HIFIMAN Susvara Headphone Review

[solderdude]

Yep in some cases it isn't.

But... is the Susvara that poor performing that it does not warrant auditioning when one is contemplating buying it and it is hailed as one of the best sounding headphones by others (rightfully or not)? Certainly when one values their hearing and is not likely to ever use it playing very loud anyway.
In that particular case auditioning may be more valuable to a prospective buyer than dismissing it based on heard distortion at high SPL or a single more objective review.

Besides, your example here is about a collectors item, they are usually bought for other reasons than sound quality and not for daily usage nor music enjoyment but rather for a collection or sentimental reasons so auditioning is not a thing in this case.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Yep in some cases it isn't.

But... is the Susvara that poor performing that it does not warrant auditioning when one is contemplating buying it and it is hailed as one of the best sounding headphones by others (rightfully or not)?
In that particular case auditioning may be more valuable to a prospective buyer than dismissing it based on heard distortion at high SPL or a single more objective review.

Besides, your example here is about a collectors item, they are usually bought for other reasons than sound quality and not for daily usage nor music enjoyment but rather for a collection or sentimental reasons so auditioning is not a thing in this case.

As I said.
It was just example. There are modern headphones that dont require auditioning to say that it will sound bad.

 

[IAtaman]

What to audition?
I know it's extreme case - but it's the first example that "was on hand", but sometimes you really don't have to listen.

True. Very rarely though. I think the point has been made multiple times that the only thing you can conclude from the set of measurements Amir provides is whether a headphone is "broken" or not. In the example you have provided, it is clearly broken (I suspect due to aging) and there is no point in auditioning. In many other cases, when headphone is not "broken" i.e. it presents a more or less balanced and sensible FR, does not have any resonances or audible distortion etc. its best to try. Sure, there is strong correlation between preference and compliance to target but who knows what will be the FR on your head, and whether you'd like it or not.

Susvara is clearly not broken. It is funny how badly it is engineered given its price tag, but I don't think those engineering concerns present any audible problems - so if you are in the market for a $6K headphone, I'd suggest to give it a try before you dismiss or buy.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

so if you are in the market for a $6K headphone, I'd suggest to give it a try before you dismiss or buy.

I was, I tried (couple of times at home), I dismissed.

 

[solderdude]

That may well be so in some cases.... but is it the case here ?

Conclusions
Hifiman nails the look and overall industrial design of the Susvara delivering a headphone that puts a smile on my face every time I look at it. It is also very comfortable to wear.

If you don't exceed medium loud levels distortion would not impact you. And maybe you are OK with this type of tuning.

I sat back and started to enjoy the fidelity which was at times quite excellent. That was at low and medium levels.

Having heard (and measured) one myself I thought it sounded great. I did not listen at loud levels though. I would never buy it though so the VFM is very poor to me but for those that spend $ 6k the way I spend $ 100.- and like to surround themselves with (expensive) luxury items that do not remotely sound poor with normal usage I would recommend them to audition it when the goal is to listen to one for pleasure.

Those people can buy it unseen and usually can return it when it wasn't what they hoped it would be ... auditioning...

I was, I tried (couple of times at home), I dismissed.

so ... you auditioned it (or another headphone you might be interested in)... and did not like it?
That would be a prime example of the value of auditioning...
Now.... if you also agreed with Amir on all of the headphones you demoed and Amir recommended or dis not recommend then it is safe to say that you don't really need to audition based on Amir's findings only for sure.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

so ... you auditioned it (or another headphone you might be interested in)... and did not like it?
That would be a prime example of the value of auditioning...
Now.... if you also agreed with Amir on all of the headphones you demoed and Amir recommended or dis not recommend then it is safe to say that you don't really need to audition based on Amir's findings only for sure.

I'm telling you this, FR tells me a lot and nothing at the same time.
But just after looking at FR I know if I even want to TRY to listen this headphone or not.

It is what it is - it's a guideline.

It has nothing to do with Amir and his recommendations.

