HiFiMan Susvara Over-Ear Planar Headphone - Official Thread

I think you can use the same filters in Roon. I need to reinstall it.

Yeah you’re probably right. It doesn’t guarantee 100% sounding the same but probably close enough

people can do whatever they want for sure but there is always some degradation of sound when you use EQ and the susvara is so good as it is why mess with it?

If you believe that, by all means feel free to refrain. But the point is that you should try it before passing judgment.

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if I owned a headphone that I felt was greatly deficient in a particular area I might well try EQ knowing it will degrade the sound to some extent but improve upon the defect enough to make it worthwhile…I probably wouldnt buy or at least keep such a headphone…certainly the susvara wouldnt be that headphone for me

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Yeah some people believe EQ degrades the sound quality, but in my experience if done properly it should only improve things to A) better suit a preference, and B) match a personal HRTF more closely.

I think there are situations where it can be destructive to fine-grained elements of the FR, and yeah that’s where things get dicey. It’s also why doing it ‘properly’ is a subjective task, and should be done conservatively - at least in my view.

But this is also not to get into a debate about EQ since that belongs in a different thread, I’m merely looking for feedback for those who might be willing to dive into tinkering on this one. Sounds like that’s probably not you hahah.

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The reason for deleting your message @BuffaloWing is that I believe you can say the exact same thing but missing the insult.

Thanks.

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The insult was necessary to get the point through. Calm gentle reasoning doesn’t penetrate thick skulls.

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Not that I feel Susvara need EQ but would be fun to try out, Anyone done this in Roon who can share the entries…as a newbie to EQing not sure bss above what to add in Parametic EQ…excuse my ignorance…

Anyone able to recently compare Feliks Envy to Zähl HM1? There were some exciting initial impressions on the Envy but it’s been fairly quiet on the Envy front compared to the HM1, at least on this site lately.
Also how would folks rate their top 2 tube amps for driving their Susvara and why?

not sure if i did it right…

My short impression…
made mid a little recessed … vocals sounded a little further but at same time i think it lost some body with highs to my ears…

below is what it looks like in Roon…(only allowed to add one image…)

That looks right. Did you make sure to apply the pre-gain?

Also, it shouldn’t make the mids sound recessed, just a bit more evened out. So, there’s a bit more energy around 2khz, and a bit less at the lowest part of the ear gain. It trades lower mid richness for more prominent bass as well, but also very subtle.

I think they big thing is the cut at around 4.5khz, which I found made it overall a bit more versatile. But… also probably depends on the track.

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EQ the susvara?Sacrilege

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I believe this is Deja Vu.

Didn’t we already have this conversation?

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I’ve never been a fan of EQ. I really don’t like it no matter how many frequency band options I have.
What I do like is DAC filters and Crossfeed options.
This is just me talking of course. I know many absolutely love EQ’ing and I would never shit all over that. :wink:

Oops what I meant was recessed compared without the EQ.

Don’t normally listen to vocal music but wth vocal music change are more pronounced. Was testing with classical music, yesterday

Without EQ, vocal are more at your face where as with EQ, vocal is a litle further away from you… not sure if I explained correctly…

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Hi - I am a new (last 2 months) Susvara owner. I have read through the whole thread, so have a lot to comment on but here will just confine my comments to the EQ profile. I am a Roon user, and my chain is Roon (on a 2017 MacAir 13- I acknowledge the limits of this)–> Sonore Optical Rendu–> D90SE (DAC mode) → Burson 3xP, high gain. Given my chain, my impression needs to be read cautiously. YMMV given your chain. My preference is for clean/textured but impactful bass, present mids, detailed treble (not sensitive in this region) and deep/wide soundstage. I use EQ often and liberally, since in Roon it is so easy to tweak. I compared Sus on a range of mostly EDM with some orchestral elements (eg Caritas by Deadmau5), and went back and forth using @Resolve’s EQ profile and no EQ. Unquestionably, the EQ profile bass is more impactful, and the mids are more forward and present, though I found it a bit harder to pick up some of the treble details up top. If I had to choose I would probably stick with “no EQ”- I find bass texture most fits my prefs w/o it. Headphone Show’s Chronos provides an alternative EQ profile here which I find a better fit to my preferences; however, I find little lacking in the Susvara’s SQ w/o EQ.

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Yeah it’s pretty great with out it - I was mainly wanting to test the 4.5khz feature to see whether people preferred it with or without.

Edit: I will actually have a new EQ profile when I get it back for additional 5128 data.

Here is my other comment- here I address my listening chain for Susvara. As noted in my other post, my chain is Roon core on a dedicated Macbook Air (2017) → Sonore Optical Rendu–> D90SE–> Burson 3XP (original V6 Vivids x 4). There is a whole thread on the Burson 3XP, with which some users had difficulties due to early QC issues that (at least on my unit) seem to have been rectified. Even given my mid-fi DAC/amp chain, I find the Susvara out of the 3XP extremely dynamic. At low volumes (20 on hi gain), I notice entirely different details from the music - by the mid-40s it is electrifying and addictive. I know the 3XP is likely not giving me all I could experience from Sus in terms of soundstage but transients seem about perfect to me, bass is exactly where I like it in terms of impact and texture. In addition, I find imaging of instruments clear and precise, with a moderate stage spread out around me --not very deep but definitely out front, like I am sitting in the 3rd or 4th row in a concert. In comparison, with A90D, I found the instruments laid out like a band wrapping around the top of my head which to me was odd and not very realistic.

On 3xP, though I know it has a poweramp mode, I haven’t experimented yet with that so cant comment on it. But considering that Susvara does well with speaker amps, I definitely plan on doing so.

My ‘growth’ plan is to substitute the Holo Spring 3 for the D90SE in the chain, as soon as I have saved up for one (or maybe if a Spring 4 if that comes out by the time I have done so!). Given how much I am enjoying Sus with the 3XP, I will likely stick with it for an amp for the foreseeable future unless I do not find that I am experiencing any improvements with the Spring 3, in particular with respect to improvements in technicalities such as stage and imaging, i.e. as @GoldenSound put it in his video on the Spring 3 “realism”. If anyone in the thread has experience in the combination of Spring 3 and Burson 3XP pls share!

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Just testing out the exact thing that you mention- listening to Kamasi Washington’s “Sun kissed child” and toggling the 4.5kz band from 0 to -4db back and forth in Roon repeatedly (leaving everything else the same), I prefer without the -4 db - I am finding with that -4db, treble in that part of the FR is lacking a bit of the energy and detail I so love in this track (and as I mentioned, I am not treble sensitive). Of course, others may/will have different prefs than mine.

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