Hifiman Ananda Review (headphone)

[BDWoody]

If Amir is so confident in his findings, send the same unit to @Resolve or @antdroid (Crin is too far) and see if they're the same.

Amir constantly challenges Jude to say where gear is sourced from in his reviews and yet he shouldn't be held to the same standards?

Edit: weird shit sorted out.

Methinks there are some games being played.

Some bans coming...not cool.

 

[BDWoody]

proudamerican can tell us

No, he can't... He outclevered himself.
Back to your scheduled programming.
.

 

[the_brunx]

why is resolve kissing the manufacturer's x soo hard in this video?. will he be able to provide trustable data to the issue? he even wishes the the CEO lots of money at the end of the video, I mean, are you for the consumers or for the manufacturers?
Interview: HiFiMAN CEO discusses Sundara, Ananda, Arya headphone revisions, Shangri-La and more.

 

[Racheski]

Headphones.com sends out headphones to their community as well as other reviewers on their own dime all the time so I'm sure they would have no problem paying shipping to have it go to Resolve.

For a prominent member of a forum that's all about science, you sure push back a lot against things that would produce scientific results.

LOL, "prominent member". I have been here less than a year. But this is a good idea for another Bingo square, "Other reviewers should measure the unit"

 

[Veri]

So not 2021 ”Hifiman”!

Why not “Hifiwoman” ?

HifiMxn ?

 

[Cahudson42]

Likely a lot more members who own Ananda's have a minidsp EARS and REW than a GRAS. . If their measurements were tabulated, how consistent might they be? Might we learn anything?

 

[paolomo]

HifiMxn ?

I think Lake People got the branding thing right

 

[bboris77]

Funny that you and @Resolve share the same lat/long...with you being a proud American and all...

Methinks there are some games being played.

Some bans coming...not cool.

Sorry, are you saying these two accounts are the same person? How can you see his coordinates? Is this something that only admins can see?

 

[Bernd]

I owned à Sundara for a while and had constant contact issues with the left driver! Some time later I was able to test an Ananda which I wanted to buy second hand. From what I remember it sounded better that the Sundara but not much, but that was not the point why I did not buy it : the asking price was 450 € and even that was way to much for the shoddy and haphazard built quality of the Ananda. I'm done with Hifiman

 

[Jimbob54]

If @Resolve is also @iamaproudamerican that would be hilarious but also someone should make a youtube video about it!!!!

Using sock puppets.

 

[BDWoody]

Sorry, are you saying these two accounts are the same person? How can you see his coordinates? Is this something that only admins can see?

Yes
It's secret.
Yes

I have a few tools that can be very useful.

 

[amirm]

I have been to the driving range and hit thousands of golf balls. I must be a pro golfer then.

You wouldn't be because there would be no scoring of how well you were doing in hitting those balls. In other words, no verification of what you were doing.

What I described to you was a closed loop testing system. I measure but then don't stand back and say, "here are the measurements; we are done." I proceed to see if the measurements produced tonal flaws that are not there. I do this with going after each deviation independently with equalization. If the results are positive, then it gives me confidence that what was measured was close to reality. I say "close" because the measurements and EQ are both approximate.

Given the vagaries of measurements, I know of no other way to make sense out of headphone evaluation. You seem to think if XYZ person who has measured a lot of headphones must be know what they are doing and hence their measurements are accurate. This is absolutely wrong because as I keep explaining, the measurements of headphones are by definition subject to error. Ironically the analogy you use above applies to the people you say you trust in this regard!

Unless I hit all those balls with the wrong technique. Then those thousands of shots mean nothing except I got a good workout.

Correct which applies to any outrage you have regarding my measurements. You are operating from the point of view of having an idea of this headphone's performance and want to shoehorn it into my review. That doesn't work. You should do your own stand-alone review and measurements and then come here to defend it. Otherwise protesting in the public square means nothing.

Bottom line here is that I present what I consider to be high confidence results. They are not guaranteed to be correct because the tools and systems don't lend themselves to that. If you are expecting otherwise, then you don't understand this domain.

 

[amirm]

ub bass drop off that is not there in reality

• Ananda plays very low frequencies but because there is not bass shelf those are hard to hear
• I tested some of the test tracks from Amir and my head hurts with sub bass that my Ananda produces here

Really? Here is a review from headphones.com: https://www.headphones.com/blogs/news/hifiman-ananda-review

" the Ananda's punch and slam quality is a bit lacking for most of its frequency response. ....

This means that the Ananda has a somewhat softer presentation overall, lacking some of the visceral impact that some highly excursive dynamic driver headphones like the Focal Elear or Elex offer. "

Here is the measurement he shows (which is so hard to read -- why do people do this?):

Orange is Ananda. notice the droop starting at 35 Hz. Same transition point my measurements show:

He uses a wider aspect ratio and larger vertical scale which tends to hide details (in addition to smoothing/averaging).

