If you read my impressions comparing to the 800s that I just posted, I said the same thing. They're wide with decent depth and a large sound but the Soundstage is nothing compared to the 800s. The Arya need a good class A amp however to sound their best, and you should definitely EQ to tame the high
and increase the bass.
When I had the HE1000 V2 here, some years ago, I wished that they'd put the design into a Edition X chassis and sell it cheaper. Thankfully they did! The interesting thing is, my impressions of the Arya Stealth, so far, are like that of the HEKV2, in that they can sound quite weak on lowly amplification, unless you listen at only very low volumes.
For reference:
Tube amps shouldn't change the sound signature given how flat the impedance is.
What kind of "tube amp"? An OTL tube amp? A transformer-coupled one, or a hybrid? An OTL will be no good with low-impedance headphones as the output impedance of the amplifier will be too high to control the drivers. That is why people will report bloated bass out of amps such as the BHC etc. Transformer-coupled and hybrid amps avoid this problem by using, respectively, transformers and a solid state output stage. It has nothing to do with Class A.
Maybe you've just heard the bass in your song as it's meant to be heard via the Arya and it's just not what you've been used to with the AKGs and Sundaras. Listening to a different HP (with a different sound signature and different capabilities) can be anywhere from utter elation to utter disgust and anywhere in between - that is, until you get used to their new sound signature. It's why some folks can listen to Beats, Bose, or Gaming HPs and hear those as "accurate" but when they listen to much higher performing and accurate HPs they balk at what sounds like less bass (that's actually just tighter and truer to the source) and too bright highs (that's really just extended treble). They have become used to bloated, mushy, flabby bass and soft or rolled-off trebles with an accompanying midrange peak or dip. It takes time to acclimatize to new or different HPs just like it takes time to acclimatize to a different environment.
There's no such thing as "as it's meant to be heard". The later comment talking about how it was recorded/mastered with less bass is spot-on. It's easier to appreciate a wider variety of music with headphones that have some degree of bass boost or bass bloom, as a lot of stuff simply wasn't mastered with sufficient bass. Maybe the label or recording engineer assumed, for example, that it would be played back on headphones or the like that have a lot of bass already.
Well as far as pure sound quality and technicality goes your probably better off with the Arya, but keep in mind the Arya was designed to be just that, Hifiman chose to cut out design and durability when making the Arya to keep its price down, it’s strictly sound that your paying for with the Arya, now in my experience the focals are well built and will more than likely hold up longer than the Arya while looking amazing at the same time. Pros and cons to weigh out.
Much of the problem is likely the very thin drivers. They are designed for home use, and should be moved around with care.
If you want thump/impact/slam, go with Focal. PRAT and microdetails are gibberish words made up by salesmen. Microdetails might mean low level signals, in that case, you'd want a low impedance headphone. Both the Focal and Arya have around the same impedance so should be pretty similar in letting low level (most likely garbage/interference) signals through like EMI. In this case, "microdetails" are bad, which is a case for using higher impedance headphones.
Impedance has no bearing on the level of details that a headphone can resolve. Nor, for that matter, does SINAD, which is grossly more abused by a handful of companies, who design equipment with compromised designs, purely to top someone's SINAD chart.
I have a small number of recordings which I have yet to find equipment so good that I can no longer hear more into how the sound echo's around the room, or the extreme subtleties of things such as the bow moving across a violin string, or the decay of notes played on a piano.
But, back to the Aryas, I thought had the V2 here, but it turns out, when I checked the box, it was the Stealth, and I hadn't realised. If I had, I would have reviewed them sooner. I have a stack of mid-range amps here (Singxer, Soncoz, Jot) so I'll see how they sound out of those. Those amps tend towards being a slight touch "warm", which might be a good combo with the Arya.
