Hifiman Ananda Stealth V2 Headphone Review

[solderdude]

The lighter membrane and higher efficiency (and lower price) compared to the old HE6 shows that over the years the technical performance did not improve.

and distortion:

vs the HE6 (4-screw) below

very different efficiency though.

 

[OctoEmu]

Out of all Hifiman line-up was implied in the comment I think.

I realized that after oh well

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Remember, resonances are there to mimic a concert hall...

I wonder which one

That is actually an interesting point. Speakers play in a room, and the room factors into the total experience. In a sense headphones bring their own room. IEMs are maybe an anechoic chamber, and the acoustic resonance properties of the cups of the over ears can almost be thought of as a dedicated listening room. Which raises the question of how large the room should be, as well as what the reverberation attributes of the room should be. IDK, that anyone has done any research on this, or, if they have it's entirely in house to the companies and proprietary. But it would be an interesting area to explore.

For one thing, some people suggest Dan Clark phones sound like monitors playing in a studio, and often don't particularly care for the effect, maintaining they find the them dull or unexciting. I wonder if it has anything to do with the resonant (or lack thereof) properties of their cups? I know people might say that lack of such resonance makes them more accurate, but speakers are in resonant rooms as well, and those resonances are not on the recording either. Yet would most people want to listen in a dead room? Of course not, and there seems to be a widespread consensus that rooms need to have proper treatment, and there exists a large body of knowledge on how to design acoustically correct rooms with precisely desired levels and timing of reverberation. So in contemporary music listening, the rooms needs to bring something to the party to complete the experience.

So, is there a corresponding level of reverberation for headphone spaces that is preferable in the same way there is a preferred level for listening rooms? IDK, that anything has been quantified, and if it has, how could it be measured in an individual phone to determine how well the phone is performing? A measure along these lines (how sound behaves in a earcup) would, I think, be the headphone analog of the CEA 2034, and research in this area might go a long way toward explaining why certain phones with otherwise identical FRs seem to sound so different from one another.

 

[DanTheMan]

Sundara still the best value (with EQ)

400se is cheaper but not as comfortable for me, and build quality

At first I really liked the 400se, but going back and forth with the HD 650 has placed the 400se on the "give away" list. It sucks, initially I was impressed, but the treble ended up grating on me and I just could take it after hearing how good the 650 is. I'm betting the Sundara is indeed the best HiFiMan, but to me it's like being the best of the second tier. It's time for HiFiMan to up their headphone game.

 

[Merkurio]

That is actually an interesting point. Speakers play in a room, and the room factors into the total experience. In a sense headphones bring their own room. IEMs are maybe an anechoic chamber, and the acoustic resonance properties of the cups of the over ears can almost be thought of as a dedicated listening room. Which raises the question of how large the room should be, as well as what the reverberation attributes of the room should be. IDK, that anyone has done any research on this, or, if they have it's entirely in house to the companies and proprietary. But it would be an interesting area to explore.

For one thing, some people suggest Dan Clark phones sound like monitors playing in a studio, and often don't particularly care for the effect, maintaining they find the them dull or unexciting. I wonder if it has anything to do with the resonant (or lack thereof) properties of their cups? I know people might say that lack of such resonance makes them more accurate, but speakers are in resonant rooms as well, and those resonances are not on the recording either. Yet would most people want to listen in a dead room? Of course not, and there seems to be a widespread consensus that rooms need to have proper treatment, and there exists a large body of knowledge on how to design acoustically correct rooms with precisely desired levels and timing of reverberation. So in contemporary music listening, the rooms needs to bring something to the party to complete the experience.

So, is there a corresponding level of reverberation for headphone spaces that is preferable in the same way there is a preferred level for listening rooms? IDK, that anything has been quantified, and if it has, how could it be measured in an individual phone to determine how well the phone is performing? A measure along these lines (how sound behaves in a earcup) would, I think, be the headphone analog of the CEA 2034, and research in this area might go a long way toward explaining why certain phones with otherwise identical FRs seem to sound so different from one another.

That was the starting point of the Harman target, precisely.

Extrapolating the FR obtained from flat loudspeakers in ideal reverberant conditions to headphones (not in anechoic or diffuse field conditions, like other targets), with the necessary adjustments for the particularities of those headphones and our ears, such as the gain in the pinna region. Then put it to the test and check the listeners' preference rating by providing them with tone controls for bass and treble.

Hence the bass boost in the Harman target, similar to the natural enhancement of that region when you capture the FR from flat monitors/speakers in semi-reflective (ideal) conditions in real life.

 

[martin900]

Gave up on planers years ago.

They just don't work as headphones imo. No problem with planar speakers but I haven't heard a good PM headphone yet.
Always very bass deficient and with a strange zzzing in the higher regions, which are probably the resonances shown in the graphs.

 

[solderdude]

Hence the bass boost in the Harman target, similar to the natural enhancement of that region when you capture the FR from flat monitors/speakers in semi-reflective (ideal) conditions in real life.