 

[Robbo99999]

I'm telling you this, FR tells me a lot and nothing at the same time.
But just after looking at FR I know if I even want to TRY to listen this headphone or not.

It is what it is - it's a guideline.

It has nothing to do with Amir and his recommendations.

I think if I was in the market for a headphone and I knew everything about measurements that I do now, then I'd search Amir's reviews for three or four good measuring headphones (which in my case would be close or easily EQ'able to Harman) along with good distortion results and within my acceptable price range, and they would also generally have positive reviews from users and a history of reliability and ease of fitment with users. I'd buy all three or four at once and then audition them at home after EQ'ing them all to my favourite preference curve (Harman in my case). I'd level match the EQ's if I could (which I can through measuring on miniDSP EARS), and I suppose you'd have to skip this step if you can't measure. Then I'd listen to & compare those three or four headphones and choose the one I found the best, I'd then send the other two or three back within the return window time, then I'd forget about buying anymore headphones and maybe keep track of what was going on with headphones here on ASR out of curiosity. That's what I'd do if I had my time all over again!

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

then I'd forget about buying anymore headphones and maybe keep track of what was going on with headphones here on ASR out of curiosity.

That's what I did after untangling myself from audiophile magic fairy tales about pixie dust in headphones (and dacs, amps and other stuff).
Now I can live with IEMs that costs 50$. Often I really don't see value in this very expensive stuff (not that I have personally anything against it). From sound point of view or built materials/quality.

Dear god when I think how much money I burned on stuff... I would be driving a new car.

 

[IAtaman]

Dear god when I think how much money I burned on stuff... I would be driving a new car.

Do you need a new car?

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Do you need a new car?

Actually yes, because of many factors.
But of course I have other more important expenses for now, so it needs to wait

ps. I get your point

 

[solderdude]

I'm telling you this, FR tells me a lot and nothing at the same time.
But just after looking at FR I know if I even want to TRY to listen this headphone or not.

It is what it is - it's a guideline.

It has nothing to do with Amir and his recommendations.

I assume you mean the K60 plot you threw in.. in that case I fully agree.
There is no point in trying to see if that suits you.
For Susvara ?

Knowing the 400SE and HE6SE got a recommendation but the Susvara did not (for obvious reasons) and eyeballing the Susvara (blue line) then the Susvara is arguably better than the other 2 models.
I mean ... no 3 dB hump around 1k (so not overly forward on that plot), much smoother response between 1k and 10k. a dip at 9k (which should be there on that fixture and if it doesn't it might have some sharpness)

Just so its clear this is about the Susvara and not about the K60 or something like the K92.
Such a plot would get me curious to try it.... if I was willing to put down the dough.

When it is about VFM then both the the K60, Susvara and K92 can be scratched of the list for different reasons.
You could even scratch about 99% of all headphones of the list in that case.

 

[Robbo99999]

I assume you mean the K60 plot you threw in.. in that case I fully agree.
There is no point in trying to see if that suits you.
For Susvara ?

Knowing the 400SE and HE6SE got a recommendation but the Susvara did not (for obvious reasons) and eyeballing the Susvara (blue line) then the Susvara is arguably better than the other 2 models.
I mean ... no 3 dB hump around 1k (so not overly forward on that plot), much smoother response between 1k and 10k. a dip at 9k (which should be there on that fixture and if it doesn't it might have some sharpness)

Just so its clear this is about the Susvara and not about the K60 or something like the K92.
Such a plot would get me curious to try it.... if I was willing to put down the dough.

When it is about VFM then both the the K60, Susvara and K92 can be scratched of the list for different reasons.
You could even scratch about 99% of all headphones of the list in that case.

But that Susvara measurement in that graph is highly smoothed. I can't remember seeing a headphone measurement that is more noisy/choppy/fine & medium grass than the Susvara. I mean that's some serious choppiness right here! All the way from 300Hz-5000Hz. Myself, I would steer clear of headphones that were that choppy.

