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HiFiMan HE-R10P Stealth Headphone Review

Rate this headphone:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 266 97.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 3 1.1%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 3 1.1%

  • Total voters
    272
He also provides the circuits for said passive filters for free, so you are able to make and evaluate your own filters for minimal cost - bear that in mind when weighing the credibility of the data. I seriously doubt that @solderdude is making a living selling the passive filters.
You got me on a technicality, but you know you were snarking when you wrote "bear that in mind when weighing the credibility of data," cuz you were sarcastically quoting me. You then linked in Solderboy, even though I had no idea who he was. You fanned the flames, I tried to cool them, then three more of you jumped onboard.
 
You got me on a technicality, but you know you were snarking when you wrote "bear that in mind when weighing the credibility of data," cuz you were sarcastically quoting me. You then linked in Solderboy, even though I had no idea who he was. You fanned the flames, I tried to cool them, then three more of you jumped onboard.
That herd mentality has resulted in many-a-forum going wrong. But, sure, make me the bad guy and not the mirror
 
You got me on a technicality, but you know you were snarking when you wrote "bear that in mind when weighing the credibility of data," cuz you were sarcastically quoting me. You then linked in Solderboy, even though I had no idea who he was. You fanned the flames, I tried to cool them, then three more of you jumped onboard.
Let's be honest here - there were multiple opportunities for you to walk away from this thread, without things getting silly
That herd mentality has resulted in many-a-forum going wrong. But, sure, make me the bad guy and not the mirror

Aw diddums.
 
Let's be honest here - there were multiple opportunities for you to walk away from this thread, without things getting silly


Aw diddums.
You are right. And right back at ya. And yet we continue to post . . .

JK, I'm honestly starting to troll a bit because it's funny to a complete outsider that three of you jumped when you thought I was attacking a valued forum member. It's kinda cool that's the instinct, but it's also not cool to just assume that every new forum member knows who everyone is and knows every unwritten rule. That's how forums get bad reputations.

Anyway, I officially surrender . There are much bigger things for us to concern ourselves with.
 
I came here because I thought I was joining a forum for scientists. Now that I know it's a different audience, I am going to leave the forum because I am looking for a different audience. What else is there to understand?
ASR is not a forum for scientists, it's rather a forum for music lovers who want to know the truth about audio equipment and its influence on audibility. There are quite a few very influential scientists and engineers here, so if you stay here you could learn a lot. I did.
 
ASR is not a forum for scientists, it's rather a forum for music lovers who want to know the truth about audio equipment and its influence on audibility. There are quite a few very influential scientists and engineers here, so if you stay here you could learn a lot. I did.
It's all good--just not the right place for me, nor me for it. One of the frustrating things about scientists is that we feel comfortable just blurting out criticism (always from a good place), which is considered rude in other contexts. I have a hard time shutting that down even with my family, but fortunately, my wife is also a researcher.
 
There are quite a few very influential scientists and engineers here, so if you stay here you could learn a lot.
And one characteristic these have in common is that they don't write in their posts that they are scientists or engineers because they don't need to as they know who they are and their knowledge and understanding shines through their posts, also they don't hang themselves on forum title descriptions nor claim its below their level. ;)
 
And one characteristic these have in common is that they don't write in their posts that they are scientists or engineers because they don't need to as they know who they are and their knowledge and understanding shines through their posts, also they don't hang themselves on forum title descriptions nor claim its below their level.
Wow, anyone else? (JK) I disclosed that I am a researcher only to explain my own stupidity in thinking this was a forum primarily to discuss research, which inevitably involves data analysis and criticism. And i certainly ain't lording over anyone--i'm a social scientist and a clinical social work researcher. I ain't exactly a high earner or the top of the intellectual pyramid, but I am way into research because of that. This forum is not beneath me. I think it's great-- it's just not what I thought it was, which is my own fault.
 
First, low move against the user @solderdude. Very distasteful from your part and just egregious/ridiculous. I won't comment any more about that.

Second, Edition XS is not even on the top 100 of distortion at Rtings.


You can get much less distortion for much less money.

That the Hifiman oval cups models are poorly designed has been shown again and again in this forum. All the models with that design have issues with resonances and distortion.

Of course, enjoy transients, separation, resolution, soundstage and so on in your own terms. I have nothing against your subjective evaluation. I just want for headphones to reproduce what it is in the music. If I want resonances and effects I can play with DSPs as much as I want.

Cheers.

Seems that Rtings rate the Edition XS very highly overall. Rightly so!

https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/hifiman/edition-xs

With regard to neutral sound, they give the Edition XS 8.6/10:

"The HiFiMan Edition XS are excellent for neutral sound. They have a very neutral sound profile that's suitable for a variety of audio content, although fans of big EDM kicks might find they lack a little thump and punch. Their open-back design gives them an outstanding passive soundstage performance that seems immersive, wide, and natural. They also reproduce sound very consistently and have a comfortable fit suitable for long listening sessions."

With regard to weighted harmonic distortion, they give the Edition XS 7.5/10:

"The weighted harmonic distortion performance is good. There's some distortion present in the high-mid and low-treble ranges, but this can be hard to hear with real-life content. Most frequencies are within good levels, resulting in fairly clean and pure audio reproduction."

As someone who listens at moderate levels, I think the Edition XS sound fabulous. Nice to see Rtings came to a similar conclusion.
 
