HIFIMAN Susvara Headphone Review

[Endibol]

Well, I am pretty sure everybody is able to differentiate Susvaras from IEM's. Even without listening to them. You know, it just feels different IEM;s and over ear headphones ;-).

 

[Mr Swing King]

Maybe this is how most hobbies work? At first you read every review out there and maybe join Head-Fi. You “learn” about the hobby via others that use the same type of lingo to explain just about everything headphone-related. Remove the name of the article from reviews and see how much they read like one another. It’s madness. Frequency responses repel off these cats like water to oil. Yet at one point you even start using the lingo yourself..and now you’re a proper headphone coconut!

Only later on in the hobby you start asking questions…maybe learn from someone who isn’t trying to sell you anything. Perhaps even put your ears to the test and see if you can spot the pidgeon.
I personally took this path…and yeah I would have prefered to have gone the other way around.

 

[Robbo99999]

That is such a nice, dense presentation. My favorite graph from that deck is this one:
View attachment 337607

I'm in my 40's and strongly disagree with that graph based on my own experience. I don't even agree with the 22-35 line. I've always tried to get the response above 10kHz a few dB below the headphone 1kHz level and that sits most correct with my listening. I'm only one data point, but that's my experience. Intuitively I also don't agree that age related hearing loss should be accounted for in Target Curves, not unless you're needing to wear a hearing aid, at which point I think you should include the hearing aid EQ into the Target Curve. I don't believe in accounting for age related hearing loss simply because we all get used to what is normal sound from living our everyday lives, and the actual sounds around us being emitted don't change with our age of course, so correcting for that in headphones is artificial and not what the brain is used to.

 

[VQR]

I have given my highest praise to two $4,000 headphones. Dan Clark Stealth and Expanse. Heaven knows I rather deal with a positive review of an expense headphone than all the nonsense that the reverse brings like what I am responding to.

Criticize a sacred cow, and suddenly a flood of new signups need to question your hearing and clamor that all your measurements are meaningless... ironic how no one questions your hearing or measurement quality when you praise a $4,000 headphone.

It's been awhile since anyone asked about others' measurements of the Susvara, but I'll leave this here:

If you normalize Crinacle's measurements to the same level, we have another independent graph corroborating the frequency response.

Additionally, the $2,000 DCA E3 also measures nicer compared to the Susvara for a third of the price.

 

[Chagall]

Criticize a sacred cow, and suddenly a flood of new signups need to question your hearing and clamor that all your measurements are meaningless... ironic how no one questions your hearing or measurement quality when you praise a $4,000 headphone.

Speaking of sacred cows...

The Susvara has the most beautiful and timbrally lifelike midrange among all the planars I have tried. It has a certain wetness without thickness. A certain airiness without brightness. And a certain speed without sounding like an electrostat (even though it almost does). If there is an ‘’impossible to hate for anyone’’ headphone then Susvara is probably number one in that ranking as well.

Wetness without thickness is my favorite.

 

[Rhamnetin]

Speaking of sacred cows...

The Susvara has the most beautiful and timbrally lifelike midrange among all the planars I have tried. It has a certain wetness without thickness. A certain airiness without brightness. And a certain speed without sounding like an electrostat (even though it almost does). If there is an ‘’impossible to hate for anyone’’ headphone then Susvara is probably number one in that ranking as well.

Wetness without thickness is my favorite.

Weird people who like to soak their headphones

 

[Sebby]

Weird people who like to soak their headphones

Have you ever tried them with Pavesini?

 

[plumpudding2]

You must be joking.

He makes some insanely good headphones, so we should listen to what he has to say.

Would be interesting to see Amir

 

[Dimitri]

Wetness without thickness is my favorite.

"The author <<name redacted>> is a professional researcher, development practitioner, management strategy consultant, investor and academic."

The author is "all the things"!

 

[_thelaughingman]

Speaking of sacred cows...

The Susvara has the most beautiful and timbrally lifelike midrange among all the planars I have tried. It has a certain wetness without thickness. A certain airiness without brightness. And a certain speed without sounding like an electrostat (even though it almost does). If there is an ‘’impossible to hate for anyone’’ headphone then Susvara is probably number one in that ranking as well.

Wetness without thickness is my favorite.

I dunno about you guys, but I like it wet and thick! So the susvara's are definitely not my jam.

 

[amirm]

Amir this is from a video posted by yourself with Dan Clark speaking about detail retrieval. He clearly suggested that they exist (and in my opinion it’s pretty obvious that they do). Do you agree with the video you posted?

Sometimes we don’t like the opposite side (that stereotypical audiophile image painted here) so much that we lose objectivity ourselves.

