HIFIMAN SUSVARA Over-Ear Full-Size Planar Magnetic Headphone
Purchase options and add-ons
Brand | HIFIMAN |
Model Name | SUSVARA |
Color | Silver |
Form Factor | Over Ear |
Connectivity Technology | Wired |
About this item
- Sweetly Voiced,Harmonious Sound
- Acoustically Invisible Stealth Magnets
- Nanometer Grade
- Sonic Serenity
- A special ergonomic design offering superb comfort for extended listening.
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Price | $5,999.00$5,999.00 | $1,299.00$1,299.00 | $1,399.00$1,399.00 | $149.00$149.00 | -5% $245.01$245.01 Typical: $259.20 | $109.00$109.00 |
Delivery | Get it Apr 2 - 4 | Get it as soon as Monday, Apr 1 | Get it as soon as Monday, Apr 1 | Get it as soon as Monday, Apr 1 | Get it as soon as Monday, Apr 1 | Get it as soon as Monday, Apr 1 |
Customer Ratings | ||||||
Sound quality | — | 5.0 | 4.8 | 4.0 | 5.0 | 4.4 |
Comfort | — | 4.9 | 4.9 | 5.0 | — | 4.4 |
Quality of material | — | 4.6 | — | 4.4 | — | 4.0 |
Value for money | — | — | 4.8 | 3.9 | — | 4.7 |
Sold By | Hi-Fi Heaven-net | HIFIMAN | HIFIMAN | HIFIMAN | Quality Over Quantity Distribution | HIFIMAN |
connectivity tech | Wired | Wired | Wired | Wired | Wired | Wired |
headphones form factor | Over Ear | Over Ear | Over Ear | Over Ear | Over Ear | — |
connector type | 3.5mm Jack | 3.5mm Jack | 6.35mm Jack | 6.35mm Jack, 3.5mm Jack | 3 5mm Jack | 6.35mm Jack |
headphones jack | — | 3.5 mm Jack | 3.5 mm Jack | 3.5 mm Jack | 3.5 mm Jack | 3.5 mm Jack |
cable feature | Retractable | Detachable | Retractable | Detachable | Without Cable | Detachable |
control type | Media Control | Media Control | Media Control | — | — | Media Control |
material | — | Metal | Metal, Wood, Faux Leather | Wood | — | — |
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SUSVARA REVIEW - BEST TOTL HEADPHONE (Must Buy)
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Product information
Package Dimensions | 13.19 x 10.79 x 8.5 inches |
---|---|
Item Weight | 15.9 ounces |
ASIN | B0716R6NDT |
Item model number | SUSVARA |
Customer Reviews |
3.8 out of 5 stars |
Best Sellers Rank | #591,229 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics) #10,404 in Over-Ear Headphones |
Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
Date First Available | May 10, 2017 |
Manufacturer | HIFIMAN Electronics |
Item Weight | 450 Grams |
Units | 1 Count |
Number Of Items | 1 |
Warranty & Support
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Product Description
Sweetly Voiced
Harmonious Sound
Acoustically Invisible Stealth Magnets
The advanced magnet design used for the first time on the SUSVARA, aims to be acoustically transparent, dramatically reducing wave diffraction turbulence which degrades the integrity of the sound waves. The result is reduced distortion, yielding a purer, more harmonious sound that is audibly so.
Nanometer Grade
The driver’s incredible thinness, less than a millionth of a meter and extremely low mass means it can produce tremendously low distortion levels yet offer a highly dynamic response. By combining this diaphragm and “Stealth Magnet” technology each working in harmony, the audio produced is of a remarkable tonal quality and clarity.
Sonic Serenity
The “Window Shade” on the SUSVARA has been painstakingly optimised to avoid any resonant frequencies. This leads to superior aural purity, tonally clean and unadulterated yet provides practical protection for the ultrafine diaphragm and additionally offering an appealing visual aesthetic.