 

[solderdude]

The question is how important that choppy-ness is when considering how the hearing actually works (with hairs vibrating over a frequency band)
When you apply 'acoustic smoothing' in REW you can get a fairly decent view on how the hearing reacts to this.
The hearing does not mind narrow dips at all and this basically are all narrow dips next to each other.

The saw-tooth alike ones between 300Hz and 1kHz is seen in most hifiman planars and can be lowered by adding front and rear damping at the expense of frequency extension. The latter can be corrected again with EQ.
I expect this is due to the very open (as in not damped) membrane and possibly also the light-weight membrane.
The 'meta material' and damping of DCA headphones seems like a good solution and seems to provide enough damping.

I agree it would be preferable to see a smooth response.

 

[Robbo99999]

The question is how important that choppy-ness is when considering how the hearing actually works (with hairs vibrating over a frequency band)
When you apply 'acoustic smoothing' in REW you can get a fairly decent view on how the hearing reacts to this.
The hearing does not mind narrow dips at all and this basically are all narrow dips next to each other.

The saw-tooth alike ones between 300Hz and 1kHz is seen in most hifiman planars and can be lowered by adding front and rear damping at the expense of frequency extension. The latter can be corrected again with EQ.
I expect this is due to the very open (as in not damped) membrane and possibly also the light-weight membrane.
The 'meta material' and damping of DCA headphones seems like a good solution and seems to provide enough damping.

I agree it would be preferable to see a smooth response.

Indeed, smooth response preferred. I think such choppiness is indicative of problems in the design. My own experience, HE4XX has some measured choppiness and I can get the tonality right with that headphone (along with the fantastic best bass), but I find I can't get the such overall focus/clarity that I can with my K702 & HD560s for example, I put this down to the choppiness of the frequency response which can't be EQ'd out. Even if it turns out that my experience & thoughts are not the reason for my observations then I can't see any plus points for a choppy frequency response, intuitively it can only create "noise". (& Susvara is a lot more choppy than my HE4XX)

 

[Blorg]

I can't see any plus points for a choppy frequency response, intuitively it can only create "noise"

Intuition is often wrong. If there is research on this, I'd be interested to see it. "I don't like the aesthetics of the wobble on the graph, it just feels wrong" isn't science.

I can't get the such overall focus/clarity that I can with my K702 & HD560s for example, I put this down to the choppiness of the frequency response

More likely it's the different FR, particularly in the treble, which is highly variable depending on each individual's HRTF and can't be effectively EQed from measurements.

What research I am aware of does indicate that very narrow peaks and dips are not very audible, if at all. Larger ones are much more audible. We also know that exactly where broad peaks or dips occur can vary a lot depending on factors such as seating, seal and the individual user's HTRF..

It's worth noting that the Susvara has a higher Harman preference score than your K702, which scores 72 and has two horrendous peaks in the upper mids / lower treble. I don't have that headphone but I do have the similarly tuned K701, which has the exact same twin peak problem, and I find it very difficult to EQ, and also quite harsh, even after EQ. Great soundstage, quite punchy and iconic design but badly tuned and one of the few that I can't fix with EQ. I have headphones that are tuned even worse stock, but are fixable... for some reason the K701 just isn't. The FR though does I think add this "clarity" but at the expense of sounding totally unnatural. The other headphone I have that does something similar is the Grado SR125, which also has a huge ~2.5kHz peak but that actually sounds normal if I just EQ down that peak. AKG K701 I can't make sound natural, but if you don't need natural, it does do "clarity", fake clarity but "clarity".

Solderdude wrote of the K702 that it was similar to the K701 and what he wrote about both headphones matches my own experience of the K701:

The AKG K702 has a ‘bright’ tonal balance similar to the K701.
Bass is light but is ‘tight’ and well textured. The overall sound is ‘open’, dynamic and very ‘forward’ as well as ‘detailed’. Drum hits etc. are over-accentuated.
It sounds a bit too bright and can have a shrill ‘edge’ with some music. With some music there is sibilance. The treble is over accentuated and has enough ‘air’ but isn’t really ‘smooth’. It lacks in ‘finesse’ but is above average in quality. The ‘details’ in the music are ‘fake’ due to the 6.5kHz peak.

