A few weeks ago I started auditioning the latest version of the Hifiman Arya, recognizable from a sticker added to the box saying "Stealth Magnets Design". Much has been said already about the Arya, but with this review I would like to humbly offer the standpoint of a professional classical musician who happens to have developed an obsession for headphones, recording, and audio gear in general. I am a professional violinist, active in the field of concert performances of classical and historical performance of early music. I started getting into audio techniques about 13 years ago, simply because I was eager to properly record myself and the ensembles I played with. The rest is history, I fell into the trap of the endless rabbit hole of audiophilia with an ever increasing hunger for better gear, and in recent years I started combining my concert activity with audio production.

I will keep updating this review as I get the opportunity to try these headphones with other dacs and amps, but for time being I am using a Violectric V800 with XMOS feeding a AAA THX 789 via balanced, source is my computer via USB. I have been comparing the SE and balanced outs of the amp as well.

I will occasionally mention other headphones in this review for direct comparison with the Arya, including my beloved Stax system with the SR- L700 (same price category, besides a few obvious similarities between the two headphones).

Build:
I don't need to spend too many words about the build quality of the Arya. I really have no problems with it, it feels strong and durable to me, even if it received some criticism by others. Sure enough, there are headphones out there that feel even more robust, but everything is relative, if you are coming from a Stax Lambda this thing feels like a tank.

Comfort:
I also have no problems with comfort, with its 404 grams of weight (with no cables) the Arya is on the light side in the world of planar headphones, the headband structure is great, clamp is just right (for me), and the pads are huge, to the point I can have my ears float in the pads' space without touching anything, and I have larger than average ears. I'd say they are about 95% as comfortable as the Stax L700, whose softer pads and leather are just a bit more gentle on the skin. In any case, both are the most comfy headphones I have tried to date.

Sound:
Before I get into my opinion of the tonal balance of the Arya, I would like to share my perspective on the Harman Target curve response, since everyone posting measurements these days tends to show raw FR's of headphones compared to this or that version of the harman. Readers are welcome to skip this section and jump directly to the next paragraph, where I focus on the Arya.
I know my opinion on the matter may have several readers raise their eyebrows, and I know that there are several versions of the Harman Target and that it gets updated periodically. Some versions might work for some, other versions for others. We need to start accepting the fact that we all hear sound and tonal balance way too differently from one another. As Dan Clarke mentioned in the 2016 CanJam conference, the tiniest variations in the shape of the pinna lead to macroscopic changes in perceived tonal balance in the order of +/- 5db above 3khz (that is A TON if you ask me). Therefore, the concept itself of a universal tonal target sounds dumber and dumber to me as the years pass, and the more I learn. I am beginning to think of the Harman Target more as a consumer idea, as something that will please more or less everybody. But incidentally, the best headphones I heard in my life are not quite in line with that target, and the Arya is one of them. For instance, are we really sure the raise to 3k needs to be 14db? and do we need that much pressure at 2k? Personally, I don't think so. When I sit in front of a pair of good studio monitors I'm pretty confident they are shooting at me less 2-3k than a driver placed at 3cm from my ears tuned after a theoretical target derived from speaker measurements in diffuse field. I also don't agree with the bass boost of some versions of the Harman (like in the 2017 version), a bit too much for me... it certainly is fun and it works great on some music genres, and today it is really easy to be a bass-head, easier than in the past for sure, since headphones these days produce bass with a quality that was unthinkable even just 15 years ago. But too much bass boost doesn't work on those genres with the most delicate harmonic balance of timbers, such as classical, early music, some jazz, and acoustic music in general, while it is a lot of fun on Reggae, Hip-Hop, Electronic, some Metal and Rock, Pop, etc. I own a pair of NAD HP-50, whose tuning is amazingly similar to the Harman Target. And they are indeed very nicely tuned headphones, with great imaging, pleasant tone, smooth and inoffensive, and boy they got bass! Unfortunately though, they often dissatisfy me with classical music recordings, the bass might bleed into the mids, ruining the delicacy of the timbers of classical instruments. A problem that I don't hear at all the second I listen to a Bob Marley album, and many non-classical others. Similar to the bass matter, headphones with particularly recessed upper mids and treble also don't sound right to me on classical instruments. I remember how conflicted I was about the LCD-X (pre-2021 model, haven't heard the 2021), because it is pure pleasure, you hear the music as a whole, organic and coherent, and those mids and bass... how can we not fall for that thick flow of "nutella sound"? But then you listen carefully to a baroque violin, a harpsichord, or a string quartet, or one of the good old Philips or Decca records of orchestral Symphonies, etc... and something is not right, the LCD-X would sound somewhat dull timber-wise, with what I would describe as a harmonic simplification of the timbers. That kind of music, unlike other genres, is mastered with little to no compression, the pressure of the upper mids and treble is mostly left natural, and it is very delicate! It takes a deficit of anything in the 3 to 10k area to no longer be able to recognize the timbers of those instruments as they sound in reality. And this is a problem of many headphones tuned to be euphonic and inoffensive to the ears (less 3-10k pressure). On the other hand, you listen to other genres with the LCD-X, and it is a pleasure indeed, you BECOME nutella yourself, so unfortunate that they fall so short when it comes to timber realism of noble acoustic instruments. This very point takes me back to discussing the Arya in detail, sorry for the tedious preamble.