Yes, but that is tonality only (which they were after).
Rooms, however, also depending on radiation patterns, change so much more including crosstalk which is what phoenixdogfan's point I reckon.

The bass boost in the Harman speaker curve is based on room effects. With headphones it is room effects + 'compensation' for tactile feel which also is an input for perception.
Also our eyes see the room and take that into the mix, they can't with headphones there you get artificial room(s).

They just don't work as headphones imo. No problem with planar speakers but I haven't heard a good PM headphone yet.
Always very bass deficient and with a strange zzzing in the higher regions, which are probably the resonances shown in the graphs.

demo the E3 ?

 

[Jimbob54]

Ill delete this - ignore me - this is of course an Ananda! Not an Arya

 

[solderdude]

Its Ananda, not Arya but yes, this is a dumping price. The Ananda Nano version is $ 600.-

 

[amirm]

I was surprised how deep the discount was on this.

 

[Bow_Wazoo]

I can recommend the headband.

 

[Merkurio]

Yes, but that is tonality only (which they were after).
Rooms, however, also depending on radiation patterns, change so much more including crosstalk which is what phoenixdogfan's point I reckon.

The bass boost in the Harman speaker curve is based on room effects. With headphones it is room effects + 'compensation' for tactile feel which also is an input for perception.
Also our eyes see the room and take that into the mix, they can't with headphones there you get artificial room(s).

I agree with what you say, what I was trying to express is that headphones already take those aspects into account to some extent (within their physical limitations) the moment they are adhering to a target like the Harman.

That's why the premise of Fang Bian's "concert hall" seems quite poor and more of a marketing claim than anything else, as you rightly say, it's impossible to recreate the multi-sensory experience of being there and the psychoacoustic effects that occur as a result.

 

[Jimbob54]

Its Ananda, not Arya but yes, this is a dumping price. The Ananda Nano version is $ 600.-
View attachment 338465

I knew someone would catch my obvious error! Realised just after I posted.

 

[Merkurio]

I was surprised how deep the discount was on this.

Very typical of Hifiman on the other hand, usually the "discount" is the price they should have been originally.

 

[olieb]

I can recommend the headband.

The cups are very comfortable, too.
Now someone has to put decent drivers and acoustics inside.

 

[Brubaker]

tnx Amir... my doubts were justified... I have been observing Hifiman's commercial policy for more than a year. I was intrigued by the exaggerated discounts and their products and I was convinced to buy one, but every time I searched for information on Google I found dozens of messages from users angry about the quality problems of the materials. I spent weeks evaluating their graphs to try to understand which headphones had enough bass and were closest to the Harman. One day I superimposed them in a single graph and they were really very, very similar. At that point it almost seemed to me (but that's not the case) that they had taken a single driver model and used it in 5/6 models, changing only the name, the headband or the colour. But only to me does it seem like they are practically identical with differences of 1000 or 2000 euros? I believe that the differences between a driver and the next model are so small that they make the entire price list just a meaningless marketing policy. In the end the differences in sound, if we exclude the inefficient he6 and Susvara, will be truly negligible. This borderline ridiculous discounting also reinforces my thesis. With prices varying by 50/80%. We then add the number of headphones put back on sale after repairs or returns is always very high. It doesn't give me the impression of a company that renews or invests in innovative models but more of a company that is exploiting a model, always the same, which among other things shows a lot of quality problems. Perhaps the value of Hifiman headphones is measured on the Sundara models, 299 euros.... at a discount...

 

[Chagall]

I was surprised how deep the discount was on this.

Well, people need to buy two to match the channels Sort of a Hifiman driver lottery. Also, a fun assemble-your-headphones game.

Thanks for the review!

 

[Sokel]

Do they make their drivers in-house?
Cause if they do they have a lot of work in their hands.

What this review shows most than anything else is that their quality is not to be trusted which is about the worst thing about a company.
I would suggest a robust QC department so they gain that trust back.

Thanks Amir!

 

[solderdude]

Do they make their drivers in-house?

Yes, their dynamic drivers probably not.

Usually (but not always) drivers are matched pretty well. I reckon when they are phasing out a model they eventually will end up with some lesser matched drivers so the cheaper 'end of production' models may not have the greatest driver matching.
When one produces a lot of drivers they are vary easy to measure and select matching ones.

 

[Sokel]

Yes, their dynamic drivers probably not.

Usually (but not always) drivers are matched pretty well. I reckon when they are phasing out a model they eventually will end up with some lesser matched drivers so the cheaper 'end of production' models may not have the greatest driver matching.
When one produces a lot of drivers they are vary easy to measure and select matching ones.

Agree about the matching when it comes to miniature levels,etc,
What it seems is NOT happening is rejection of broken/bad drivers (like the one with the high distortion tested) which is usually one of the hidden costs but unavoidable if you want to make a good quality product.

Yes,the cost could up but the trust would be there.