HiFiMAN SUSVARA

Welcome to my review! I write reviews to document the interesting headphones I've tried;
As time may pass, headphones may break, but knowledge can be passed down forever!
——Brandfuchs

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Prelude​

A while ago, I managed to collect the three TOTL:
the dynamic: LB-Acoustics Mysphere 3.2,
the planar: Hifiman Susvara,
and last, the electrostatic: STAX X9000



And this is the review about the Susvara, which is my favourite one out of the three.

Not lying to you, this is the one I've listened to the most. Writing the review for the Susvara took me the longest time—I found that while writing its review, my thoughts often drifted away, as if a fairy had taken my soul and led me into a paradise. I was completely captivated by the Susvara's enchanting sound, it allows me to genuinely immerse myself.

It almost has a magical quality that makes you want to revisit all your favourite track and listen to it again with the Susvara. Each time, its performance exceeds my expectations and rekindles my passion for listening. You'll find that the songs you've been listening to all along sound entirely different, reinterpreted in a new and amazing way.

Accessory​

A leather carrying case.

The HE1000v2 used to come with a similar leather case in orange colour, but ever since the Stealth version, it was replaced with a cardboard box, which I consider a mistake.

Inside the leather case of Susvara, there's a user manual, which is quite interesting because most of its content is about the design philosophy of the Susvara. It reads more like a 'book'let which is noticeably thicker compared to the manuals for other HIFIMAN products.

Next, you'll find the Susvara and three classic HIFIMAN transparent cables. I had hoped that HIFIMAN would provide something special, or at least a different cable for their flagship model, but that wasn’t the case.

Before we get to the sound, amplification​

I once read this from a fellas head-fier and strongly agreed with it: planar baby tend to sound better when fed with "a healthy bit more of power". Previously, I tried driving the HE6SE V2 and Susvara with the GS-X MK2, but it didn't work out so well. However, when connected to a power amplifier, the HE6SE V2 transformed dramatically—the dynamics became strong, and the soundstage expanded significantly.

In comparison, the Susvara is interesting because, even if it's not fully driven, it maintains its tuning signature. It's more forgiving of the source than the HE6SE V2, but to fully unleash its potential, you need to feed it with more power, much more.

I'm using the Linn Selekt with Organik module as DAC, and the Yamaha A-S3200 as amplifier, the AS3200 is an excellent integrated amp, I mean both visually and sonically. It has VU meters on the front, illuminated by a soft beige LED light when powered on. Watching the meters' dance is a visual-fi in itself.


As an integrated amplifier, it's quite kind for Yamaha to equip it with a headphone jack, albeit the output power of which is merely 50 mW + 50 mW.
Yeah, you see it right, 50 milli Watts, kinda humorous

But when it comes to amplifier output of the AS3200, it got serious 90 W + 90 W power into 8Ω load, and 145 W + 145 W into 4Ω

Many people worry about blowing headphones with excessive power from a power amp, let's do a quick calculation to verify this

Using the formula P=𝑉2/R:

• P is the power in watts
• 𝑉2 (V Square) is the voltage in volts
• 𝑅 is the load impedance in ohms

First, we'll determine the voltage for each given load impedance using the provided power outputs:
For 8 ohms:

• 𝑃=90W; 
• R=8Ω;
• 𝑉 (8Ω)=Square root [𝑃 (8Ω)×𝑅]=Square root [90×8]≈26.83 𝑉

Now, calculate the power for a 60-ohm load, which is the impedance of Susvara:

• 𝑉 (8Ω) =26.83
• 𝑅 (60Ω)=60
• 𝑃( 60Ω)=Square [𝑉 (8Ω)] /𝑅 (60Ω)

=(26.83*26.83)/60
≈719.848/60≈11.997𝑊

Thus, the output power for a 60-ohm load would be approximately 12 watts (per channel).

So, even though the figure of 90W per channel might seem dreadful, considering the 60-ohm impedance load, you wouldn't actually be delivering hundreds of power to the headphones.

Sound​

First Impressions​

Sheer astonishing, it doesn’t even sound like something a pair of headphones should be capable of. The soundstage is immense, and delivering such detailed and clear sound within this vast soundstage is truly remarkable for a headphone. The soundstage is more than most headphones can handle, being very wide with almost no sense of boundaries. You don't feel like the sound is confined or unable to expand further at a particular point; it just naturally extends beyond your head, good in depth and horizontally broad.

The vast soundstage of Susvara really reminded me of my experience using the Rega Brio with an poweramp adapter to drive the HE6se V2, which also had an impressive soundstage. I was deeply captivated by the expansive soundstage that these headphones can deliver, at that moment, I made up my mind that I must experience the soundstage delivered by HIFIMAN's flagship.