Specifications
Frequency Response: 20Hz-20kHz
Impedance: 60Ω
Sensitivity: 83dB
Weight: 450g (15.9oz)
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Planar magnetic technology was a far more practical and less costly solution, and prototypes certainly existed previously, but HiFiMan and Audeze provided the innovations that made mass production possible—and the results were nothing short of a quiet revolution in consumer audio. All the while non-audiophiles were obsessing over wireless technology and the battle to produce the quietest noise cancellation possible, these two outfits were perfecting truly portable and ergonomic wired options that offered a level of detail, resolution and expansiveness that the finest dynamic driver headphones couldn’t hope to achieve.
For these reasons alone, these two brands are worthy of respect and reverence—but it wasn’t until 2016 that HiFiMan reached above the consumer audio class to offer a truly worthy competitor for rarified “flagship” status, at once earning them legendary consideration among the most discriminating enthusiasts of reference listening experiences.
That was when HiFiMan unleashed the Susvara, in those olden days of 2016, which blew up the market with its sumptuous build and packaging and a ballsy asking price of $5,999. This was only one year after their first true flagship launched, with brief fanfare—their original HE1000. That was an extraordinary headphone, that inaugurated HFM’s now standard window shade grilles, neodymium magnets and vanishingly thin diaphragm; yet it was significantly upstaged by the Susvara, which debuted their Stealth magnet. But with its now iconic oval pad design, it presaged miracles to come.
2016 was also the year Focal’s own flagship Utopia launched at its own outlandish price of $4,400, deemed at the time by many the “greatest headphone ever” (I own one and strenuously disagree). But hard as it is to imagine only 7 years later, Focal’s achievement at that time, with their beryllium dynamic driver, was being compared against electrostats in its precision—as stats were still considered the gold standard at that time.
The Susvara is the player that created the planar gold standard that exists today—they were that great. Given a powerful enough amp to drive them at their scroogy sensitivity of 83, they produced a soundstage that seemed to expand horizontally beyond an arm’s width on both sides, a timbre to instruments that might as well have been live, and an ability to resolve detail that truly validated the cliche of “hearing things I’ve never heard before” in tracks we’ve loved forever. Certainly they’ve long since recouped the R&D investment that justified that ridiculous asking price, but at the time there were those who swore it was worth every bit of the expense, and I have no doubt that “way back then” I would have been one of them.
But a lot has happened in 7 years. First and foremost is Harman tuning, which this aging model is decidedly not. If you’re a fan of rock or similar genres, and are looking for a headphone that is going to offer you anything resembling bass slam or even an enjoyable level of excitement and physicality, the Susvara is not your headphone. These are truly tuned flat as a pancake—every frequency that is presented is done so with perfection, but if the Harman experiment has proven anything, it’s that a rolled off bass and reference tuning is not an enjoyable experience for the vast majority of us—other than the most patrician classical purists and some very wealthy recording engineers.
HiFiMan has also made considerable progress since 2016. To me, their greatest innovation since that Stealth magnet is their oval drivers and pads they carried forward from their original HE1000 V1—a design they’ve now emphasized over the round Susvara/Sundara with the Ananda, Arya, Edition XS and Audivina in recent years. Their brilliant, much-lauded HE1000 series has since progressed through several iterations, beginning with the original V1, the far superior V2 (which Crinacle ranks third of all time—right under the Susvara), their true flagship HE1000SE and now the HE1000 Stealth.
Each of these models is infinitely easier to drive than the Susvara—especially the SE—and ALL of them are admirably Harman-compliant right out of the box. I just recently purchased the HE1000 Stealth, and although it is bright like the SE, it has a 5dB boost from 40hz to 100 that produces the best bass slam I’ve heard yet in a flagship headphone, at the astonishing price of only $1,399–and the SE has recently dropped from $3,500 to $1,999, in anticipation of a new flagship refresh likely coming soon.
