[robotnize]

I sold the R10 months ago and planned to order Susvara, but now I want to cancel them

 

[Whitigir]

I sold the R10 months ago and planned to order Susvara, but now I want to cancel them

Lol, you may want to do that and grab HFM R10

 

[headwig]

Lol, you may want to do that and grab HFM R10

There can't be many people in a position to do a listening comparison between the original MDR-R10 and these new Hifiman models. Hopefully someone will, if it's Hifiman's goal to make them comparable. It'd be interesting if they did manage to capture something of what people liked about the Sony. Would have been nice if they'd made them aesthetically closer to the Sonys though - the wood and the headband look much less pretty.

 

[Whitigir]

There can't be many people in a position to do a listening comparison between the original MDR-R10 and these new Hifiman models. Hopefully someone will, if it's Hifiman's goal to make them comparable. It'd be interesting if they did manage to capture something of what people liked about the Sony. Would have been nice if they'd made them aesthetically closer to the Sonys though - the wood and the headband look much less pretty.

Tell HFM to send their R10 to @purk . He will do the comparison for you, oh...and forget that R10...he also has Qualia Q10

 

[dleblanc343]

I sold the R10 months ago and planned to order Susvara, but now I want to cancel them

Fang, I hope you see this.

I used to work for a dealer in Montreal, we started selling HiFiMAN back in the HE-5/ EF-5 days, I was young and got into headphones dramatically after being exposed to the goodness of HiFiMAN. Richard Kohlruss was the distributor of this obscure Chinese niche brand, and exposed me to this new brand. To me, it was the start of a revolution in headphone audio.

I loved the aesthetics of their original line up, it was very rudimentary, like a garage made product, but god did it sound good. I eventually got the HE6, and at the time praised it here on Head-Fi as being the best planar headphones available, and got roasted by people enamored by the new LCD3’s, which I owned as well and came away shooked by how much HE6 scaled higher.

Fast forward all these years, I now have every generation HiFiMAN flagship headphone, I’m a huge fan.

But you know what? Every new generation, their products lose their charm. Working in retail, I tried reaching out to Fang through my provider, I was graduating from business school and literally wanted to work for HiFiMAN, help them adapt to the North American market, and drive their sales up. I’ve personally sold for multiple thousands in HiFiMAN product, just because of my enthusiasm, but steadily over the years, I saw the clients‘ enthusiasm dwindle down.

And despite absolutely loving my Susvara, and recommending it as an endgame, it’s gotten a bit ridiculous. I’ve had mine exchanged twice, the craftsmanship is premium for HiFiMAN standards, but it’s not like a Final D8000 Pro, or Focal Utopia.

I’ve experienced 5 different pairs of HE6, 2 of which 4 screws, I’ve written personal notes on how they vary, I’ve had all three version of HE1000 and have also done an extensive write up which I consider publishing.

But honestly, Fang, these R10’s are crap.They look crap. I hope this message hurts your pride, you know how business is and you know that your image of prestige as a leader is very fragile. You’re my favorite Hi-Fi Chinese brand because you’ve made stellar products - but you’ll never scare Sennheiser or Sony, sorry. Take a look at FiiO if you want to grow your brand image. It shows no originality on your part, just audacity and greed to recycle another brand’s iconic product. I dare say greed, because the headband you use is utterly embarrassing.

Fang, from the bottom of my heart, you need to man up and create something on your own, like the good old days. This is not you, this is literally comedy.

If you made a closed back Susvara variant, people would have your attention, and hype. But this R10? You’re only going to sell to boomers in Hong Kong, when really you have so much more potential.

Daniel

 

[elNan]

Haters gonna hate, Hifiman is releasing 2 new models...

Actually, there are 5 different new models in Hifiman's pipeline

 

[Hifiearspeakers]

Fang, I hope you see this.

I used to work for a dealer in Montreal, we started selling HiFiMAN back in the HE-5/ EF-5 days, I was young and got into headphones dramatically after being exposed to the goodness of HiFiMAN. Richard Kohlruss was the distributor of this obscure Chinese niche brand, and exposed me to this new brand. To me, it was the start of a revolution in headphone audio.

