[pokrog]

any Ananda enjoys sitting in their ivory towers doubtfully watching the Edition XS hype-train going crazy just sipping whiskey waiting for the legit youtube reviewers gang to shed some light on the situation? pretty sure the Ananda is still the most realistic and well tuned Hifiman at the end of the day, I bought this so I couldn't tell headphones from reality and nothing else matters to me, if I want bass or more detail or superhuman ears I have Audeze.

Really hate to be a headphone hater but I think some people missed the point of the Sundara and Ananda.

The Ananda has bad timbre, peaky highs and trash bass. People saying the XS has loose bass probably just haven't heard real bass extension in a planar. Deep sub bass is slow and the people saying the Ananda is faster are probably both underpowering the XS and also not used to actually hearing real sub bass. If you think the Ananda has good timbre, it's because you haven't heard good timbre in a planar, straight up. Hifiman has 3 headphones with good timbre, the he6 line, he1000se and XS. Susvaras also from what I've heard and it makes sense as the stealth drivers have always had vastly better timbre than the model they replaced and I'll die on this hill.

 

[bagwell359]

Did you listen HD800s ? how it compares ? I want soundstage and detail but more dynamic sound. Ananda is a bit compressed to me. Everyone say HD800s bass is bad though.

800s bass isn't bad in total. It's quick and lucid with good tone. It isn't good under 60 Hz or so, it can EQ up down to about 40 Hz but not much more. No good for man made low bass stuff. Sounds better on OTL tubes.

I think the Ananda is actually similar in the bass. Ananda stage is too tall but not wide enough, but it's big. 800s and 800 wipe the floor with almost any can ever in terms of staging.

Not compressed? Arya? Used?

Less compressed with good bass? HE-6sev2? Good price.

I can't really help with closed backs, dynamics. Not my taste...

 

[bagwell359]

The Ananda has bad timbre, peaky highs and trash bass. People saying the XS has loose bass probably just haven't heard real bass extension in a planar. Deep sub bass is slow and the people saying the Ananda is faster are probably both underpowering the XS and also not used to actually hearing real sub bass. If you think the Ananda has good timbre, it's because you haven't heard good timbre in a planar, straight up. Hifiman has 3 headphones with good timbre, the he6 line, he1000se and XS. Susvaras also from what I've heard and it makes sense as the stealth drivers have always had vastly better timbre than the model they replaced and I'll die on this hill.

The 500 is a very near sibling of the 6, I include it in the good category. With better cables, pads, and some EQ the 6sev* also fit. HEK v2 is no dud either.

I strongly agree with your post overall.

 

[bagwell359]

any Ananda enjoys sitting in their ivory towers doubtfully watching the Edition XS hype-train going crazy just sipping whiskey waiting for the legit youtube reviewers gang to shed some light on the situation? pretty sure the Ananda is still the most realistic and well tuned Hifiman at the end of the day, I bought this so I couldn't tell headphones from reality and nothing else matters to me, if I want bass or more detail or superhuman ears I have Audeze.

Really hate to be a headphone hater but I think some people missed the point of the Sundara and Ananda.

Missing impact/grunt in the bass.
Bright spot 6.5-9k
Missing harmonics to a very worrying degree
Sound is transparent to the point of thinness
Stage too tall, width lacking vs height.

I think the HE-6se v1 used, 6se v2, HE-500 used, HEX v2 used are all better stock than the Ananda. With my mods/EQ it's a bloodbath. I expected to like the Ananda. After the brutal joke known as the 5se, it's my biggest HFM disappointment

XS? Hope it's better.

 

[pokrog]

The 500 is a very near sibling of the 6, I include it in the good category. With better cables, pads, and some EQ the 6sev* also fit. HEK v2 is no dud either.

I strongly agree with your post overall.

That's probably my fault for trying the 5xx and 560 and assuming they're all like that. I have no doubt they're capable though, just hated the stock tuning and timbre of the ones I tried.

 

[the1andonly]

Missing impact/grunt in the bass.
Bright spot 6.5-9k
Missing harmonics to a very worrying degree
Sound is transparent to the point of thinness
Stage too tall, width lacking vs height.

I think the HE-6se v1 used, 6se v2, HE-500 used, HEX v2 used are all better stock than the Ananda. With my mods/EQ it's a bloodbath. I expected to like the Ananda. After the brutal joke known as the 5se, it's my biggest HFM disappointment

XS? Hope it's better.

