Great review!
What gain do you use for your EQ? I tried -3 and -4 db and was still noticing some clipping
Hmm that’s odd, I was using pre-amp gain of -3.5dB and did not get any clipping on mine, and with the pre-amp gains you’re using it definitely should be having issues. Have you checked to see if the clipping is from the recording you listened to, or the source?
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Here’s my Hifiman Arya (revision with the carbon fiber internals and clothless pads) using my aliexpress 43AG clone
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how does the Arya take to different amps and dacs? what do you guys prefer it with?
fanks!
Oooh, where’d you find that?
SoundsGood Store. There is some variance between the real43AG vs this one in the upper mids. Crinacle made me a compensation file but there’s still up to 1-3dB variance possible depending on the headphone. The ones I’ve measured using the comp file he made for me look pretty good but i guess theres some cases where it may be off by 1-3dB, specifically between 3-7KHz mostly.
The graph i posted up is before i had the comp. the newer one looks like this:
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Anyone A/B the HE1000se to Arya yet?
Seems the 1000se has the same issue has all the other flagships, they are so revealing at the expensive of frequency response.
After looking into flagships it seems you are sacrificing somewhere in order to get that insane detail.
Did you end up going with LCD-X or did you stick it out with the Arya. Same pain issue within an hour, lower ear. Thanks
Left driver just went out on my Arya. Thought maybe my cable wasn’t fully connected. That wasn’t it. If I unplug them and plug them back in they work but as soon as I turn up the volume or touch the cup they cut out and won’t come back on till I unplug and plug in again. Lame 
Pop off your pads and look at the drivers. My HE-560s got wonky at the end and were covered in deep cracks. They blew when a crack fully shorted and created a deep divot. Return them, sell them for parts, and accept HiFiMan reality. 
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Can’t really tell through the mesh. Looks like there might be some small cracks … maybe, not sure? They’re only 10 months old, so still within warranty luckily but if that’s their lifespan that really sucks. I fricken love the Arya , especially with my new Violectric. I just got the He6se v2 a couple weeks ago and ordered the He560 v4 last night… might have to rethink my affinity for Hifiman. I also have the 4xx ( which should last forever cause I never use it) and got my son the Sundara for Xmas. 
Hopefully this isn’t a sign of things to come.
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have you tried another cable?
Yeah I did. No difference. Weird part is it goes off when I change volume. Does it on all 3 of my amps and with multiple cables. If I have it at low volume and increase it - it cuts out. I’m talking normal volume levels not excessively loud. Turn down the volume, unplug it, plug it in, turn up the volume (low level) …its working. Keep turning volume up …it cuts out. It cuts out if I press the cup to my head too🤷🏻♂️
The do have quite the reputation for QC. I gingerly use my single pair of HiFiMan
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I recently picked up a Hifiman Arya, and as I have owned the HD800S for some time now I thought I would share my thoughts on how they compare.
(*Mods – if there is an existing thread where this belongs, please feel free to move it 
)
First, I’m pretty new to the hifi game and I do not claim to be an expert of any sort – all of my observations here are my subjective experience & opinions based on about a week of using the Arya and several months with the HD800S. Your mileage may vary. I’m also not accustomed to writing reviews, so this isn’t really that – these are just my semi-organized thoughts, I hope you enjoy them. lol
My audio chain: Alienware laptop USB out > Schiit Bifrost 2 > Topping A90 / Valhalla 2 (w/ NOS Siemens). Both headphones are run balanced from the A90, with a ¼” adapter for the Valhalla.
I’ve had the HD800S for a few months and have fallen absolutely in love with it. I listen to a wide variety of music, though, and while the 800 is perfect for about half of what I listen to (jazz, orchestral, acoustic), it felt lacking for the other half – primarily electronic music where sub-bass is the foundation of the track. I spent a long time trying to figure out exactly what it was lacking – it doesn’t lack sub-bass exactly, the sub-bass is there in sufficient quantity, but somehow it still lacks the punch that techno requires (“untz untz untz” lol). So I watched & read about a gazillion reviews of every possible alternative and concluded that the Arya was the one for me. I’m a stickler for soundstage, imaging, & detail – a headphone being “average” in any one of those is a deal breaker for me. So I had to have all of those plus deep extended bass and sparkling treble, but I didn’t want a v-shape with recessed mids. And I wanted to find out what planar magnetics are all about, so the Arya fit the bill in every way.
