[Whitigir]

As I wrote it elsewhere, I had the opportunity to have a pretty good listening session to a Shangri-La system in a french headphones event.
Luckily, this event was quiet, and there was also a Sennheiser booth with HE1 as well as an official Stax booth, which lacked only 009 and T8000.
For the record, I brought my Lambda Sig to compare to the current Lambda line...and to compare to other stats as well.

Long story short :
- HE1 were very good, even if not mind-blowing to the BHSE+009 owner. Natural details, darker and more relaxed, wider but less deep soundstage, bass not as impactful but very symphonic / atmospheric, slower all around but maybe more "right" in that extent. I still prefer @n3rdling HE90's clones for this kind of presentation but I have to compare side to side
- Shangri-La were very deceiving : bathtub frequency response, bloated and too present bass, nothing interesting in the mids, very cymbaling / dzinging highs, maybe the worst highs I've ever encountered on estat (at least not screechy), poor impact, so-so soundstage
- obviously my Lambda Signature as well as L700 and 007mk2, all of them plugged on Stax's best current workhorse (353X) were way better to my ears than Shangri-La. Not fond of L300/L500 sound, there's still some harshness of the previous x0x Lambda line
- Shangri La amp is dedicated to their phones. Lambda plugged on it = a big "nope"
- Susvara did please me, reminded me some of the tactile feeling of HE6. So better thant Shangri-La to my ears
- HE1000 V2 from a very strong amp (Viva Egoista 845) did also please me, in another style, more easy-going / relaxed. Better than Shangri La to my ears.

So i highly doubt Shangri La Jr. would compete with BHSE+009 to my ears, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt

Ali

Excellently said, and thanks for the impressions across these guys

 

[VandyMan]

Pretty much matches my impressions although I like the HE-1 more than you I think.

 

[astrostar59]

I am thinking it a bit rich Hifi-Man asking 8K for the new HP. At Can-Jam London, the Shangri-La was very underwhelming, so cold and treble hiked. It felt like a dev unit, not fully finished as regards the sound signature. I don't get it, how was this acceptable as a finished product and at this price. The BHSE and 009 killed it IMO. The HE-1 maybe better than the BHSE but couldn't say for sure as the demo music collection was small and mostly CDRs without covers!

I was more impressed with how good the LCD and Utopia was out of the GSX and Feliks amps. And that would retail at 8K and 6K USD not 50K. This HiFi-Man insane money hiking is bugging me. Yeah, if it sounds right for the money, not hearing it, not on the stats anyway .......

 

[336881]

""They have a huge frequency response of between 5Hz and 50kHz, and an impedance of 32 Ohms. Impressive stuff."


Ughh how I hate the headphone and speaker world these days. Only bullcrap marketing and money ruling everything. What ever happened? If I hear "for the first time" and "what the artist originally intended" one more time I'm going to burn something down

Vintage audio fan myself. Going to stop at my Sony APM-4 speakers with Sony ss-tw100ed. The APM-4s were made around the time I was born and just trounce all the new $4k headphones I have listened to.

Maybe not the best comparison speakers Vs. headphones but still I am very proud of myself for not falling into the Abyss, Utopia, sr-009, Lcd-4 trap. My speakers with the super tweeters and Technics SE-A100 power amp was less than $8k.

 

[JimL11]

Vintage audio fan myself. Going to stop at my Sony APM-4 speakers with Sony ss-tw100ed. The APM-4s were made around the time I was born and just trounce all the new $4k headphones I have listened to.

Maybe not the best comparison speakers Vs. headphones but still I am very proud of myself for not falling into the Abyss, Utopia, sr-009, Lcd-4 trap. My speakers with the super tweeters and Technics SE-A100 power amp was less than $8k.

I can "beat" that. My long-time speakers are the original Quad electrostatics, first released in 1955, driven by Rogue Stereo Atlas Magnum. Even with a recent complete refurbishing, total much less than $8k.

 

[336881]

I can "beat" that. My long-time speakers are the original Quad electrostatics, first released in 1955, driven by Rogue Stereo Atlas Magnum. Even with a recent complete refurbishing, total much less than $8k.

Did you get yours recently though? Mine are all really recent...well 3 months or so. I guess the refurb. That is a sick setup.