Resolve said it was tuned better than Arya, and so much so that when he first listened to them back to back he thought the Ananda was supposed to be the better one(confused by the pricing), until he had an extended listen closely to details, Crinacle ranks them as one of his best tuned headphones, S- with only 4 ranked clearly above it at S and 1 ranked S+, Zeos said they are one of the best buys in headphones "I think these are probably the one of the better buys and headphones that you can get, period."

I am not sure why you are calling out the openness or emptiness (also known as separation) of the soundstage and their sound because of how open they are as "thinness"... Again what I said "Really hate to be a headphone hater but I think some people missed the point of the Sundara and Ananda." still applies here, I think you still don't get it, counting that as a "bad" thing is as silly as calling out the HD 6 series for being intimate and smooth, that is literally the nature of the headphone. No idea what the soundstage height thing is, but I know with virtually every headphone I use if the cup isn't positioned in certain way on my ear it can sound like the soundstage is weirdly high/low or in odd positions... I would recommend if you get a listen to it again play with positioning and slider height.

Anyway to me, the Sundara almost sounded like real life but with not enough detail, resolution, and soundstage too small for me to get lost, the Ananda fixed all of those for me. If I listen to it long enough I sometimes legit forget I am hearing sound from headphones and get up to do something, take them off and am genuinely shocked the music/sound stopped. Literally nothing else gets even close to that except Sundara especially having the perfect timbre to recreate peoples voices to a scary realistic degree.... You are entitled to your own opinion, just know, I didn't even like the Sundara. Sundara to me was boring, some of your gripes, I had with the Sundara, but to me the Ananda is amazing, even better than the LCD-2F and LCD-X as far as a revelation...

Now, as a headphone to listen to for music or gaming, Ananda is NOT my first choice or even my taste, but for movies, especially dramas(I want a LOT of kdramas) with lots of talking it is perfect... At the end of the day it is recognized by a lot of people as not only being very good, but also very good bang for your buck, and this is considering it's detail and resolution over the Sundara isn't all that amazing, nor is the soundstage benefit and the FR is very much generally the same. So it's safe to say, especially factoring in comments about the tuning, from not just from professional reviewers in general, but from two of the most methodic, respectable, serious reviewers, who have lots of experience in high end headphones, and having used and reviewed many many ones, that most people have not had a chance to use along with all the others, that the tuning is excellent... and again I stress excellent for what the headphone is made for, I get it's not your cup of tea. But the tuning is excellent, and it is very neutral, and the most natural sounding headphone me, and that many others have ever used, for recreating sound, especially voices, as indistinguishable as possible from real life.

 

[the1andonly]

The Ananda has bad timbre, peaky highs and trash bass. People saying the XS has loose bass probably just haven't heard real bass extension in a planar. Deep sub bass is slow and the people saying the Ananda is faster are probably both underpowering the XS and also not used to actually hearing real sub bass. If you think the Ananda has good timbre, it's because you haven't heard good timbre in a planar, straight up. Hifiman has 3 headphones with good timbre, the he6 line, he1000se and XS. Susvaras also from what I've heard and it makes sense as the stealth drivers have always had vastly better timbre than the model they replaced and I'll die on this hill.

Almost everything you said is responding to criticisms from other people that I do not share as I have not heard it.... First off, in my post above I outline that objectively, the Ananda has excellent tuning, if you disagree it is likely because...

"Really hate to be a headphone hater but I think some people missed the point of the Sundara and Ananda."

applies to you, so another miss of the point I was making about the XS's hype train, is that Ananda hits a point and deviating from it for the people like me who enjoy Ananda for being as life-like as possible just misses the point that it hits... Now I don't really have much to say to you because again you are defending against points I never brought up, you aren't really responding to me as much as responding at me.... but statements like "If you think the Ananda has good timbre, it's because you haven't heard good timbre in a planar, straight up." when again, it can be proven objectively it does have excellent tuning and "also not used to actually hearing real sub bass. " this to a person who owns Audeze headphones isn't doing much to dispel the environment that reads to me like hype-train.