Bass/Lows​

As a basshead, I’ll start with the bass. Initially, I expected the Susvara to have a very aggressive tuning, with lows attacking fiercely like a wild beast. Even if not that extreme, I anticipated something powerful and impactful like the HE1000V2 Stealth or HE1000SE. Contrary to these expectations, the Susvara’s bass is almost entirely linear. If you look at Susvara's frequency response curve, you'll notice that its low end is a nearly flat line. It sounds very linear, natural, clear, and appropriate.


Listening to "Almost Love (Stargate Warehouse Mix)," as the drumbeats begin and gradually merge into the main melody, the Susvara’s bass keeps pace perfectly—neither too fast & tight nor slow. Linear: It transitions smoothly from sub-bass to mid-bass, then low bass and finally the lower mids, showcasing a very linear and complete response. Natural: the transition between different bass layers is incredibly smooth, with no unnaturalness because no part of the bass spectrum is overly emphasised, and every detail of the bass is clearly articulated. Thanks to its linearity, the Susvara doesn’t exhibit significant roll-off. It possesses sufficient and appropriate sub-bass detail, allowing the bass layers to be showcased clearly while maintaining the right speed.

What could be improved
When we describe bass, we generally divide it into three segments: sub-bass, mid-bass, and upper bass.

Although the Susvara's bass is accurate, complete, and without flaws, I personally think it would be perfect if it had a bit more slam and a stronger impact in the mid-bass, and I feel that more and more every time I listen to R&B or EDM. Previously I mentioned that I prefer the bass response of the HE1000se, because I lean towards its punchy, impactful bass, which truly resonates with me. The Susvara's bass performance, while its texture and speed are impeccable, due to the linearity, with almost a flat bass response, the impact sometimes feels less powerful, it feels like every time the drum beats, I can't help but move my hands around, trying to act as the drummer making the beat more impactful.

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Vocal/Mids​

The overall vocal presentation on the Susvara is characterised by its naturalness and authenticity. It captures even the subtle emotions and expressions of the singer with meticulous control over sibilance, even for extended listening sessions, it is without fatigue.

Susvara’s vocals are akin to witnessing a performance in its purest form, where every breath and whisper is crystal clear and impeccably defined, each vocal detail is rendered with a breathtaking level of clarity. And it also excels in delivering remarkably neutral and uncoloured vocals. The vocals strike a perfect balance between warmth and coolness, appealing to purists. They exude a sense of purity, as if each syllable is bathed in pristine light, untainted by coloration or distortion.

Imaging is perfectly positioned, avoiding being too forward or too recessed. This ensures that the vocals remain accurately placed and lifelike, providing a sense of presence without being overwhelmed by instruments or other elements of the music.

Treble/Highs​

The Susvara's treble exhibit an excellent sense of openness, offering a relaxed and comfortable treble overall. While the mids remains smooth, the upper midrange extend beautifully to the treble. It showcases remarkable detail, and wisely, Hifiman didn’t attempt to artificially boost treble or create an overly bright tuning like some of iem do. Instead, the Susvara’s treble is incredibly detailed and free from any harshness, retaining every bit of detail while still sounds comfortable and relaxing. The treble integrates seamlessly with the rest of the frequency spectrum, ensuring that the highs are never overpowering, which really deserves the word 'natural'.

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Tuning: What makes flagship headphones so fascinating?​

I'm going to end with something that‘s perhaps a bit of a departure from the sus's review.

In my previous review of the Stax X9000, I mentioned the term 'smart.' I think those TOTLs have one thing in common: a ‘smart’ tuning. Precisely, what does it means?\
Well in my opinion, firstly, they can grasp the balance very, very well, avoiding obvious deficiencies in certain frequency that lead to shortcomings, such as mids dips causing a recessed vocal imaging; or excessive emphasis on certain frequency, like highs, which eventually resulting in noticeable sibilance and harshness, also, sense of unnatural.

There's a joke that goes like this: A man walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, 'Doc, you have to help me! Everyone thinks I'm crazy because I keep telling them the sky is blue!' The psychiatrist looks out the window and says, 'But the sky is gray today.' The man replies, 'See! Even you think I'm crazy!'

Sometimes, what we need isn't something that's deliberately emphasised. For instance, bass—a strong, impactful bass can be pleasing, but if the bass is so overpowering that it's all you can hear, it loses its appeal. Similarly, with treble, if it's excessively boosted, like insisting to a doctor that "the sky is blue," the already high treble is pushed even higher, such an overly stimulating sound loses its significance as well.

