[littlej0e]

I own both headphones, and I much prefer the sound quality of the Elite headphone. The Susvara has amazing abilities in terms of speed/transient response and micro-resolving power, but I get much more realistic ("real life") musical timbre/tone from the Elite. Both headphones have equally good soundstaging and dynamics. The Susvara produces a very fast leading edge to all musical notes, but there is not enough body (tonal weight) to the body of the musical tone relative to its leading edge, which makes it sound less natural to my ears.

My audio system consists of the Jays Audio CD2 Mk3 CD-transport (or Euphony Stylus music server) => Musician Aquarius DAC => Vioelectric V281 headphone amplifier.

Jeff.

Thanks, Jeff. Sounds like you are a man after my own heart. I absolutely love accurate texture and life like presentation. I used to play a ton of live acoustic music and I’ve been chasing the uber-accuracy/naturalness dragon for quite a while now. Hearing every possible nuance inside the kettle of a drum isn’t quite the same as being able to feel the real life impact and dynamics. In my opinion, hearing and feeling are two vastly different things.

See my response from a few pages back:
Susvara vs Elite

Appreciate the perspective. Guess I’ll stop asking and just listen for myself. It’s quite fascinating to me how so many people can hear things so differently. I would love gather data as to who prefers what and see if there are any correlations between age, sex, region, occupation, etc. Completely unrealistic to be sure, but quite fascinating nonetheless.

 

[Axel]

Appreciate the perspective. Guess I’ll stop asking and just listen for myself. It’s quite fascinating to me how so many people can hear things so differently. I would love gather data as to who prefers what and see if there are any correlations between age, sex, region, occupation, etc. Completely unrealistic to be sure, but quite fascinating nonetheless.

I think the main issue with the Susvara, is that most listen to it with insufficient amplification.
The Elite has that texture and tone, but to me it sounds more-of-the-same on every genre due to its color.
The Susvara can have much more than that, it just needs the right amplification.

 

[QuantumKat]

I 10000% agree with this take. I thought the Susvara was pretty meh when I was using it with my WA33, but when I switched to the Coda no. 8... Game-changer. Now I tend to use my Susvara over everything else.

 

[littlej0e]

I’ve heard similar feedback from others regarding amplification. I’ll be running it with a CFA, so that should do the trick!

 

[Ciggavelli]

I personally like high resolution and transparency. I had the Elites and sold them. They sounded veiled to me. I guess I'm a resolution-head, along with being a basshead

 

[Slim1970]

I personally like high resolution and transparency. I had the Elites and sold them. They sounded veiled to me. I guess I'm a resolution-head, along with being a basshead

So do I. We have a lot of similar gear it seems. With that said, I do appreciate the Elites. They offer me a sound that I don’t have. The Elites are a nice change of pace headphone when I want to listen to something different.

 

[jlbrach]

As much as we all would like to see that, first folks at HifiMan would have to make a product that performs noticeably better. I imagine that this is not an easy thing to do considering Susvara's membrane as is. Personally I wouldn't mind carbon fiber bits and black paint

a couple of years ago I bumped into fang at canjam and asked him the new susvara question....his answer to me was I would but to be honest I dont know how to make it better

 

[jlbrach]

I personally like high resolution and transparency. I had the Elites and sold them. They sounded veiled to me. I guess I'm a resolution-head, along with being a basshead

I am with you 100% I had the empyrean and heard the elite...the new model is better but not in the same league as the susvara in terms of detail and transparency...apparently some people dont care

 

[sahmen]

I own both headphones, and I much prefer the sound quality of the Elite headphone. The Susvara has amazing abilities in terms of speed/transient response and micro-resolving power, but I get much more realistic ("real life") musical timbre/tone from the Elite. Both headphones have equally good soundstaging and dynamics. The Susvara produces a very fast leading edge to all musical notes, but there is not enough body (tonal weight) to the body of the musical tone relative to its leading edge, which makes it sound less natural to my ears.

My audio system consists of the Jays Audio CD2 Mk3 CD-transport (or Euphony Stylus music server) => Musician Aquarius DAC => Vioelectric V281 headphone amplifier.

Jeff.

I am not familiar with the other components in your chain, but have you considered the possibility that the v281 might be bottlenecking your Susvara and preventing it from sing to its own glorious heart's content? I used to own the v281 before and I am speaking from the experience I used to have pairing it with the Susvara. Again I cannot say what impact the rest of your chain might be having on the music, so what I say must be taken with that in mind, but personally, I used to prefer a modded Flux lab FA-10 pairing with the Susvara, as compared with the V281/Susvara pairing, although for all my other cans, the v281 was king as it is indeed a very capable amp with many headphones.

Nowadays, with both V281 and the modded FA-10 sold, I'm pairing the Sus with a couple of different amps, and it is singing a lot better than it did with the v281. I just thought I should mention that, although if you're a regular on this forum, then i am fairly certain that you may have heard something similar already.

 

[littlej0e]

I am with you 100% I had the empyrean and heard the elite...the new model is better but not in the same league as the susvara in terms of detail and transparency...apparently some people dont care

I don’t think it is necessarily that people don’t care. I certainly do. I just don’t want to sacrifice everything else in pursuit of it. I want it in balance with everything else in the presentation. I mean, what good is detail without texture, slam, etc.?