K702

back to AKG back to measurements home Published: Feb-3-2020, updated: Nov-11-2021 NO SMOOTHING is applied to the shown plots. Most measurement sites have some smoothing applied which ‘irons f…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

I think the root problem of this may be HTRF-related, that those two huge peaks may be in different places depending on the person and so my EQ attempts (with Amir and Oratory's EQs) are actually possibly even making this "fake" character worse not better if I'm EQing down slightly off where the actual peak is for my HRTF.

These two huge peaks are certainly very audible, the headphone just sounds straight up wrong. I'm less sure the Susvara's jagginess is; I haven't heard it but I do have the Nan-7 which graphs near identically (including the jaggies) and it's the best tuned headphone I have, out of the box, it's the one that least needs EQ and I don't EQ it. It just sounds right. Most Hifimen are unnaturally bright, although a lot smoother than the AKGs. The Susvara is one of the few Hifiman that pulls back the treble and is generally felt to sound more natural. Certainly the Nan-7 is less bright than my Hifimen.

Amir, who actually listened to the headphone, doesn't seem to have felt the micro-level FR jaggies affected clarity:

I sat back and started to enjoy the fidelity which was at times quite excellent.

Like I said, I am actually interested in the research and I'd be interested if anyone has actually found this to be audible or a significant concern. But I'm not sure it is, and until it is, you're just graph sniffing. There's no science in criticising the aesthetics of a line on a graph if there is no evidence that it's actually an audible concern. It's cargo cult behaviour.

 

[solderdude]

The Susvara has a very smooth and 'delicate' sound and the HE4** series as well as the Edition XX has a coarseness to the sound that is not found in the Susvara despite the more 'ragged' response. What is obvious in my measurements is that the average 'smoothness' of the treble response is better than the lower cost models.
What I found over the years is that a 'not ragged' (as in peaks and dips well over +/-5dB) treble response above 8kHz sounds 'smoother' and 'silkier' where peaky treble response sounds 'coarser' / 'grittier'.
Of course, this is hard to see on test fixtures with a pinna because pinnae also create this. The 5128 seems to be closest to the measured response of a pinna-less test fixture.(when it concerns >8kHz)

I can get the Ed. XX to sound less 'coarse' by adding damping. Of course I did not try this with other hifiman models.

Agreed on the 'indicative of problems' bit.

 

[Robbo99999]

Intuition is often wrong. If there is research on this, I'd be interested to see it. "I don't like the aesthetics of the wobble on the graph, it just feels wrong" isn't science.


More likely it's the different FR, particularly in the treble, which is highly variable depending on each individual's HRTF and can't be effectively EQed from measurements.

What research I am aware of does indicate that very narrow peaks and dips are not very audible, if at all. Larger ones are much more audible. We also know that exactly where broad peaks or dips occur can vary a lot depending on factors such as seating, seal and the individual user's HTRF..

It's worth noting that the Susvara has a higher Harman preference score than your K702, which scores 72 and has two horrendous peaks in the upper mids / lower treble. I don't have that headphone but I do have the similarly tuned K701, which has the exact same twin peak problem, and I find it very difficult to EQ, and also quite harsh, even after EQ. Great soundstage, quite punchy and iconic design but badly tuned and one of the few that I can't fix with EQ. I have headphones that are tuned even worse stock, but are fixable... for some reason the K701 just isn't. The FR though does I think add this "clarity" but at the expense of sounding totally unnatural. The other headphone I have that does something similar is the Grado SR125, which also has a huge ~2.5kHz peak but that actually sounds normal if I just EQ down that peak. AKG K701 I can't make sound natural, but if you don't need natural, it does do "clarity", fake clarity but "clarity".