 

[BDWoody]

Yes
It's secret.
Yes

I have a few tools that can be very useful.

For example, he just tried to create another name/account.

So sad. Pathetic even.

 

[amirm]

Looks like people are walking away with a different impression than I meant to convey in my review. Here are the conclusions again:

Conclusions
The focus with Hifiman Ananda seems to be "big is good." I agree with that especially when combined with low weight. There is something really nice about wearing two 6 inch speakers suspended on each side of your ear. Alas, many compromises were made in execution of this headphone causing roughness in frequency response in addition to macro tonality issues. Fortunately correcting the tonality also helped with distortion factors but in my opinion, not fully.

If you have this headphone, then I suggest trying the EQ as I have proposed and tune to it taste. The result should be quite satisfying and unique. If you don't have it, I can't recommend that you buy the Hifiman Ananda. It just has too many flaws which I feel the company could have dealt with prior to releasing it.

Emphasizing, the large cup size provides a very satisfying spatial effect. This sways a lot of opinions of listeners and I was no exception. With equalization, tonality can also be fixed for the most part resulting in a nice combination.

In other words, this is NOT an awful headphone. It has redeeming qualities. I can easily see people buy this headphone and being happy with it. And I would not chase after them saying they bought the wrong headphone.

The purpose of my testing is to be exacting enough to find differentiation between devices. Even in electronics I am able to do this. There then needs to be a judgement made of the issues identified and see how important they are in larger scheme of things. Here, I don't think they are a huge issue. That said, the company needs to go back and find and fix the source of the issues I have found. All these wiggles in frequency response should not be there for example (which have nothing to do with fit):

The region between 30 Hz and 1 kHz is measured quite accurately with these fixtures. They don't show up in other measurements because people average multiple measurements, smooth, etc. Here we have them and are sources of tonality and distortion issues. No way to look past issues in the headphone there as an objective measure.

 

[Racheski]

For example, he just tried to create another name/account.

So sad. Pathetic even.

That's not the reviewer/YouTube guy "Resolve" tho, right?

 

[amirm]

For anyone new to what we are doing, I highly recommend watching this video I did on headphone measurements:

 

[antdroid]

Really? Here is a review from headphones.com: https://www.headphones.com/blogs/news/hifiman-ananda-review

" the Ananda's punch and slam quality is a bit lacking for most of its frequency response. ....

This means that the Ananda has a somewhat softer presentation overall, lacking some of the visceral impact that some highly excursive dynamic driver headphones like the Focal Elear or Elex offer. "

Here is the measurement he shows (which is so hard to read -- why do people do this?):

Orange is Ananda. notice the droop starting at 35 Hz. Same transition point my measurements show:

He uses a wider aspect ratio and larger vertical scale which tends to hide details (in addition to smoothing/averaging).

I am assuming that measurement is using EARS and so its a compensated graph and not raw. That said, the point of the discussion was not the subbass roll-off below 30Hz, per se. It was that the big rise that peaks at 40Hz. That's indicative of a seal loss, which has been shown in other measurements and is quite auditory when you move any hifiman headphone away from your ears while listening to something with a bit of bass.

I'm concerned the lack of proper seal on the rig may skew some of the data you present and I would find them personally inconclusive, especially when you look at data found elsewhere on the Ananda.

Have you tried moving the Ananda off center so that it is skewed to one side slightly (horizontally) to see if that helps with fit? I believe that gave me better seal when measuring the Arya. Unfortunately, I sold it already, so I can't show or replicate it right now. I only have Susvara now, which isn't the same shape.

 

[hmscott]

Positioning matters a lot for Ananda. Positioning a little back solves most high frequency peaks.

I prefer the Ananda soundstage with my ears centered in the earcups - when I lay down the Ananda can move out of position over time - slide back putting my ears forward of the center, so I push the headphones forward occasionally to reposition them.

When I am sitting upright the Ananda's stay in position for me. I don't know how people walk around with the Ananda-BT on their heads though, I'd not feel comfortable doing that, unless I got a chin strap to hold the Ananda's in place.

I've often wondered why there isn't a "strap" from cup to cup, securing underneath the chin, to keep headphones on during "action" - like a fighter pilot, WWI aviators cap, or the Rocketeer helmet...

Pull'em tight and strap in boys, "Pink Floyd" waits for no man!

There really is no need to get all hot and bothered about the testing or results, my Ananda's sound just as sweet to me after reading the review as before.

Thanks for the review @amirm

 

[Racheski]

I'm concerned the lack of proper seal on the rig may skew some of the data you present and I would find them personally inconclusive, especially when you look at data found elsewhere on the Ananda.

Can you define "proper seal" and be more specific about the data you are referring to?