily, you get a more nuanced and precise stage. It took me about 30 minutes of going back and forth to properly understand how significant it is, so it might not be immediately noticeable, but it is worth it IMO.
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Here are some measurements of the HiFiMAN Arya relative to a number of target curves. I mentioned this in the Utopia thread as well.
Here’s the Arya compared to the Harman over-ear 2018 target. So it has quite a bit less bass than the target asks for, along with a slight midrange dip. The lower treble has a bit more presence, but that’s basically it.
Here’s the Arya compared to the Harman over-ear 2013 target. I tend to find the bass on this one more appropriate, so it doesn’t deviate as strongly there. Upper mids are a bit closer on this one as well.
And here’s the Arya relative to a custom target that I’m calling ‘enthusiast neutral’. In a way this target is fairly close to the FR of a Focal Utopia. So on this comparison it has the slight midrange dip and it’s got a bit more energy around 5khz.
And vs the Harman Hybrid using 2013 bass and 2018 mids and treble
It’s interesting, on the previous Arya I evaluated I had noticed a much stronger 6khz peak, and with this one I don’t hear it at all - and then if you look at the graph it’s also not substantial either. Same with the 8-9khz region, where on the previous unit I would have thought it was more intense there, almost close to sounding sibilant, but on this unit it’s also much more agreeable (and it measures like that too).
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Just a comment - you may want to adjust the target reference line down a bit to make it more inline with the midrange, especially on the last graph.
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haha I was just talking to Crin about that. It’s when it’s matched at 1khz you get stuff like this. But yeah for this one it should be lower.
Edit: Fixed
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a little off topic. i just got the arya and i am not getting that wide stage and depth described in reviews i purchased them open box directly from hifiman. i measured the ohms and it gives me 28.7 ohms instead of the 35ohms shown on the specs. can you guys measure your aryas and confirm? thanks
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What amp are you using? They’re pretty demanding on power.
Product variations I wonder?
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Stop it!!! You know this is the house of HiFiMan 
these are myths and fabrications all this talk of “variations” and silent revisions…
Ok I am joking to anyone who is reading… this is probably/definitely a unit variation issue…
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My (now dead) HiFiMan HE-560 changed noticeably with use and over its lifetime. It always tended to sound flat for a few hours if not used regularly. It also became less and less sensitive over time – requiring a volume setting of 11-12 o’clock at first but eventually about 1-2 o’clock before its death.
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sounds like either the magnets slowly died… or the diaphragm trace metal got degraded over time… which I’ve heard both of happening on HiFiMan and Audeze headphones…
sucks if that happens… as not much you can do if outside of warranty…
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I’m thinking this could have had to do with the changes to the dust cover. I love the look of the new one a lot more too. In any case, in my experience, HiFiMAN has been one of the better planar companies for unit variation (and channel matching), so I expect it’s just from the not-so-silent revision.
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That one. I posted a photo of my dead driver with deep cracks (versus new) here:
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Using an smsl sp200. Should be enough power there. Not sure but i think sound is getting better now. Any track i can use to test specifically for stage and depth?
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Not sure but i think sound is getting better now.
You might just need some time to get used to them.
Anything from Yosi Horikawa is always solid for testing stage/imaging.
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Maybe you got my old b-stock pair I returned ~ 6 weeks ago, for a similar reason, in addition to being quite painfully bright and thin in the mids.
When I returned them I told customer support to have a listen and check whether they sounded normal (=> refund) or not (=> exchange). That was after they asked me to give it ~100h or burn-in, which didn’t improve anything.
Because of COVID, they could not get them to their technicians quickly, so they had someone from the shipping department listen to them. They said it sounded “fine” without much precision.
Since I was willing to give HFM (and all the people that had been praising the headphones so much) the benefit of the doubt, I told them to go ahead and send me a replacement.
I’m a glad I did! The new pair sounds much better all around and doesn’t have any of the annoying characteristics of the b-stock pair (it still has a peak in the treble, but it never crosses the “irritating “ line with any amp I own and is fully under my DSHA-3F’s control, despite its brighter amorphous transformers).
It didn’t take me long to decide I would keep this pair!
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I think you replied to the wrong person. 