Solderdude wrote of the K702 that it was similar to the K701 and what he wrote about both headphones matches my own experience of the K701:

K702

back to AKG back to measurements home Published: Feb-3-2020, updated: Nov-11-2021 NO SMOOTHING is applied to the shown plots. Most measurement sites have some smoothing applied which ‘irons f…

diyaudioheaven.wordpress.com

I think the root problem of this may be HTRF-related, that those two huge peaks may be in different places depending on the person and so my EQ attempts (with Amir and Oratory's EQs) are actually possibly even making this "fake" character worse not better if I'm EQing down slightly off where the actual peak is for my HRTF.

These two huge peaks are certainly very audible, the headphone just sounds straight up wrong. I'm less sure the Susvara's jagginess is; I haven't heard it but I do have the Nan-7 which graphs near identically (including the jaggies) and it's the best tuned headphone I have, out of the box, it's the one that least needs EQ and I don't EQ it. It just sounds right. Most Hifimen are unnaturally bright, although a lot smoother than the AKGs. The Susvara is one of the few Hifiman that pulls back the treble and is generally felt to sound more natural. Certainly the Nan-7 is less bright than my Hifimen.

Amir, who actually listened to the headphone, doesn't seem to have felt the micro-level FR jaggies affected clarity:


Like I said, I am actually interested in the research and I'd be interested if anyone has actually found this to be audible or a significant concern. But I'm not sure it is, and until it is, you're just graph sniffing. There's no science in criticising the aesthetics of a line on a graph if there is no evidence that it's actually an audible concern. It's cargo cult behaviour.

I never said the K702 was any good at stock, but it has a smooth frequency response without sharp undulations so it's easy to EQ to a target without leaving dips & peaks, I find it very good after EQ, but I do have the advantage of removing unit to unit variation as Oratory measured one of my units I sent him....plus I can get perfect channel matching by using per channel EQ because I've measured it on my miniDSP EARS - so really I'm in a fairly unique position to remove all the negative points of the K702 and am just left with the positives. My previous comments in my last post re K702 were after EQ to Harman - I use all my headphones with EQ (apart from New Version HD560s which is really balanced for me at stock so I use that one for casual PC stuff without EQ, but for music I EQ it).

But regarding the "extreme choppiness" of frequency response of Susvara that can't be EQ'd out, and whether or not it's audible - I don't know for sure, but it's for sure emphasising & de-emphasising whatever information in the music in a very local but quite extreme way (many abrupt changes over any narrow chosen frequency range). I can imagine it "hiding" & "overemphasising" various parts over any given frequency range area you choose. I can't see it as a positive, it could only be a negative......but how much of a negative I can't say....just I related it loosely to my HE4XX observations which I admit might not be the reason for my prior HE4XX observations that I mentioned (I also said in my last post the same thing that I can't be certain in my conclusion re HE4XX)......but either way I can't see the extreme choppiness of the Susvara frequency response to be a positive, whichever way you want to try to spin it.

 

[allmanfan]

the poll in this susvara thread asks people here to rate it...62% suggest the susvara is poor....does anyone think 62% of people on this site have listened to the susvara?...yeah right!...how are they suggesting it is poor?...from talk of graphs and measurements..

 

[Robbo99999]

the poll in this susvara thread asks people here to rate it...62% suggest the susvara is poor....does anyone think 62% of people on this site have listened to the susvara?...yeah right!...how are they suggesting it is poor?...from talk of graphs and measurements..

Short answer: measurements actually matter.

 

[solderdude]

the poll in this susvara thread asks people here to rate it...62% suggest the susvara is poor....does anyone think 62% of people on this site have listened to the susvara?...yeah right!...how are they suggesting it is poor?...from talk of graphs and measurements..

I suspect most ASR readers saw the price and expected top performance. It lacked that. Not many have actually heard it and people base their opinion on what they see and read.
Best to simply accept that's how it works at ASR.
You can't expect ASR readers to have heard all headphones, speakers, amps and DACs.