 

[thecrow]

That was the smartest post spamming I've seen here on HF

Also: how do you think i got to “headphone supremus” - got to keep post count up

either that or i keep posting about my amp’s suitability with the susvara or that i feel the susvara is the best headphone that I have

 

[Ciggavelli]

I don’t think it is necessarily that people don’t care. I certainly do. I just don’t want to sacrifice everything else in pursuit of it. I want it in balance with everything else in the presentation. I mean, what good is detail without texture, slam, etc.?

This might explain why you didn't particularly like the DAVE. I don't think the DAVE necessarily sacrifices anything, but it definitely is more interested in being revealing with a high resolution.

Have you tried any Audeze headphones? I haven't tried the LCD-5, but the LCD-4 might be something you would like.

 

[littlej0e]

This might explain why you didn't particularly like the DAVE. I don't think the DAVE necessarily sacrifices anything, but it definitely is more interested in being revealing with a high resolution.

Have you tried any Audeze headphones? I haven't tried the LCD-5, but the LCD-4 might be something you would like.

You are absolutely right. Don’t get me wrong - the Dave was great…it just wasn’t my particular flavor of awesome. I obviously loved the Soulution 560 to bits because of the ridiculous accuracy and extremely natural sound. Best DAC I’ve heard anywhere close to it’s price range with the MSB Select being my favorite anywhere above that (FYI, I ultimately sold the 560 after getting offered close to triple what I had into it. Killed me to sell it, but I just couldn’t say no at that price). More to come on the Tambaqui front later…

I have indeed tried a number of Audeze HPs. I was most fond of the LCD-4 (you called it), but it ultimately sounded too artificial to my ear. As for the LCD-5, I wasn’t particularly fond of it despite it’s stellar performance. From what I understand, I should have tried it with EQ before judging.

Detail and resolution also matter a great deal…like a whole lot, but not more than the music itself. I find that if the presentation is too focused on details it tends to kill balance, texture, and musicality. I would personally trade hyper detail (not detail) for accuracy, texture, dynamics and tone any day of the week. I realize I’m probably a minority here, but I want music that sounds like real music and not “Hi-fi.” I want music so beautifully liquid and well textured you can pour it into a glass.

My last great hopes for this are the Susvara and the Meze Elites and it’s beginning to look like the Sus are the best bet to solve my problem/preference. @Axel said something that really resonated:

“The Elite has that texture and tone, but to me it sounds more-of-the-same on every genre due to its color.
The Susvara can have much more than that, it just needs the right amplification.”

Sounds like the Elite is another artificially colored lens like the LCD-4 whereas the Sus is a bit of a chameleon with excellent fundamental characteristics on which to fine tune a system. On the surface, both seem to align fairly closely with my use case. But if everyone is right about amplification taking the Sus to stratospheric levels (which I suspect they are), then they seem like the best fit and safe bet to earn a place in my system.

 

[Ciggavelli]

You are absolutely right. Don’t get me wrong - the Dave was great…it just wasn’t my particular flavor of awesome. I obviously loved the Soulution 560 to bits because of the ridiculous accuracy and extremely natural sound. Best DAC I’ve heard anywhere close to it’s price range with the MSB Select being my favorite anywhere above that (FYI, I ultimately sold the 560 after getting offered close to triple what I had into it. Killed me to sell it, but I just couldn’t say no at that price). More to come on the Tambaqui front later…

I have indeed tried a number of Audeze HPs. I was most fond of the LCD-4 (you called it), but it ultimately sounded too artificial to my ear. As for the LCD-5, I wasn’t particularly fond of it despite it’s stellar performance. From what I understand, I should have tried it with EQ before judging.

Detail and resolution also matter a great deal…like a whole lot, but not more than the music itself. I find that if the presentation is too focused on details it tends to kill balance, texture, and musicality. I would personally trade hyper detail (not detail) for accuracy, texture, dynamics and tone any day of the week. I realize I’m probably a minority here, but I want music that sounds like real music and not “Hi-fi.” I want music so beautifully liquid and well textured you can pour it into a glass.

My last great hopes for this are the Susvara and the Meze Elites and it’s beginning to look like the Sus are the best bet to solve my problem/preference. @Axel said something that really resonated:

“The Elite has that texture and tone, but to me it sounds more-of-the-same on every genre due to its color.
The Susvara can have much more than that, it just needs the right amplification.”

Sounds like the Elite is another artificially colored lens like the LCD-4 whereas the Sus is a bit of a chameleon with excellent fundamental characteristics on which to fine tune a system. On the surface, both seem to align fairly closely with my use case. But if everyone is right about amplification taking the Sus to stratospheric levels (which I suspect they are), then it seems like the best fit and safe bet to earn a place in my system.

Are you rocking a MMT now that you sold the Soulution 560? I’m excited to hear your updates on the custom MMT power supply

 

[littlej0e]

Are you rocking a MMT now that you sold the Soulution 560? I’m excited to hear your updates on the custom MMT power supply

I still have the loaner, but the Russia/Ukraine fiasco delayed the new one a while. I also have a friend sending me some super old DAC. Swears up and down I’ll like it better than the MMT. I’m less than convinced :-/