This is a review, listening tests, EQ and detailed measurements of the Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 open back headphone. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $399.
It is typical Hifiman large cup configuration that seems to assume you ear are twice as long as they really are!
If find the headphone attractive and comfortable to wear.
Let's measure its response using GRAS 45CA driving by Audio Precision APx555 analyzer. If you are new to my headphone measurements, I highly recommend that you watch my video tutorial on headphone measurements.
Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 Measurements
Let's start with our headphone frequency response measurements in the context of most preferred target response:
It is clear to see the bass deficiency. Response also gets wavy from 500 Hz to 1 kHz and then we have some short fall in lower treble. Response then becomes cyclical with peaks that exceed our target. Net results is likely a flat and slightly bright sound signature. Subtracting the two curves gives us the areas we need to correct with equalization:
The relative distortion graph has a lot of fuzziness:
The peak around 6 kHz seems like a clear design issue. But the roughness between 500 Hz and 3 kHz is odd and made me wonder if there is some room reflections. I rotated my fixture but it made no difference even though that made a substantial difference as far as reflections. I swapped the cups the other way around the distortions tracked the left channel so not a room issue. I then checked the other channel and surprisingly, was much cleaner:
Notice how at 94 dBSPL (blue), there is essentially no distortion from 500 Hz to 4 kHz. This says there is some serious quality control issue here. Even beyond that, we have bass distortion that goes out of control at 114 dBSPL and again, around 6 kHz. Latter which likely is a series of resonances, should have been found and fixed during development as it has such a clear signature.
Edit: forgot to include the absolute distortion level graph:
Group delay is messy, no doubt due to the distortions we saw above:
Impedance is flat and low as planar magnetic drivers are usually so:
I zoomed way in (inset) and we clearly see impedance changing due to resonance around 6.2 kHz. There are other peaks in there as well. So you don't even need the distortion test to know there is something here to be fixed.
Good news is that this is a fairly sensitive headphone which combined with low impedance should make it relatively easy to drive:
Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 Listening Tests and Equalization
First impression was "OK" with glassy, flat sound with a tinge of brightness. That impression grew more negative once I developed the full set of filters and performed AB tests:
The bass correction which took two filters to shape it as inverse of headphone response was a given. This added warm and by itself made a good improvement. I then dialed in the filters up to 5 and sound was much improved but still needed some work. I am loathe normally in making corrections above those frequencies but here, I found it quite useful to remove some grittiness from the high frequencies.
Once the complex filter recipe was in place, the improvements were dramatic. Sub-bass response was excellent (a surprised due to high level of distortion). High frequencies were now much cleaner and balanced. And spatial qualities improved as well which is a strong feature of these large cups.
Conclusions
Objective measurements clearly show design issues and decisions. Even if you accept the tonality as is, there is no excuse for high levels of distortion at focused energies which indicate resonances. This is topped with one channel distorting much more than the other in critical area of our hearing. So by any measure, pun intended, this is a flawed headphone. Fortunately the out of box response is not annoying and with EQ, you get a nice transformation to something resembling highly performant headphone.
I can only recommend the Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 with equalization.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
It is typical Hifiman large cup configuration that seems to assume you ear are twice as long as they really are!
If find the headphone attractive and comfortable to wear.Let's measure its response using GRAS 45CA driving by Audio Precision APx555 analyzer. If you are new to my headphone measurements, I highly recommend that you watch my video tutorial on headphone measurements.
Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 Measurements
Let's start with our headphone frequency response measurements in the context of most preferred target response:
It is clear to see the bass deficiency. Response also gets wavy from 500 Hz to 1 kHz and then we have some short fall in lower treble. Response then becomes cyclical with peaks that exceed our target. Net results is likely a flat and slightly bright sound signature. Subtracting the two curves gives us the areas we need to correct with equalization:
The relative distortion graph has a lot of fuzziness:
The peak around 6 kHz seems like a clear design issue. But the roughness between 500 Hz and 3 kHz is odd and made me wonder if there is some room reflections. I rotated my fixture but it made no difference even though that made a substantial difference as far as reflections. I swapped the cups the other way around the distortions tracked the left channel so not a room issue. I then checked the other channel and surprisingly, was much cleaner:
Notice how at 94 dBSPL (blue), there is essentially no distortion from 500 Hz to 4 kHz. This says there is some serious quality control issue here. Even beyond that, we have bass distortion that goes out of control at 114 dBSPL and again, around 6 kHz. Latter which likely is a series of resonances, should have been found and fixed during development as it has such a clear signature.
Edit: forgot to include the absolute distortion level graph:
Group delay is messy, no doubt due to the distortions we saw above:
Impedance is flat and low as planar magnetic drivers are usually so:
I zoomed way in (inset) and we clearly see impedance changing due to resonance around 6.2 kHz. There are other peaks in there as well. So you don't even need the distortion test to know there is something here to be fixed.
Good news is that this is a fairly sensitive headphone which combined with low impedance should make it relatively easy to drive:
Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 Listening Tests and Equalization
First impression was "OK" with glassy, flat sound with a tinge of brightness. That impression grew more negative once I developed the full set of filters and performed AB tests:
The bass correction which took two filters to shape it as inverse of headphone response was a given. This added warm and by itself made a good improvement. I then dialed in the filters up to 5 and sound was much improved but still needed some work. I am loathe normally in making corrections above those frequencies but here, I found it quite useful to remove some grittiness from the high frequencies.
Once the complex filter recipe was in place, the improvements were dramatic. Sub-bass response was excellent (a surprised due to high level of distortion). High frequencies were now much cleaner and balanced. And spatial qualities improved as well which is a strong feature of these large cups.
Conclusions
Objective measurements clearly show design issues and decisions. Even if you accept the tonality as is, there is no excuse for high levels of distortion at focused energies which indicate resonances. This is topped with one channel distorting much more than the other in critical area of our hearing. So by any measure, pun intended, this is a flawed headphone. Fortunately the out of box response is not annoying and with EQ, you get a nice transformation to something resembling highly performant headphone.
I can only recommend the Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 with equalization.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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