And I feel flagship headphones embody a should be common but rare spirit, which is "smartness". They know how to express things correctly and appropriately, with precise and subtle balancing at the heart of their essence. This is also the essence of the Susvara, where everything is perfectly balanced and just right.

The Hifiman Susvara was once quite ridiculed and hated for its outrageous price tag at its time at $6000. Yes, that's right, it's $6K. And it still is today, 6+ years later. And while it's still one of the most expensive headphones on the market, there are others in this price range now that compete with it, including even more expensive in-ear monitors!

Some of the vitriol against this was the entertaining video interview between Tyll Hertens and Fang Bian, the owner of Hifiman, and also Hifiman's long-going quality issues and relatively lack-luster build quality for their asking price. It's true, the company focuses primarily on its driver technology and its stellar tuning, and sometimes slaps it together in whatever form-factor that'll work.

After always dreaming about this headphone, I decided to just sell off the majority of my headphones and audio collection except a few essentials and just buy up this unit. I've always wanted to get my hands on this unit, being a long-time fan of Hifiman's tuning and lightweight designs, despite fragile they can be sometimes.

So, it was to my surprise that the Susvara's build is actually not that bad. It shares similar designs with my previous two Hifiman staples: the HE560 and the Arya, and can actually be considered a smashing of the two. It's not quite round, and it's not tear-dropped either. It's kind of an oblong-circular cup design with the same style headband as my two prior headphones. The headband removes the plastic yokes and has full-metal headband and yoke design that feels very strong and sturdy. The grills are aluminum and don't have any issues with creaking or feel like they're going to implode on themselves.

There is still the goofy wood veneer from the HE560 though. It's not the best, but it is not appalling either. I'll take it.

The Susvara nano-scale diaphragm and magnet structure were its major selling point, allowing it to have major improvements in resolution and clarity, as well as what I'd say better tactility and impact. One thing that was interesting when this headphone came out was that the majority of Hifiman's releases were moving more and more towards efficiency and allowing their planars to be played on a variety of sources. The Susvara goes backwards a bit in this movement, and has power requirements more akin to their old HE6 model, with a rated sensitivty of 83dB/mW and 60 ohm impedance.

This means, you'll need an amp with at least 2 Watts into 60 ohms to really get the best out of the Susvara, and for the most part, I think this is quite true. I've run this on a gambit of sources and the ones with the most power seem to really show off the most characteristic features of the Susvara the best, with my current pick being a 50 Watt (into 8 Ohm) integrated speaker amplifier using the speaker taps as my headphone connection.

Before I go further into the sound qualities, I do want to mention that the Susvara's unboxing experience was kind of lackluster for the $6000 MSRP tag. It came in a latched box, which was alright, but did not include a portable travel case, and the cables are horrendous. They're the same ones that come with the HE6SE V2, HE1000SE and a few other recent headphones.

Hifiman did include a hardcover photo book detailing the features and process of designing the headphone, which is a pretty nice coffee table item.

So apparently, I started writing this review in May 2021, and I stopped my writing at this point in time. It was so long ago, I forgot I had even wrote anything. I tend to be slower or sometimes never get to reviewing products I own, but anyway.... Since, it seemed like nothing really changed, I will continue writing the review from where I left off, nearly 2 years later in March 2023 now...

Sound Impressions​

The Susvara is my favorite headphone. I've owned it for over 2 years now, and I've tried many other headphones before and after that point, and it's still the one I go back to. The Susvara has a very neutral reference sound that doesn't color anything. It's not as bright as your typical Hifiman, as it doesn't have any random peaks in the treble range, and it doesn't have a large dip in the mids as some planars do. The bass levels are flat from the lowest sub-bass regions through the mids, and begins to rise just after 1KHz, and extends well into the upper treble range, giving this a nice clean sound that doesn't exaggerate any one frequency range in my opinion.




Before I dive further into this, some may have read my adventures in amping the Hifiman HE6SE V2, and going deep down the headphones and speaker amp rabbit hole with it. I ended up with a Bakoon AMP-13R after all was said and done, which is a 25 watt (into 8 ohms) speaker/headphone amp that was designed from the ground up around the Susvara, and it shows. It's a perfect pairing, with a warm-bodied sound compliments the neutral sound of the headphone.

So, yes, the Susvara requires some power to get going. It will drain your digital audio players, and will require you to push them to their limits to get it up to listenable volumes. When I tried it on a Chord Mojo, for example, I drained the entire battery of it in 25 minutes. My iBasso DX240 audio player can get it loud, but bass performance was severely lacking. And, basically, don't even try it out of an Apple dongle.

