[tunes]

Get that man some CIEMS. Because there's no hope for him with over-ear headphones. Being Dumbo-eared is quite annoying because I don't like IEMs, yet my ears get in the way of headphones. At least Hifiman headphones have that thin layer of fabric on the inside of the earpad that lightly cushions the ear. I didn't find the Meze Elite that comfortable when I demoed it because my ears were pressed against the bare metal of the driver grille.

It wasn't this annoying when I first got the SGL Jr. In fact, I don't think it happened at all when I first had it. I noticed that the right earpad exhibited more foam wear than the left one, and the wearing of the earpad decreases its thickness and results in more contact between my ear and the driver. I'm still within the 1-year earpad warranty period, so I could try to see if Hifiman will send me replacement earpads. Though if it's a case of earpads wearing thin, I'd be back to taping my ears in another 6 months.

I wonder how the SGL Jr compares to the Susvara when properly amped?

 

[vsg28]

I wonder how the SGL Jr compares to the Susvara when properly amped?

Tuning is very similar but the Susvara off the EF1000 (or even something that costs way less) is more resolving and engaging whereas the Shangri-La Jr off the Jr amp/BHSE is more open and relaxed. It's a different presentation altogether tbh. For my money I'd go Susvara.

 

[JLoud]

Depends on what you prefer. I have the jr/BHSE combo and preferred it to the Susvara/WA33. If you like the presentation of electrostatic the jr is great. The Susvara was a little more pronounced in the treble region. I thought they were more similar than different.

 

[hardpike]

Depends on what you prefer. I have the jr/BHSE combo and preferred it to the Susvara/WA33. If you like the presentation of electrostatic the jr is great. The Susvara was a little more pronounced in the treble region. I thought they were more similar than different.

I am with you

 

[SolarCetacean]

I really want to try a Susvara one day. When I went to an audio store a month ago, they had just sold their open-box Susvara and they were on backorder so I couldn't demo them. I am under the impression that the SGL Jr plays second string to the Susvara, because when I was on the lookout for a used SGL Jr, a potential seller described them as a "brighter, more intimate Susvara". Yet here I read that the Jr is more open and relaxed, with a very different presentation. Different ears, different sound, I guess.

I went with the Jr because I wasn't interested in getting speaker amps or arcane headphone amps to drive the Susvara, or worrying if I was giving them enough juice or getting the most out of them. Also, the Jr is comparatively rare. You'll find hundreds of Susvara reviews from both publications and users. SGL Jr reviews are rare now and were even rarer when I bought them just earlier this year, so it's more of a gamble, and more of an adventure to try them. The call of the wild, I suppose.

 

[TeamHiFiMAN]

Get that man some CIEMS. Because there's no hope for him with over-ear headphones. Being Dumbo-eared is quite annoying because I don't like IEMs, yet my ears get in the way of headphones. At least Hifiman headphones have that thin layer of fabric on the inside of the earpad that lightly cushions the ear. I didn't find the Meze Elite that comfortable when I demoed it because my ears were pressed against the bare metal of the driver grille.

It wasn't this annoying when I first got the SGL Jr. In fact, I don't think it happened at all when I first had it. I noticed that the right earpad exhibited more foam wear than the left one, and the wearing of the earpad decreases its thickness and results in more contact between my ear and the driver. I'm still within the 1-year earpad warranty period, so I could try to see if Hifiman will send me replacement earpads. Though if it's a case of earpads wearing thin, I'd be back to taping my ears in another 6 months.

Hi there, can you please email us at customerservice@hifiman.com so that we can look into what’s happened and see how we can help?

 

[ufospls2]

Hey Guys, I've posted my review over at the product page I made here, and also over on my blog if you would like an easier to read version

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/hifiman-shangri-la-jr.26125/reviews

https://headphonesnstuff.blog/2022/10/21/hifiman-shangri-la-jr-system-full-review/

 

[SolarCetacean]

My Shangri-La Jr with new earpads from Hifiman. Much less annoying now that my ears aren't always pressed against the driver causing crinkling/ticking sounds.

You can see in the background that I'm running it off of the SRM-D10. I have a better amp, one of Spritzer's CCS-modded 006tAs, but that amp's left channel died during a meet about 2 months ago, and I haven't been able to fix it yet. That will be something to work on during the holiday break - taking out the amp's components to test them one by one to see which part(s) went bad.

