HiFiMan Susvara Over-Ear Planar Headphone - Official Thread

Nice review. Thanks. Have you by any chance tried the Benchmark speaker amp with your Susvara? I have the amp and I have the Susvara, but I haven’t put them together. Guess I would get one of those Amps&Sound junction box things with a four-pin output. Any thoughts or experience with this?

I had a chance to listen to the Susvara with WA33 and a Chord Dave and it sounded amazing(the amp and dac are not my gear). I also compared it with the ZMF and Utopia on the same setup and the Susvara felt a lot better than the Utopia for the music I was listening to(Symphony of Sorrowful by David Zinman and J Cole’s Cole World). The soundstage was much wider and it was more musical. The Utopia felt faster on an electronic music track(don’t recall the name of the track, friend picked it.) The ZMF did slightly better than the Susvara on the J Cole tracks because of the bass felt much more impactful than the Susvara on those tracks, but on the orchestra the Susvara was a lot better. Didn’t really feel anything with the Utopia other than the speed.
One thing to note is that my VO is just two days old and it hasn’t burnt in(if you believe in such a thing). And the other thing is - I am not an experienced listener so take all this with a big pinch of salt :slight_smile:

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How would you compare the Dave/WA33/Susvara to your Bartok/Bakoon/Susvara?

Does anyone have experience with the Susvara and the Stellaris together?

Stellaris, no, but the Stratus is underwhelming with the Susvara.
Gets loud enough, not a terrible listen.

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Just got a chance to do some measurements on the Susvara. I still have lots more to do so this is just the preliminary result:

This is my favorite headphone for a reason. Not only does it have top tier detail and microdynamic ability, but it’s also got solid macro contrast, along with being reasonably spacious. All of this is underscored by the fact that it’s super comfy to wear! Something that can only be said about one other planar in this tier - the Abyss Diana Phi with DMS pad mods. The tradeoff there is that the Diana Phi could use some tuning adjustment around 10khz (and maybe a few other places), and the Susvara absolutely nails it.

So far… this is the best sounding headphone I’ve heard. I think you could find other headphones that do one thing or another better - like HD800s is more spacious, and HE-6 slams harder… but this is the complete package in my opinion, where the rest have a compromise in one area or another. Of course it costs a crazy amount… so they probably know that.

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What chain did you use with the Susvara?

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Magni 3 heresy. All amps sound the same, and speaker amps make no difference :wink:

EDIT: this was a joke…

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Haha well isn’t that some schiit…
May have to sell what I have and rethink this whole process.

I’m joking… mostly haha. I just swapped to the Feliks Euforia. I’ll have to spend more time with it on different sources. Hoping to try out that Bakoon.

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Haha Yeah I figured.
Euphoria and Bakoon seem sweet.
I’d look at the Susvara but I don’t want to run into a situation and not be able to drive them properly. May be able to do it out of the back of the tt2. It’ll be a bit before I take that step, if I even do.

High current amps seem like a good idea for this type of planar.

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I would imagine. Seems like it needs a nuclear power plant…

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all amps definitely do not sound the same, you undermine your argument and points when you say that…the bakoon is a terrific choice IMHO

I was joking… I probably should’ve put that disclaimer in the post.

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This was pretty obvious Resolve was joking. Let’s not be crazy here…lol
The magi isn’t driving something like the Susvara haha.

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I apologize then, sadly I have spoken to people in various places who will actually argue that DAC’s and amps all sound the same…

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No need to apologize! Helen Keller would most likely agree :grin:

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We had one of those folks visit here a few months ago. He may have been joking about that event.

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