But I also own the HE1000SE, and after auditioning or owning more overpriced or overhyped headphones than I can bear to count at this point, for me it’s perfect enough. And under NO circumstances could anyone talk me into parting ways with it for the Susvara, at any price. By every criterion I can think of, the SE is more modern, more advanced, more enjoyable, more fun, more efficient, and just plain better than its prototype Susvara in every way. It’s every bit as resolving, it’s even more elegantly designed and built (and disregard any prior complaints about build quality you might see in older reviews—HiFiMan has long-since fixed this issue in recent years, at least among these price points), and very much unlike the Susvara, it has a powerful, surgically precise bass response, free of any bloom or boom but one you can truly feel, with a subtle boost in the mid bass that offers a pleasing warmth to the overall sound signature. Also, now for $4,000 less cash, you can run it off a dongle if you want to, although surely it deserves a worthy amplifier pairing to truly allow it to shine.
If it has any “cons”, I suppose its soundstage isn’t quite as absurdly vast as the Susvara or the original V2 and the HE1000 Stealth, but it’s certainly wider than 99% of other headphones I’ve heard (the Utopia is stiflingly claustrophobic in comparison), and the very small reduction in horizontal width is made up for vertically—the SE’s genuinely produce a convincing concert-like proscenium arch, and the way those oval pads envelop your ears without touching them a bit not only affords a peerless experience in comfort, they provide that arch with far less dependence on head placement as well.
I think the Susvara has earned every bit of its praise and reputation—but at this point HiFiMan is somewhat disingenuously coasting on it to justify its price point given the advances they’ve made since. Their more recent, and considerably less costly offerings, are priced lower as a measure of HiFiMan’s speed of technological innovation—and the fact that the they’ve maintained their oval pad designs for every single premium offering they’ve released since says all it needs to about the superiority of it sonically and aesthetically. And I think the fact that they can now make that larger driver move as fast and as precisely as the Susvara did at a fraction of the power requirement is also a convincing measure of how far they’ve come technologically in seven short years.
If anyone has managed to read this far, if you’re in the market for the “greatest headphone ever”, you’re looking in the right place in a HiFiMan. But you can save a lot of cash and get there much faster if you pass this relic by, and head over to the HE1000SE, or if your budget is a bit more restricted, try the HE1000 Stealth, or grab up what’s left of the original, non-Stealth edition of the HE1000 V2 before they’re gone —Crinacle ranks them third of all time for a reason. Some might argue for the Audeze camp and steer you towards the LCD-4 or 5, and I can’t say they’d be leading you astray exactly. But I think the HE1000SE, original V2 and the new HE1000 Stealth are unquestionably superior (if anything in comfort and aesthetics), and other than the Susvara, HiFiMan is a rare player in the audiophile industry that adheres to some measure of honesty and reason in their price points. They have proven that superior technology can being us the best listening experiences possible at a fraction of the costs of yesteryear—don’t make the mistake of paying yesteryear’s prices.
The bass on these are simply put, magnificent! These has the smoothest and most refine bass response, all the way down to the subbass. The bass has fast speed and decay which suits my taste. The mids just as good, it produces a well refined and clean vocals, especially female vocals. The vocals is very naturally presented on these. Treble is the best about this headphone. It is top of the class in terms of detail retrieval and resolution in a planar. I love the soundstage of these, they stage very wide as expected. When paired with a good amp these really do shine and has the ability to stage even wider.
In conclusion, this is what I believe to be as good as planar technology will go. The next step up would be Estat, which would cost even more than these. But if you have $6,000 to spare, give these a listen.
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2022
The bass on these are simply put, magnificent! These has the smoothest and most refine bass response, all the way down to the subbass. The bass has fast speed and decay which suits my taste. The mids just as good, it produces a well refined and clean vocals, especially female vocals. The vocals is very naturally presented on these. Treble is the best about this headphone. It is top of the class in terms of detail retrieval and resolution in a planar. I love the soundstage of these, they stage very wide as expected. When paired with a good amp these really do shine and has the ability to stage even wider.
In conclusion, this is what I believe to be as good as planar technology will go. The next step up would be Estat, which would cost even more than these. But if you have $6,000 to spare, give these a listen.