In the meantime, the D10 has held up surprisingly well, even if it lacks a bit of bass punch and treble clarity as a result. At the meet, the CRBN was there with a Mjolnir Carbon CC amp, and I was eager to try the SGL Jr on the more powerful Carbon, but it was dead on arrival, and the organizers couldn't fix it, so I brought my 006tA to the meet as they didn't have another electrostatic amp. So I don't know how well the Jr scales up with amps, but it doesn't seem to lose much from going down to a low-powered amp.

 

[Pankiwi]

Question to the all Shang Jr. combo users. Can any of you describe some differences between Shang and Holo Bliss with Susvara? Spring KTE or May KTE DAC in chain.
Thanks

 

[ECKHUAAA]

Any takers:



Source: https://www.facebook.com/headfonics/

I got mine after a long wait, it had to come from China, I had to get creative to fund it.
But yes this is the best most neutral balanced truly extended headphone system I have ever heard. The rated response is a huge 7hz - 120khz it may explain why the Sound is so balanced and natural, I will write a review soon.

 

[SolarCetacean]

In my last comment I mentioned how I thought there was a loss in bass and treble clarity when I had to use my D10 to power the SGL Jr. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fix my 006tA, so I bought another CCS-modded SRM-006tS from spritzer at Mjolnir Audio. And when I listened to the Jr on it, I again though it had better bass impact and clearer treble. On the D10, I identified a small dip at around 14 KHz via sine sweeps that I also found was related to that "lispiness" in vocals that I described in earlier comment. In fact, I thought that the lispiness was more strongly related to that 14K dip rather than the 5.5K notch; correcting the 14K notch reduced the lispiness without the downsides of EQing the 5.5K region. But on the 006t, that 14K dip is gone to my ear. Treble is clearer and brighter.

I took the opportunity to do some simple measurements of my Jr with the two amps. I have a miniDSP EARS, which isn't an industry standard rig, but can be used for simple comparisons. In my test, I seated the Jr on the EARS, and only moved the cable between the two amps (which were placed next to each other on the table). Thus none of the differences could be due to seating variation. I then volume-matched before running the measurements. Here's the measurement:

It matches pretty well with what I'm hearing; there's up to 3 dB more bass at the lowest levels, and there's a small increase in energy around 14 KHz. Not seen in this measurement, but the absolute levels of harmonic distortion were roughly the same between them, so that 3 dB increase at 20 Hz is also a decrease in relative distortion levels between fundamental and harmonic.

The change in the treble was larger to my ears than it looks on the graph, yet another example of why graphs don't tell me everything. And I'm not sure if the improvement in bass impact is fully explained by the measured difference in the sub-bass. But this is about as objective evidence as you can get that amps make a difference in electrostatic headphones. I'm now more interested in how the SGL Jr scales up with amps, because it looks like there's a significant knee in the FR at 60 Hz where the amp starts to make a bigger difference in the output. From what I've read about estats, the bass is where the resistive elements of the driver become the dominant portion of the load, the impedance drops dramatically, and the resulting current requirements of the headphone shoot up. I wonder if an amp with even more current output would boost the bass even further.

 

[ECKHUAAA]

In my last comment I mentioned how I thought there was a loss in bass and treble clarity when I had to use my D10 to power the SGL Jr. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fix my 006tA, so I bought another CCS-modded SRM-006tS from spritzer at Mjolnir Audio. And when I listened to the Jr on it, I again though it had better bass impact and clearer treble. On the D10, I identified a small dip at around 14 KHz via sine sweeps that I also found was related to that "lispiness" in vocals that I described in earlier comment. In fact, I thought that the lispiness was more strongly related to that 14K dip rather than the 5.5K notch; correcting the 14K notch reduced the lispiness without the downsides of EQing the 5.5K region. But on the 006t, that 14K dip is gone to my ear. Treble is clearer and brighter.

I took the opportunity to do some simple measurements of my Jr with the two amps. I have a miniDSP EARS, which isn't an industry standard rig, but can be used for simple comparisons. In my test, I seated the Jr on the EARS, and only moved the cable between the two amps (which were placed next to each other on the table). Thus none of the differences could be due to seating variation. I then volume-matched before running the measurements. Here's the measurement:

It matches pretty well with what I'm hearing; there's up to 3 dB more bass at the lowest levels, and there's a small increase in energy around 14 KHz. Not seen in this measurement, but the absolute levels of harmonic distortion were roughly the same between them, so that 3 dB increase at 20 Hz is also a decrease in relative distortion levels between fundamental and harmonic.