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I'm not sure why there is an obsession about the much or little money you make, as that's beside the point. It is rational from a scientific perspective to weigh data collected for commercial purposes differently than objectively collected data.
You mean like the Harman research ? That was started because of commercial interest.

There is no commercial interest for me. That would suggest an earning model.

I hope you do well and enjoy what you do. Truly.
I do not intend nor desire to make it a business. It is a hobby and want to keep it that way.

A forum member presented your single test as a conclusive argument, and I simply pointed out how one test is not a conclusion.
Except ... it is not a single test is it.. I made thousands of tests over a decade.

It's engineers that make the world turn. The scientists just try to find out how things work. This forum is more about engineering than audio-science although that part often is referred to and also discussed.

Too bad you did not explain WHAT exactly you were looking for. To me it seemed you just disagreed about the Edition XS because you did not hear peaking nor distortion or was not bothered by the HF peaking that is really there. It is just not audible to everyone because science says so. (anatomy of humans, psycho acoustics).
 
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Seems that Rtings rate the Edition XS very highly overall. Rightly so!
Don't take the bare numbers on distortion too seriously, they don't mean that much. If they were as low as usual then one would say, checked o/k. Now as they are not that low, but stand out in comparsion to the competition by a fair amount, and those numbers vary from sample to sample by nearly the same, one may be tempted to risk a closer look.

In this case first forget about Rtings. The presentation of their measurements is not designed to inform on details. It's fair enough in the regular case for sure, but not here.

You say 'I'm o/k with mine.', which is nice to hear. But is Your's representative for the whole batch, and if so, what are my chances to pick a sour one anyway? If Your's an outlier in that it exhibits that vast distortion as we see with the prohibively costly He1o-Rp discussed here, at least I hope it's an outlier, what can we learn from Your statement?

Is Your XS type like this, and if so, what would be the consequences for the sound profile, considering the use profile, when considering that distortion numbers are just a coarse indication for an underlying irregular behavior? Technically speaking.

Ps: wasn't it good practice in engineering science to acknowlwdge the unexpected, scrutinize the model** an behalf of that, here 'mildly nonlinear' - which it is not anymore by a long strech, and ask for some rational explanation? To mitigate the psycho-acoustic problem by talking it down professionally may be science too, but not engineering.

**on what 'model' means in this context: model concept, an idea of what a thing is; before one puts numbers to something is has to be understood what its nature might be, its dimensions just with a box - its existance is identical with its descriptors, width, depth, height, and only once these parameters of a mental map are determined a measurrement makes sense; same with "harmonic distortion" as that is only one of many descriptors for an underlying real thing, a process basically, so "HD" is not a concept in its own-- it is a proxy if You will, an approximate only valid it the numbers are small; once they shoot up, give up with the simplified model and look somwhere else

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Finally I did, and found with my meticulously selected sample of another Hifiman, HD ~ 1% at 114dB, no issues with tone bursts, small/wideband intermodulation, and other nasty stuff, but dunno what 10% HD would spell, of course.
 
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This is so weird. I recall when the Meze Empyreans hit the ground a few years back: "Man $3,000 for a headphone, ah well, at least this one actually looks like someone busted their asses making and finishing it to this quality".

Now we're in the $5,000+ realm, and yet again, more hyper expensive stuff that measures like a straightforward scam? Honestly unbelievable, why not just price the headphone at $10,000 at this point? Or $20,000?
 
This is so weird. I recall when the Meze Empyreans hit the ground a few years back: "Man $3,000 for a headphone, ah well, at least this one actually looks like someone busted their asses making and finishing it to this quality".

Now we're in the $5,000+ realm, and yet again, more hyper expensive stuff that measures like a straightforward scam? Honestly unbelievable, why not just price the headphone at $10,000 at this point? Or $20,000?
Don't hold your breath. :facepalm:
 
I guess they are counting on the legendary Sony MDR-R10 cult believers.
The Sony costed $ 2.5k in 1990 so in today's money they would be $ 5k.

The sony did not measure great either but received legendary status.

The Hifiman R9 and R10 models are all based on the same cup design (the rest differs) and they wanted to milk it (and the wealthy buyers)
 
The sony did not measure great either but received legendary status.
Isn't this much of the "modus operandi" of High End Audio?
If a product can't prove it's superior operation thru it's measurements, you release new gear combined with
wonderful stories describing the sound of the products "magic". You know, the magic of things they can create that science has
yet to be able to measure. :facepalm:
 
It is a well known fact that closed back hifiman = garbage. Now we have more data to support that
 
It is a well known fact that closed back hifiman = garbage. Now we have more data to support that
The planars at least are whack.
The HE-R7DX was passable…but I also feel that it’s a lot easier making a closedback dynamic driver can.
1735385951372.jpeg

Anyhoo..I am not shopping for closedback headphones as I vastly prefer openbacks but if I were, I’d certainly look elsewhere than Hifiman.
Their closed planars look like they merely plopped on some cups to their openbacks, crossed their fingers, and put them up for sale with the usual pixiedust description that is void of any real information.
‘We don’t tune our headphones. We let nature do that!!’
 
HE R7DX was quite seal dependent.
seal-r7dx.png
 
I think I would prefer the presentation with somewhat of a seal breach. The stock tuning looks too boomy to me. Probably sounds good if I’m wearing my thin armes glasses. Similar to how the K371 works for me.
 
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