I often see the HD800S and Arya compared, and of course Andrew famously called the Arya the “planar magnetic HD800S”. I can understand why, they have some very obvious things in common. Both are just slightly on the bright side of neutral, both are wide open, and both are excellent at soundstage, imaging, & detail. But in my opinion, that’s where their similarities end. I find them more different than they are the same.
The 800 is famously the king of soundstage – I don’t think any other headphone even claims to come close to its huge “bubble of sound”. But here’s the thing: the 800 creates a bubble of sound and then shapes the music to fill that bubble. Whether the recording is big and bombastic or small and intimate, the 800 presents it in a way that fills its bubble of sound. This can be very pleasing – it’s euphonic, it’s enveloping, and it’s unique, but it’s not accurate. The music often comes across “blown out” – inflated like a balloon to fill the bubble created by the 800. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out WHY bass, and specifically sub-bass, sounded wrong on the 800. EQ’ing it up really didn’t help – it wasn’t that there wasn’t enough bass, it was that the bass didn’t sound the way I expected bass to sound. And now I realize that’s because the bass is being blown out to fit the 800’s bubble of sound. When I listen to electronic music on a headphone, I expect the sub bass to be directly impactful – like a hydraulic press hitting right in the center of my skull (or at least at my ears). But the 800 often presents that bass like a near field speaker, again ‘blown out’ to fill the 800’s bubble of sound.
Arya, on the other hand, while impressively wide when called for, presents the sound in an entirely different way. This is the best analogy I could come up with: picture the music like a 3-dimensional field. The HD800S takes that 3d field, picks it up, and wraps it around you like a piece of foam. The music envelopes you entirely, but at no point does it touch you, it’s always wrapped around you outside of your head. The Arya places the 3d field on a horizontal plain and then puts your head at the central point inside the 3d plane with sounds happening all around you at different single points in that plane. The music is not wrapped around you like a blanket, you are inside the music itself. Neither presentation is necessarily better than the other, but they are strikingly different to my ears. When the recording calls for it, the Arya can place sounds well outside of their actual physical location (often behind me or above me, even), but when the recording is small and intimate, those small intimate sounds happen right dead center in a small & intimate way. The HD800S insists that the music fill its space; the Arya has plenty of space to work with, but doesn’t force the music to present in any particular way.
Don’t get me wrong – I still love the 800’s giant bubble of sound. Sometimes. But I think the Arya is more honest and more accurate, and definitively better at bass. At times when listening to live recordings I’ve found the Arya’s presentation to be so dead-on accurate that I swear it sounded like the musicians were in the room with me. The 800S, to me, always sounds like you are listening to speakers in a room. Really good speakers in a well-treated room, but still it presents to my ears like near-field speakers. The 800’s sound is more lush, more euphonic even, but less real.
A few specific examples:
- Underworld - Sola Sistem
This is a song I’ve loved for years. It sounds better on the HD800S than I’ve ever heard it sound anywhere else, including the Arya. But this song sort of has a “bubble of sound” effect built in that is very synergistic with the 800.
Underworld - Sola Sistim - YouTube
- Manu Delago - Circadian (Live).
This album sounds like absolute heaven on the Arya; seriously a transcendent experience. It sounds like you’re in the center of the stage and there are musicians all around you. This is probably what I would listen to if I had an hour with the HE1 or a Susvara. It sounds good on the 800S too, of course, but it loses the realistic (binaural, even?) quality in being blown out to fill the 800’s space.
(*Seriously, do yourself a favor and put on your best set of headphones and listen to this. You will thank me later.)
https://open.qobuz.com/album/mluhc5fwg4e3a
- Edone - Cramp
Not only is the sub-bass kick the foundation of this track as it is in most techno/house/trance/etc, but the hook – the “cramp” sound - is supposed to hit you right between the eyes (you know, like a cramp would lol). It hits dead center on the Arya with a specificity & intensity the 800 can’t match
Jazz I’ve found can often go either way. Sometimes it sounds best on the 800, sometimes on the Arya. Sort of depends on my mood. Do I want my jazz to sound big and lush and luxurious, or do I want it to sound like the musicians are in my living room? Kinda depends on the day. 
For classical/orchestral, I think I favor the HD800S for its sheer size, but then again the realism and specificity of the Arya can sometimes make it sound like you’re actually in the concert hall. Again, this can go either way, depends on the day.