The change in the treble was larger to my ears than it looks on the graph, yet another example of why graphs don't tell me everything. And I'm not sure if the improvement in bass impact is fully explained by the measured difference in the sub-bass. But this is about as objective evidence as you can get that amps make a difference in electrostatic headphones. I'm now more interested in how the SGL Jr scales up with amps, because it looks like there's a significant knee in the FR at 60 Hz where the amp starts to make a bigger difference in the output. From what I've read about estats, the bass is where the resistive elements of the driver become the dominant portion of the load, the impedance drops dramatically, and the resulting current requirements of the headphone shoot up. I wonder if an amp with even more current output would boost the bass even further.

My impression so far with the Shangri-la Jr driven by its dedicated amplifier is deep bass very extended highs very natural midrange and a rather even temperament across the frequency spectrum almost as if one is hearing a flat frequency response (I didn't measure or chat the graph) and extreme transparency. What you get out of it then depends on the source.

 

[SolarCetacean]

My impression so far with the Shangri-la Jr driven by its dedicated amplifier is deep bass very extended highs very natural midrange and a rather even temperament across the frequency spectrum almost as if one is hearing a flat frequency response (I didn't measure or chat the graph) and extreme transparency. What you get out of it then depends on the source.

Funnily enough, I have never listened to the SGL Jr on its bespoke amp. I've heard its amp has higher output voltage than the 007t based on a review at Headfonics a year ago, so that probably improves its bass performance compared to my 006t. I've also heard that its amp adds a richer and warmer character to the Jr's sound with more bass, which probably helps offset the lightness of the Jr's innate sound. Hopefully I can hear the Jr's amp for myself someday.

My main hangup with the Jr's amp is its price; at $5000 list price, that's very close to a KGSSHV Carbon from Mjolnir Audio, which a number of people have noted is a more powerful and controlled amp with better clarity and bass than the Jr's amp. And Mjolnir is known for overbuilding its amps, so other builders can build a Carbon for less. Most top-tier Hifiman products can be bought for a discount by negotiating with dealers, but even if I got the price down to $3500, Mjolnir's KGST is still cheaper. And there's Stax's own SRM-700T which has the nice split volume knob at roughly the same price. I don't want to dismiss the Jr's amp out of hand, as reports from you and others indicate it has good synergy with the Jr, but for its price, it would need to compare favorably against these known standards of design and performance to warrant a purchase for me.

 

[ECKHUAAA]

Funnily enough, I have never listened to the SGL Jr on its bespoke amp. I've heard its amp has higher output voltage than the 007t based on a review at Headfonics a year ago, so that probably improves its bass performance compared to my 006t. I've also heard that its amp adds a richer and warmer character to the Jr's sound with more bass, which probably helps offset the lightness of the Jr's innate sound. Hopefully I can hear the Jr's amp for myself someday.

My main hangup with the Jr's amp is its price; at $5000 list price, that's very close to a KGSSHV Carbon from Mjolnir Audio, which a number of people have noted is a more powerful and controlled amp with better clarity and bass than the Jr's amp. And Mjolnir is known for overbuilding its amps, so other builders can build a Carbon for less. Most top-tier Hifiman products can be bought for a discount by negotiating with dealers, but even if I got the price down to $3500, Mjolnir's KGST is still cheaper. And there's Stax's own SRM-700T which has the nice split volume knob at roughly the same price. I don't want to dismiss the Jr's amp out of hand, as reports from you and others indicate it has good synergy with the Jr, but for its price, it would need to compare favorably against these known standards of design and performance to warrant a purchase for me.

When bought together it's $8000 and I think presently you might get them separately for less , now and then HeadAmp (Justin) does have an open box deal.

 

[DomoXIII]

I'm curious as someone who owns and loves the susvara, how does the presentation of the shangri-la jr compare?

I heard dynamics, planars and prefer planars. I've never heard e-stats, but I've read lots of reviews and seen lots of impressions especially from stax. I'm wondering if I should pull the trigger and get the full shangri-la jr combo or just try a L700 to dip my toes in the e-stat world?