 

[JimL11]

Did you get yours recently though? Mine are all really recent...well 3 months or so. I guess the refurb. That is a sick setup.

I got the Quad ESLs around 1985, had them refurbished earlier this year. I've had the Rogue amp since around 2007.

 

[erik701]

I'm wondering if Sennheiser will go same way and release baby/junior version of their HE 1 (Orpheus 2). I think that pricing of Shangri-La Jr. is very good. If we will get let's say just 80% sound quality of $50k Shangri-La that would be awesome. I also think that HiFiMan just killed sales of SUSVARA by this announcement. Shangri-La JR. will perfectly fill the gap between very good sounding HE1000 and electrostatic flagship Shangri-La.

 

[mulveling]

This doesn't hurt Susvara. That headphone has at least been receiving very positive reviews/buzz, and it has successful predecessors in the HE1000, etc. But any new entrant into the extreme niche of electrostatic headphones has a lot to prove, and Shangri-la Sr. has had very mixed reviews to go with its absurd $50K price tag -- compare to the HE-1, which at least has a much more prestigious brand name behind it, a legendary predecessor in the he90/hev90, and consistently scores highly positive reviews/impressions. The Sr. is not doing the Jr. any favors, and so the Jr. has a very uphill battle towards a positive perception compared to the Susvara.

By contrast, if Sennheiser did release a Baby Orpheus v2, a lot of us Staxmen would be VERY interested in it.

 

[paradoxper]

Nope.

Yup.

 

[erik701]

Looks like HiFiMan is returning to it's original path, to produce headphones with extraordinary value/performance ratio and that's good. They should always keep holding this path. I was surprised when they finally announced Shangri-La headphones and put price tag of $50k on it, just because Sennheiser did it. I remember some video where Fang was talking about price tag of new car and exactly $30k was mentioned.

I think that they learned a lot from last months and that's good for them as well as for us.

Thumbs up

 

[protoss]

I am not sure if your are being sarcastic or not? Sorry to say Susvara sounds like a $3000 headphone or lower. And the senior Shangri-la is a mess. Now we have a $8000.00 headphone that will sound like a $4000.00 headphone or lower.

Why can't Hifiman make high-end ground breaking $1000 to $3000.00 headphones. I mean constantly just having $1200 , $1400, $1600, $1800,$ 2200, $2600 pairs of headphones!! Now that will be ground breaking!!! .

Stop with these Fat-cat overpriced mediocre headphones.

Cheers.

P.s the real revolution headphone should be a affordable middle class price ! Not these nonsense overpriced mediocre sound quality price.

 

[Christer]

Looks like HiFiMan is returning to it's original path, to produce headphones with extraordinary value/performance ratio and that's good. They should always keep holding this path. I was surprised when they finally announced Shangri-La headphones and put price tag of $50k on it, just because Sennheiser did it. I remember some video where Fang was talking about price tag of new car and exactly $30k was mentioned.

I think that they learned a lot from last months and that's good for them as well as for us.

Thumbs up

?????

 

[astrostar59]

I am not sure if your are being sarcastic or not? Sorry to say Susvara sounds like a $3000 headphone or lower. And the senior Shangri-la is a mess. Now we have a $8000.00 headphone that will sound like a $4000.00 headphone or lower.

Stop with these Fat-cat overpriced mediocre headphones.

True. I guess they have done their research and decided it is best to go BIG on mark-up and LOW on volume? The HE-1 is in that bracket, but from what I heard it is indeed a top contender. And you don't expect an Orpheus MK3 in 2 months so should be a good investment. Good luck selling a Shangri-La used in 3 years.....

 

[ToroFiestaSol]

Not a new strategy, just release something at a stratospheric price (50k), let the critics talk, etc
After that release something trickled down (8k) and create a false sense of value because something (overpriced at 50k) exists.

I don't like, I don't buy, this kind of business practices is not something a respectful, honorable company would do. An expensive product has to be justified with build quality and performance to match the price, I don't perceive that here.

EDIT:
Btw, I'm the first who drools over and wants expensive, state of the art products, but I want to get what I paid for, I don't like being ripped off (as any normal person I think).