I came to the Ananda thread to get opinions from Ananda owners and stay away from the hype train.... I am not actually some jerk who sees himself in an ivory tower "above" people who like the Edition XS, however there clearly is a hype train and I was being sardonic, meanwhile you have come here and firmly cemented and perpetuated the hype train by talking down to other headphones ( and I guess kind of me as well, but again you kind of talked at me, not to me, I guess.... ). Bringing up all these points, that again, I never said, and just spouting accusations that can be proven objectively false(bad tuning) or stuff like "not used to actually hearing real sub bass" which I don't know what to think. But will re-iterate I own Audeze headphone and have the graphs taken of the exact headphones I own taken on a very expensive measurment rig that indeed prove that they are producing very strong sub bass... I don't really want to start arguing with you but I think Audeze headphones (especially including the LCD-4, which arguably has the best sub-bass) have generally some of the best sub bass out of all headphones.... I don't know if there is an actual test to prove I am capable of hearing frequencies that low to qualify as sub-bass though, so maybe you are right, but not for lack of trying.....

Anyway feel free to be hyped about your headphone, I would just encourage you to go about saying you like it a kinder or perhaps more thoughtful way.... You will notice I have not actually said anything bad about the Edition XS, that's because, again, I haven't tried it....

 

[dpump]

Please stop feeding the troll. I long ago started ignoring his posts as he thinks his 10 year old self modified HiFiMans are the best things ever made. I doubt he has actually had most, if any, of the current HiFiMan phones in his system for a fair audition but is mostly going by what he reads online. He is stuck in the past and needs to go away and stay away. Times have changed and most of us have moved on. Believe it or not, newer phones are an improvement over much older ones.

 

[bagwell359]

Resolve said it was tuned better than Arya, and so much so that when he first listened to them back to back he thought the Ananda was supposed to be the better one(confused by the pricing), until he had an extended listen closely to details, Crinacle ranks them as one of his best tuned headphones, S- with only 4 ranked clearly above it at S and 1 ranked S+, Zeos said they are one of the best buys in headphones "I think these are probably the one of the better buys and headphones that you can get, period."

I am not sure why you are calling out the openness or emptiness (also known as separation) of the soundstage and their sound because of how open they are as "thinness"... Again what I said "Really hate to be a headphone hater but I think some people missed the point of the Sundara and Ananda." still applies here, I think you still don't get it, counting that as a "bad" thing is as silly as calling out the HD 6 series for being intimate and smooth, that is literally the nature of the headphone. No idea what the soundstage height thing is, but I know with virtually every headphone I use if the cup isn't positioned in certain way on my ear it can sound like the soundstage is weirdly high/low or in odd positions... I would recommend if you get a listen to it again play with positioning and slider height.

Anyway to me, the Sundara almost sounded like real life but with not enough detail, resolution, and soundstage too small for me to get lost, the Ananda fixed all of those for me. If I listen to it long enough I sometimes legit forget I am hearing sound from headphones and get up to do something, take them off and am genuinely shocked the music/sound stopped. Literally nothing else gets even close to that except Sundara especially having the perfect timbre to recreate peoples voices to a scary realistic degree.... You are entitled to your own opinion, just know, I didn't even like the Sundara. Sundara to me was boring, some of your gripes, I had with the Sundara, but to me the Ananda is amazing, even better than the LCD-2F and LCD-X as far as a revelation...

Now, as a headphone to listen to for music or gaming, Ananda is NOT my first choice or even my taste, but for movies, especially dramas(I want a LOT of kdramas) with lots of talking it is perfect... At the end of the day it is recognized by a lot of people as not only being very good, but also very good bang for your buck, and this is considering it's detail and resolution over the Sundara isn't all that amazing, nor is the soundstage benefit and the FR is very much generally the same. So it's safe to say, especially factoring in comments about the tuning, from not just from professional reviewers in general, but from two of the most methodic, respectable, serious reviewers, who have lots of experience in high end headphones, and having used and reviewed many many ones, that most people have not had a chance to use along with all the others, that the tuning is excellent... and again I stress excellent for what the headphone is made for, I get it's not your cup of tea. But the tuning is excellent, and it is very neutral, and the most natural sounding headphone me, and that many others have ever used, for recreating sound, especially voices, as indistinguishable as possible from real life.

FR measurements are nearly useless for evaluating slam/impact/Q. Ananda's measure well in the bass. They are quick and tight. But many reviewers/users find the bass lacking. For instance the LCD sounds much different.