I loved the aesthetics of their original line up, it was very rudimentary, like a garage made product, but god did it sound good. I eventually got the HE6, and at the time praised it here on Head-Fi as being the best planar headphones available, and got roasted by people enamored by the new LCD3’s, which I owned as well and came away shooked by how much HE6 scaled higher.

Fast forward all these years, I now have every generation HiFiMAN flagship headphone, I’m a huge fan.

But you know what? Every new generation, their products lose their charm. Working in retail, I tried reaching out to Fang through my provider, I was graduating from business school and literally wanted to work for HiFiMAN, help them adapt to the North American market, and drive their sales up. I’ve personally sold for multiple thousands in HiFiMAN product, just because of my enthusiasm, but steadily over the years, I saw the clients‘ enthusiasm dwindle down.

And despite absolutely loving my Susvara, and recommending it as an endgame, it’s gotten a bit ridiculous. I’ve had mine exchanged twice, the craftsmanship is premium for HiFiMAN standards, but it’s not like a Final D8000 Pro, or Focal Utopia.

I’ve experienced 5 different pairs of HE6, 2 of which 4 screws, I’ve written personal notes on how they vary, I’ve had all three version of HE1000 and have also done an extensive write up which I consider publishing.

But honestly, Fang, these R10’s are crap.They look crap. I hope this message hurts your pride, you know how business is and you know that your image of prestige as a leader is very fragile. You’re my favorite Hi-Fi Chinese brand because you’ve made stellar products - but you’ll never scare Sennheiser or Sony, sorry. Take a look at FiiO if you want to grow your brand image. It shows no originality on your part, just audacity and greed to recycle another brand’s iconic product. I dare say greed, because the headband you use is utterly embarrassing.

Fang, from the bottom of my heart, you need to man up and create something on your own, like the good old days. This is not you, this is literally comedy.

If you made a closed back Susvara variant, people would have your attention, and hype. But this R10? You’re only going to sell to boomers in Hong Kong, when really you have so much more potential.

Daniel

Damn. That was honest and deep. Well done sir.

 

[Guidostrunk]

The HE800 does look pretty sick. Lol.

 

[trellus]

Thanks for that excellent post, @dleblanc343 -- I came away from it actually wanting the Susvara, something I hadn't considered before -- alas, it is definitely not in my price range, lol... but if it was, then the HE-R10 planar variant would be, too, but honestly, from what I've seen so far, it sure doesn't look anywhere near as iconic as the Susvara, and that's unfortunate -- it does seem like an opportunity missed to make a closed back HiFiMAN that was clearly its own thing.

 

[Edric Li]

Fang, I hope you see this.

I used to work for a dealer in Montreal, we started selling HiFiMAN back in the HE-5/ EF-5 days, I was young and got into headphones dramatically after being exposed to the goodness of HiFiMAN. Richard Kohlruss was the distributor of this obscure Chinese niche brand, and exposed me to this new brand. To me, it was the start of a revolution in headphone audio.

I loved the aesthetics of their original line up, it was very rudimentary, like a garage made product, but god did it sound good. I eventually got the HE6, and at the time praised it here on Head-Fi as being the best planar headphones available, and got roasted by people enamored by the new LCD3’s, which I owned as well and came away shooked by how much HE6 scaled higher.

Fast forward all these years, I now have every generation HiFiMAN flagship headphone, I’m a huge fan.

But you know what? Every new generation, their products lose their charm. Working in retail, I tried reaching out to Fang through my provider, I was graduating from business school and literally wanted to work for HiFiMAN, help them adapt to the North American market, and drive their sales up. I’ve personally sold for multiple thousands in HiFiMAN product, just because of my enthusiasm, but steadily over the years, I saw the clients‘ enthusiasm dwindle down.

And despite absolutely loving my Susvara, and recommending it as an endgame, it’s gotten a bit ridiculous. I’ve had mine exchanged twice, the craftsmanship is premium for HiFiMAN standards, but it’s not like a Final D8000 Pro, or Focal Utopia.