Back to the Arya. I felt the need to discuss my view on the mainstream theoretical targets also in consideration of the background music culture that guides the tuning of Hifiman headphones, particularly the Arya (and I am sure the Susvara as well). I came across a very interesting interview with Dr. Fang Bian while I was in my second week of auditioning the Arya. He appears to know very precisely what he wants in the tunings of his headphones, and that is also based on his passion for classical music. This is a person who regularly attended concerts at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center during his years living in New York City. In the interview, he discusses the high prices he would pay to get the specific seats he wanted at Carnegie Hall and other theaters. I started doing the same since getting into audio production! Whenever I attend a concert, besides enjoying the music, I also try to focus on the tonal balance I hear from the live performance. Being a person coming from that same music culture, I understand why the Hifiman headphones are not quite intended for bass-heads but rather for people who care about clarity, intelligibility, and timber realism. But regardless of taste and musical background, I will venture saying that the Arya is a headphone that can readily impress any listener. The very first time I listened to it I was "hit" by this gigantic presentation of the music before any other consideration came to mind. Both the stage in which the music happens and the instruments/vocals themselves are perceived LARGE. Instruments in a mix also sound tall, something I now believe is typical of elongated/oval shaped drivers, as I found in my past experiences with Stax systems that included the SR-202 and the SR-L700.
Resolution with the Arya is excellent, there is an amazing sense of clarity and intelligibility of the music. The driver speed is also very good, faster and more resolving than most dynamic drivers I've tried. Instruments and vocals sound really defined, clean, and precisely placed in the image. The sense of depth of the elements of a mix is one of the strengths of these headphones, and one of the factors, along with their quality of imaging, contributing to the great vision they give you of a mix.
To my great surprise, I found that, compared to the original Arya, this version is about 3 times easier to drive! In fact, it is usable from a phone (though barely), and certainly usable from a computer output. But it is also clear that it takes higher level dac/amps for the headphones to show their muscles. Punch and dynamics in general improve dramatically with better driving, the Arya does scale quite a bit.
In terms of tonality, the Arya is generally well balanced, and is mostly agreeable without eq-ing it. Bass is well extended, I can't hear any roll-off in the sub at all, and the treble is abundantly there. In my opinion, their real tonal strength is the amazingly linear response from 2k down to the underworld of the 20hz. In other words, the entire area of the fundamentals sounds perfectly linear, I really can't complain about anything. Only at times I like to boost the bass a bit, but not much, depending on the music I can go for a +1 or +2db shelf around 80-100hz, or nothing at all. One of the major "features" of their frequency response is their slightly recessed 2khz area, which I am a fan of! I was puzzled seeing that other reviewers propose EQs for the Arya that include a boost at 2k... oh right! the Harman target, haha! Well, no question this is a matter of personal taste, to me the 2k a couple db under target is a great thing, it moves the soundstage a bit further away from me, bringing the listening experience closer to what should be the real target, that is listening to studio monitors. The idea of recessed 2khz is similar to that of the Neumann NDH 20, though to a lesser extent with Arya (the Neumann is really missing a bit too much at 2k). I know I may be biased about this point, but we already know that the mystery of the famous "veil" of the HD600 and 650 lies in their slight excess of energy at 1-2k (a veil that I acknowledge exists only when they are not driven properly), and as a person who has experience with Stax systems, I heartedly welcome an FR with less 2k (as much as I love them, I will never understand how the Stax folks are fine releasing headphones with that much 1-2khz response! it's physically painful, besides messing with the timbers and making the overall sound shouty). Moving up to the upper mids, the Arya is indeed a bit hot around 3.5/4k, but again, this bothers me only on certain recordings, and when it does, I don't hear any problem Eq-ing down 1 or 2db at 3.5k. They also sound a bit intense in the treble, which depending on the music can be a pro or con. It is a pro when that means having a better perception of air, reverb tails, and plancton in general, particularly in recordings mastered a bit on the dark side. It can be a con for recordings that are on the bright side, as you hear some shimmer to the sound that may not be desirable. No problem Eq-ing this as well, with just a gentle shelf of -1 or -1.5db from around 7k (often not needed). Generally speaking, the two Eq settings I mentioned (3.5k and 7k), do help to make the Arya sound even more natural (where by "natural" I mean HD650 natural).
In terms of dynamics, the Arya performs very differently depending on how it's driven and how loud the music is played. I still believe that planar headphones are not quite at the level of dynamic headphones in the same price ranges when it comes to impact and macrodynamics, but with good driving and at volumes that aren't too soft the Arya sounds really dynamic! a bit more so from the balanced out of my THX 789 compared to the 1/4 inch out. And speaking of the sonic differences between the two outputs, they are quite subtle, the Arya sounds great both ways, but with the balanced out I can hear just a tiny bit of extra punch, resolution, and separation, and the feeling of a blacker background, but again, it is a very subtle difference.

Final Thoughts:
As soon as I get a chance, I will try the Arya with different rigs and add my impressions to this review. For now, I have to say I am really impressed by it, and the lovers of classical/early music, jazz, and acoustic genres should totally give it a listen. And hearing how clear and revealing the Arya sounds, I can't help thinking of my old Stax L700 (which to my great sadness I was forced to sell recently for financial reasons...). What I get with the Arya is almost the technical performance of the Stax, super close! like 98% of their imaging precision, 96% of their resolution, 99% of their image width, but for those couple percentage points I trade in, I get in return 1) a headphone with much better tonal balance out of the box (as wondrous as it is, the L700's FR is a mess, I used to Eq it heavily!), 2) a larger soundstage (not small on the L700, but the Arya just sounds VAST), 3) more body to the sound, with bass of completely different quality, more material, extended, tight and articulate (do we need to say more about what is already known about the electrostatic bass?....).