Thinness is lack of body and richness (harmonics in correct ratio to fundamentals) and has nothing to do with separation.

I've mentioned in this thread that the Ananda was probably the best deal at $799. Then the HE-6se came out $695 and below and blew the Ananda up if one has the power. Now perhaps the XS is another. I intended to buy the Ananda but it was flawed in ways I don't tolerate.

Most of the under age 35 people in audio are heavily digital/electronic (background and interests). My take is they don't really know what unamplified music sounds like - hence the huge rise in rot your teeth super bright cans, and sloppy bass cannons. OK free country. But I don't want anything to do with it or moronic EQ settings under 100 Hz to mimic crap rooms and currently popular tuning. Wrong headed in the extreme.

Reviewers? I read some, ignore most and distrust them all. Leading an argument in what one guy says as its battle flag won't get far with me.

I'd like to hear more of your experience/opinion and less about expert opinions to shield from the enemy.

 

[the1andonly]

Please stop feeding the troll. I long ago started ignoring his posts as he thinks his 10 year old self modified HiFiMans are the best things ever made. I doubt he has actually had most, if any, of the current HiFiMan phones in his system for a fair audition but is mostly going by what he reads online. He is stuck in the past and needs to go away and stay away. Times have changed and most of us have moved on. Believe it or not, newer phones are an improvement over much older ones.

not sure which one you meant but done and done, I am also guessing they have never owned it... lol, I feel much better now

 

[hoofman]

But the tuning is excellent, and it is very neutral, and the most natural sounding headphone me, and that many others have ever used, for recreating sound, especially voices, as indistinguishable as possible from real life.

I was doing a headphone test on my Ananda and it was pretty long one. I didn't read 1 part of the test in the middle and clicked the play button. I was shocked because I thought somebody knocked on my door loudly. It turned out that the sound came from the headphone test itself.

Regarding the timbre the Ananda handles pretty much every genres that I throw in be it classical, metal, pop or OST. The headphone is very neutral without much coloring and its tonal accuracy, resolution and imaging etc are all amazing. It's my daily go-to headphone that I can just put on and forget about gears, just submerge in the music. Of course different people have different taste so no headphone is for everyone. If you are into neutral/reference style of headphones then I highly recommend the Ananda. The best way to find out is to try it yourself.

 

[bagwell359]

Please stop feeding the troll. I long ago started ignoring his posts as he thinks his 10 year old self modified HiFiMans are the best things ever made. I doubt he has actually had most, if any, of the current HiFiMan phones in his system for a fair audition but is mostly going by what he reads online. He is stuck in the past and needs to go away and stay away. Times have changed and most of us have moved on. Believe it or not, newer phones are an improvement over much older ones.

My HE-500's are nice and many here agree. But it's certainly no match for the LCD-4, Susvara, Voce, etc.

You've ignored my posts since long ago? Your posts would suggest otherwise.

It's true. I haven't had the HEK v2, HEK se, XS, 400 stealth, 560 v2-4 in my system. But everything else from $300 and over made in the last 10 years I own, owned, had in my systen, or heard in a shop.

 

[bagwell359]

not sure which one you meant but done and done, I am also guessing they have never owned it... lol, I feel much better now

I heard the Ananda with high hopes at a friends, then in my system. It's very good in many areas, but what it doesn't do makes it a no go for me. Anyone who likes/loves it - fine. Likewise my opinions are legit and ought not bruise feelings or egos of objective folk.

 

[bagwell359]

not sure which one you meant but done and done, I am also guessing they have never owned it... lol, I feel much better now

You feel better because you assert I never owned it? During the time the Ananda came out or right after I bought: HEX v2., HE-5se, Alara. Before a LCD-2F, HE-500. After a HE-6se v1.

I thought I'd get the Ananda and heard it twice before deciding no and again later.

The 5se, Alara, LCD long gone. All the others better than the Ananda IMO, still here.

 

[trellus]

I have the HE-6se v2 and the Ananda. I don't think the HE-6se v2 "blows" the Ananda "out of the water." I enjoy both of them for what they are. I frankly find the Ananda far more versatile and less amp picky, so they're a "winner over" the HE-6se v2 by that measure, which is important to me since I travel with my headphones to several locations where I don't have the same amps.