Using the Susvara dropped me deeper into the DAC rabbit hole too. I settled in with the Holo Spring 3 KTE at some point, and now my chain starts with Roon, through the Holo Spring 3 KTE DAC, and finally into the Bakoon AMP-13R, where spits audio into my ears via the Susvara. And for the most part, it is ultra bliss.





The Susvara is source dependent. I mentioned this with the HE6SE V2, and the same can really be said with this one. If you put a bright setup with it, it'll be bright. If you put a warm source behind it, it'll be warmer. But in all cases, it's still fairly neutral in its overall tonal presentation.

This headphone really excels at resolution. It's a detail monster, and it presents it in a very open and large soundstage that is layered with texture and micro-details when called upon. The bass presentation is nuanced and fast, and is unlike many other headphones I've tried. It doesn't necessarily have the long, lingering decay of a good dynamic driver, but it can slam with the best of them -- if you give it the current it needs to give you the volume and drive it takes.

On the morning that I'm writing this out, I'm jamming to Nickel Creek's latest record, Celebrants. It's a progressive bluegrass record that truly excels on Susvara. Acoustic music is one of the specialties that I feel Hifiman made shine on their creation. The intricacies of each instrument are on full display, with a large and grand soundstage, and quick, exacting detail projected to each of my ears. The sheer speed and agility of the string-play the band presents can be fully appreciated on the Susvara, because its driver can keep up and then some.





I've had Hifiman headphones from their entry level up to this flagship in the past, and when I compare say the entry level HE400SE or the HE6SE V2 to the Susvara, I can quickly discern the differences in sheer speed of the driver. The faster transients that I hear make a big difference in how resolving the headphones sound, and while I adore and use the HE400SE quite often (it's my work-office headphone), I can easily hear the resolving deficiencies between this entry level headphone and the Hifiman flagship.






I put on a more upbeat, but, still acoustic album, Mipso's self-titled record from 2020, and listening to songs like the faster-paced "Hourglass" sound wonderful on Susvara. The bassline hits well, and the snare drum is timely and not distracting. It falls behind the scene as it should, and let the vocals shine. The lead guitar and bass guitar intro of "Your Body" sound very coherent and balanced, while Libby Rodenbough's sometimes breathy and strained-sounding vocals are so full of detail, that you can hear the transitions between the loud and quiet singing quite well and without skipping a beat.





Now, I will say, some may find the Susvara a tad bright, or perhaps too neutral. And there is some truth to that. It's definitely not very colored, and may not have as much warm body as other headphones that people tend to compare this too, such as a typical Audeze planar, or a ZMF headphone -- both of which have warmer mids, darker treble, and a fuller-bodied sound. These are their house sounds, and Hifiman has always strayed towards a less colored, and sometimes bright-tilting tonal balance.






For alternative rock and hip hop music, I still find the Susvara enjoyable, but perhaps this isn't its strongest suit. For me, these genres could use the extra mid-bass or mid-range body, or perhaps a little darker skew to the treble range that tames some of the electric guitars or electronic treble-inducing beats. And in that case, I prefer listening with the fantastic ZMF Caldera, another planar open-back headphone with a more warm and fuller tuning.

Even so, putting on Radiohead's The Bends is still a treat. It's can be a tad bright at times with the amount of electric guitar and high hats going on in the busiest parts, but that depth and layering qualities the Susvara can present is really something -- and a band like Radiohead, who is all about those intricate details in every one of their songs -- its not a bad thing at all. "Everything in its Right Place", for example, sounds incredibly large, awe-inducing, and hypnotizing on this headphone.

Final Thoughts​

I could probably write more and more about this headphone, but at some point I do need to stop. While I don't think its probably the be-all-end-all headphone for everyone, it is for me and my musical preferences. I love this headphone for jazz, for bluegrass, for acoustic music. I enjoy it for electronic and classical, and rock. I don't know if I'd like it for hip hop, modern pop, and soul music as much, but I have other gear for that.

Obviously, this is an EXPENSIVE headphone, and it more than likely requires an EXPENSIVE set of sources (DAC and amp), which adds more to the cost, and so "easily recommending it" is not something I am going to do. But, this headphone does give me so much enjoyment listening to it that I find its value proposition still kind of ridiculous at times, but perhaps I justify to myself that it is an investment in quality and quantity -- and by quantity, I mean years of service. This is a for-life headphone, and not likely one that will be replaced. It's been on the market for 8 years now, and still popular and still being purchased today.

With that said, and a random note, my other "most-used" headphone is nearing its 27 or 28th year now -- the Sennheiser HD600. I haven't had it for that long, of course, but it is something to say that the two headphones I use the most are not just flavors of the month, and they've, so far, tested the passage of time with flying colors.

I am updating this review. Please bear with me...