Sometimes price is about other factors too.like belonging in an exclusive group or having an out of ordinary experience.
That is the less charming part around here.
Sure they would. They don't here.
(Seems a bit unnecessary)
Thanks for your patience and explanations. I consider your point of view most of the time very informative for me because I don't listen very loud (take care of my ears) and not exactly in par to Harman curve for my taste.Actually it is (except for the conclusion).
Below 200Hz we have a different target (mine vs Harman OE)
The dip at 2kHz is -7.5dB and because my measurement lacks a pinna it is -10dB in mine.
The 6kHz dip in my plots is caused by the lack of an ear canal.
The overall findings are the same.
As for the distortion at 114dB. No one ever listens to 114dB peaks at 1kHz and 5kHz. 114dB SPL in the bass is fine and that's where the bulk of the energy in music is.
IMO one should look at 114dB distortion plots only up to 300Hz or so.
When low bass notes are 120dB SPL this is perceived at about 90Phon and some short peaks around 1kHz could reach around 105dB or so.
I measured an increase in distortion too at 4kHz which is caused by a resonance. Our hearing resonates too at that frequency so a resonance there is not very problematic.
I did listen at 'comfortable levels' though and did not hear any distortion. This is not surprising as Amir wrote:
If you don't exceed medium loud levels distortion would not impact you.
My earlobes did not reach shake levels and did not reach medium loud levels (which I call comfortable loud).
You need a hefty amp because at 92dB/V (I measured the same) you will need 27V (12W) in 60ohm which is exactly what the Benchmark AHB2 delivers.
The only thing we differ on is the sound quality:
A short sound description would be: VERY realistic sounding, effortless. Very clear sounding with a soft yet not subdued treble. I would perhaps say the treble may be very slightly (and tastefully) elevated.
The sound is very dynamic and has an almost? unparalleled realism to it.
Bass is punchy and tight and well extended. Mids sound ‘laid back’ yet very real and are forward enough with a proper amount of clarity.
For well made recordings it sounds just right. For pop music it may be lacking slightly in body as this type of music often asks for slightly elevated bass response.
This isn't Harman tuning though. I also do not include the price in the sound evaluation nor what amp is needed.
I quite liked it but won't own it because of the price. I could perfectly drive it to decent levels with my headphone amp, huge amounts of power are only needed when you want to play it impressively loud.
Amir said:
the tonality was "OK" but nothing exciting for me
This does not surprise me as I wrote:
For pop music it may be lacking slightly in body as this type of music often asks for slightly elevated bass response.
So the reviews are not contradicting and show the same thing.
Bass light and at higher SPL it starts to distort at 4kHz.
I quite liked it but it is no secret that I do not seem to prefer Harman bass levels and do not listen at high levels other than briefly during testing to check how it holds up.
When one wants Harman tuning, low distortion and high SPL and not having to fork out a lot of money a € 25.- IEM will do and you can drive it from a phone.
I agree with this kind of angle of thought, but specifically in relation to Susvara he did hear distortion issues above 1kHz when he mentioned "static" (or maybe that was instead some kind of psychoacoustic effect of the severely jagged frequency response??), but I agree with your angle of thought which is logical.
I've compared to HFM Arya v2 and HFM HEkSE. I like the music presentation of Susvara it is matter of taste. I'm not big fun of Harman target curve, there is too much bass for my ears. My ears are rather sensitive or maybe I've some kind of disorder. I agree that official price is very high, but I've paid much less for it.
I also find that odd. I *think* Amir's describing HF crackling breakup distortion.
Let us know when ))
I think it's ok to take price into account when voting in the poll. It would be exceedingly silly to buy these for $6000 so the poll reflects that, and especially within the context of the measurements and review.
That's how I took it. Static as in the crackling noise of a baloon rubbed on a sweatshirt more than radio static.
So do I, even though I feel it's a guilty pleasure.Wow, quite a trainwreck for this headphone! It's probably one of the worst examples of "fine grass" high Q (sharp) deviations in the frequency response that I have seen in a headphone, which is often associated with planar headphone technology showing this "fine grass" deviations (although Dan Clark planars seem to avoid it) but this Susvara is praps the worst I've seen for those sharp & narrow deviations, which you can see above 1kHz, and even below that the frequency response is choppy down to 500Hz - I see all these sharp deviations as being a negative to sound quality:
Distortion measurements I didn't think were gonna be a problem considering that you don't normally listen to areas above 1kHz above 94dB, but was obviously a problem for Amir, so something going on there with the headphone you would think. Plenty of "low cost" headphones have better distortion above 1kHz than this Susvara, the Sennheiser HD560s for example is one of them, following one of my HD560s measured by Oratory, you can see distortion is low above 1kHz even at 114dB:
View attachment 336775
So this Hifiman Susvara headphone should definitely be one to miss, especially considering it's ridiculous $6000 price - I love it when ridiculously priced products get proven to be rubbish and get a pounding!
I ran a poll on this very topic. While the poll is not scientific, but it does give you a gleam. Based on this poll, this population is small and most who uses headphones, appears to use it begrudgingly and would prefer speakers if given the choice. Which leads me rather surprise that $6k headphone is even a thing with them and with 6 pages of comment nevertheless!
www.audiosciencereview.com