I’ve experienced 5 different pairs of HE6, 2 of which 4 screws, I’ve written personal notes on how they vary, I’ve had all three version of HE1000 and have also done an extensive write up which I consider publishing.

But honestly, Fang, these R10’s are crap.They look crap. I hope this message hurts your pride, you know how business is and you know that your image of prestige as a leader is very fragile. You’re my favorite Hi-Fi Chinese brand because you’ve made stellar products - but you’ll never scare Sennheiser or Sony, sorry. Take a look at FiiO if you want to grow your brand image. It shows no originality on your part, just audacity and greed to recycle another brand’s iconic product. I dare say greed, because the headband you use is utterly embarrassing.

Fang, from the bottom of my heart, you need to man up and create something on your own, like the good old days. This is not you, this is literally comedy.

If you made a closed back Susvara variant, people would have your attention, and hype. But this R10? You’re only going to sell to boomers in Hong Kong, when really you have so much more potential.

Daniel

I still remember the afternoon when Susvara got me so darn close to hand to my dealer 6 grand after only 10 minutes of listening. They are just so, so much better than every other TOTL out there (to my ears), even hifiman's own Shangri-La! Then I remembered my friend's HE1000v2 had a broken headband after a few month of use, so I decided to save myself 6 grand.

 

[WadaHiFi]

I still remember the afternoon when Susvara got me so darn close to hand to my dealer 6 grand after only 10 minutes of listening. They are just so, so much better than every other TOTL out there (to my ears), even hifiman's own Shangri-La! Then I remembered my friend's HE1000v2 had a broken headband after a few month of use, so I decided to save myself 6 grand.

lol remind me of the arya and the ananda I had both have broken headband under 2 weeks of use

 

[paradoxper]

Actually, there are 5 different new models in Hifiman's pipeline

Guess Fang can't dive the depths of the Abyss.

 

[freeza2001]

Over 200 posts.
Less than 3 days from announcement.
Is it safe to say this is the most controversial headphone release of all time?
Good or bad Hifiman successfully made people aware.
Maybe in the end, as long it sounds good, people will buy into it.
Such a shame they went this route to achieve it.

 

[Mink]

Over 200 posts.
Less than 3 days from announcement.
Is it safe to say this is the most controversial headphone release of all time?
Good or bad Hifiman successfully made people aware.
Maybe in the end, as long it sounds good, people will buy into it.
Such a shame they went this route to achieve it.

Without modding, closing this thread a couple of times and deleting many posts I think there would be over 400 posts
It could be the heat of the summer combined with the constant invisible threat of the Corona virus what is making people overly sensitive and cranky. (The first angry reply at my innocent assumption maybe is going to prove this )

 

[AnakChan]

Over 200 posts.
Less than 3 days from announcement.
Is it safe to say this is the most controversial headphone release of all time?
Good or bad Hifiman successfully made people aware.
Maybe in the end, as long it sounds good, people will buy into it.
Such a shame they went this route to achieve it.

[Mod hat off - as HF observer for the past 9 years]
It’s like this for almost (**) any new expensive headphone, especially when there’s no user hands-on experience. It may take another 80 pages of speculation, personal opinions, thread-crapping before some hands-on opinions start to trickle in. This one particularly so due to it’s similarity (yes I’m -similarity- rather than -copy-) to the Sony MDR-R10.

This is the internet and everyone wants to have their say on something. Nothing wrong with that as this is a forum afterall, as long as folks stay “civil”. The reality is that the more conversation that goes on about this product (regardless of positive or negative), the more attention it gets.

Now for the (**) qualifier: some brands are more controversial than others. As a contrast, Ultrasone may make some really expensive headphones too but there’s less traffic posts.
[/Mod hat off]

[User hat on]
I really like the MDR-R10, admittedly more for its rarity but sound-wise, I enjoyed it when I had a chance to listen to a friend’s. Recently an MDR-R10 just went for approx USD$5500 used on Yahoo Auction.

I think the Hifiman’s HE-R10 is very cheeky move, however It doesn’t generate enough animosity in me to deter me from giving it a listen.