I don't agree with that statement. The rest of his talk is very good but on this "detail retrieval" bit, it is an assertion, not something he can demonstrate. People constantly say this and that headphone has "good detail retrieval." If even the people who design headphones don't know what causes that, or how it is measured, then it can't be a "thing." It is not testable and if no controlled listening test is used to determine it, it is no different than myriad of random lay terms people have invented here.

Let's remember that there is a website that claims some products have "plankton" and others don't:

Everything other than maybe "clarity" in that graph is total nonsense.

 

[raif71]

Weird people who like to soak their headphones

some pads cause so much sweating, it is akin being soaked

 

[Ahmonge]

Other term that bewilders me is PRaT

 

[isostasy]

Bit late to the party. I wonder if the resonances are what people like about this headphone - are they audible like reverberations?

Otherwise glad to see such a hyped and ridiculously priced headphone reviewed unsentimentally. I tried a HE400SE a while back and could never wrap my head around the existence of many of Hifiman's more expensive models. I don't think the Susvara looks terrible, but measurements look worse than the HE400SE in many (most?) ways, and it looks like most people would require purchasing a new amp just to hear it on top of already being so expensive!

 

[erniebert]

Speaking of sacred cows...

The Susvara has the most beautiful and timbrally lifelike midrange among all the planars I have tried. It has a certain wetness without thickness. A certain airiness without brightness. And a certain speed without sounding like an electrostat (even though it almost does). If there is an ‘’impossible to hate for anyone’’ headphone then Susvara is probably number one in that ranking as well.

Wetness without thickness is my favorite.

That sounds vaguely pornographic.

Pardon me, just woke up. Fitful sleep.

 

[erniebert]

I don't agree with that statement. The rest of his talk is very good but on this "detail retrieval" bit, it is an assertion, not something he can demonstrate. People constantly say this and that headphone has "good detail retrieval." If even the people who design headphones don't know what causes that, or how it is measured, then it can't be a "thing." It is not testable and if no controlled listening test is used to determine it, it is no different than myriad of random lay terms people have invented here.

Let's remember that there is a website that claims some products have "plankton" and others don't:

The spider diagram had me laughing. Plankton is so figurative I had this instant mental image of Schiit amps sufficiently wet to have plankton swimming inside them.

Everything other than maybe "clarity" in that graph is total nonsense.

 

[UrbanAnimism777]

I love the meltdown that so many people are having. At the end of the day, if you ACTUALLY like the sound of your Susvara, there's no reason for you to feel so defensive about it not measuring well.

I currently own the Drop HD 8XX, which has been one of the most bashed headphones in recent years. Sure, the tuning is far from natural and deviates a ton from Harman, but you know what? I think it's pretty fun, especially for extreme metal, as it smoothes all those high mids that can feel piercing with other headphones that measure better. Anyway, when I want to get the best of them, I use Oratory1990's EQ preset, which makes it practically indistinguishable from the HD 800s.

My point being, I know my 8XX does not measure well, but I do like the tuning, which I think works well for my favourite music genre. I also understand why a lot of folks might think it's junk, and that's OK I don't feel the need to justify my purchase, as I'm truly satisfied with them.

Is it because some guys are scared to acknowledge that MAYBE those 6,000 bucks were not the best investment they've ever made?

 

[Hifihedgehog]

I remember trying these at a local hi-fi store when they were all the rage pre-pandemic. In my subjective reading of them I found them noticeably worse than the lower end HiFiMANs. Common complaints from a family member who was with me (an awarded flautist with a golden ear) was it sounded restrained and subdued. The objective measurements here reflect these sentiments. tl;dr: Stereotypical “diamond encrusted” audiophool trash.

Incidentally, the Susvara appears to be one of a long line of unabashed copycats of the HD 800 during its heyday in the 2010s, when manufacturers were hot on the chase of repeating the HD800’s accidental “success,” or its inaccurate sound target: a dash of missing deep and mid bass here, and a bit of scooped out upper mids and lower treble there. I could not and I still not cannot be fond of the HD 800 because of its bizarre sound profile, but like the T1, the Susvara tries and fails to replicate even the redeeming aspects of the HD 800 including the HD 800’s unique imaging properties and generally low distortion.

 

[the_brunx]

does the HiFi in HIFIMAN Susvara really mean high signal fidelity when they deliver a complete 180°/opposite of this?

 

[BeeKay]

Speaking of sacred cows...

The Susvara has the most beautiful and timbrally lifelike midrange among all the planars I have tried. It has a certain wetness without thickness. A certain airiness without brightness. And a certain speed without sounding like an electrostat (even though it almost does). If there is an ‘’impossible to hate for anyone’’ headphone then Susvara is probably number one in that ranking as well.

Wetness without thickness is my favorite.

It’s like someone asked ChatGPT “Write an audiophoolish review of this ridiculously overpriced pair of luxury headphones. Make sure to use every nonsensical buzzword from the books. And don’t be bothered by science or facts.”