The Arya is a bit brighter than the HD800S, though it’s also less peaky. Both take well to tubes, which surprised me (Valhalla 2 has very low impedance, so I guess it works better with planars than most OTL tube amps?). The tube effect is more apparent on the Arya.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. Do I love the Arya? Yes, I think I do. Do I still love the HD800S? Yes, I think I still do. Do I think they are redundant in a collection? No, absolutely not. Will I be keeping both? Undecided. I think so, but I’m going to live with both for a few weeks and see if I consistently favor one over the other.
I hope these initial thoughts are helpful to anyone who might be considering adding one of these to a collection that already contains the other and is interested in hearing an alternate perspective.
And as I said at the beginning: your mileage may vary. 
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Great impressions - thank you very much for posting them, you’ve made me much more interested in checking out the Arya now!
I very much like your description of the HD 800 S’s soundstage. It can indeed have an exaggerated spaciousness to it, and I think you’ve hit on a good explanation for the lack of bass heft. I’m now looking forward to trying out Manu Delago and Edone tracks - there are a few fans of Underworld on the forum (me included).
Have you heard the Raal Requisite SR1a? You might really like it - the HD 800 SDR are my favorite headphones for a neutral-bright, spacious headphone with strong technicalities, and I’m not sure there’s much, if anything that represents a direct upgrade as well as the SR1.
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Thanks. 
That Manu Delago album will change your life.
I have not heard the SR1, though I have been curious to hear it. The cost coupled with the whole speaker amp thing kinda put me off for the time being.
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Yeah, I hear you about this and I won’t be getting one any time soon (even though I may have a suitable amp). They do go on sale used, though, for decent prices, and buying used seems like a better proposition than for many headphones because individual parts, including the drivers, can be replaced relatively inexpensively.
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Yes, thanks for the impressions. I’ve had the Arya for just under a year. Unfortunately the left driver went out a couple weeks ago and I boxed them up (today actually) to send back for a replacement. I have been considering getting the 800s for some time because of how much I love the staging and imaging of the Arya and thought it would be nice to have another rendition of that but also wondered if they would be too alike. Your comparison helped to ease that worry. When I first got the Arya I was blown away. The only proper headphone I had prior was the 6xx and the only amp I had was the Monolith THX887. After the initial awe of hearing things in my music I’d never noticed before and in a way I’d never heard, I began to notice that classic rock, metal (most of my library) was missing something. As others have described it sounded “soulless” or lacked musicality. I’m glad to say with my newly acquired Violectric V280 I am completely satisfied with the sound of the Arya. I don’t feel it lacks bass or is too bright as others have noted, or as I felt previously through the 887. I do EQ through Roon and I also use tone control through the BBE 282x . The latter may be sacrilege but I love what it does. I’m still not quite dialed in to what my preferences are exactly. I don’t seem to be sensitive to treble (my ears are old and poorly cared for when I was younger) and I don’t think I’m a bass head. I bought the Radiance because it was described as warm and bassy and I thought that’s what I’d prefer and honestly I don’t really care for it. It’s ok but I have several headphones I’d reach for first. I guess I prefer detail and stage over FR…I don’t know, still trying to figure it out. Anyway, all that is to say I think the 800s might be right up my ally.
The whole Electronic music genre is a newly acquired thing for me too since getting into headphones last year. When I looked up that Manu Delago album I was surprised I already had his “Parasol Peak” album in Roon which must have been suggested somewhere on the forum. This music is f*#king fantastic in headphones !!! Listened to the music you suggested on the HE6se and it all sounded great but can’t wait to get my new Arya back…and possibly some new Senns. Thanks again for your comparison and music suggestions 
Ramble over
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Thank you so much, I’m glad you found my thoughts helpful. 
Sorry to hear about your driver problem, that scares me about Hifiman. Honestly, knowing myself the only reason I am not now trying to talk myself out of a Susvara is because there is no way in hell I would ever spend that kind of money on something from a company whose warranty and support I don’t really trust. But the Arya is close enough for me.
And yeah, I find the Valhalla tubes really help soften the Arya - especially for acoustic music like Manu Delago (isn’t he amazing?). I’ve settled with the A90 for now, and tbh I don’t really have any complaints, but I may consider moving a Violectric or something similar in the future as well.
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