Early listening impressions for the SUSVARA
I’ve only had the SUSVARA for 2 days now so these are super first impressions. I have only given the headphones around 30 hours burn in so they still have a while to go. On the booklet it says to achieve optimum performance break in of 150hr is best. I definitely agree with this as it took at least 150hrs for my HE6's to get to optimum performance.
In fact I found a few key things to happen with my two HE6's at burn in (both purchased new)
1. The HE6's sound pretty good at the beginning. All the HE6's characteristics of there but they’re not as transparent or dynamic as a fully broken in HE6.
2. (After around 25 hrs, I found the sonics take a hit for some reason) This happened on both sets. They just sounded more closed in and dry sounding. The highs wasn’t great.
3. Things would gradually improve and improve over the next 4-5 days or so - You would get the traditional HE6 dynamics, transparency, bass and musicality.
4. At 150 hr or more your HE6’s are ready to give major listening - it will still improve over time - just get enjoying them.
I have to say the SUSVARA at the beginning sounded real good - but I could clearly hear it needed the burn in. Its doesn’t surprise me as I’m fully aware HIFIMAN planers need the burn in.
Any how - what was my feeling after giving them a listen? I gave them a test with some binaural recordings.
One example is a Chesky recorded album: Dazzling Blue by Alexis Cole - the track I’ll talk about is Track 2: Jonah
I was really impress when listening to this track! I was wowed at moments the spacing and imaging was truly great! I was able to close my eyes and feel the surroundings of the recording space, imaging was the thing which shocked me mostly.
An example is at the beginning of the track theres a type of jingling sound which I feel moves behind you from left to right, not sure what the instrument is but it sounded so life like! Maybe its just chains rattling
Alexis’s voice sounded really natural - all the subtle details in her voice was there but not in your face. I got a holographic type imaging feeling when listening to the recording. The stand out moment for me was listening the the rattle percussion instrument. I could follow all the movements from each shake - I could hear all the movements in the hand of the shaker
In fact its like I could not only follow the shaking positioning but also feel the rattling hit my ears. Thats a great unique trait I get from the HIFIMAN HE6's which the SUSVARA also has - you can feel the music.
The highs on the SUSVARA is really nice and I know there is still lots of improvements to come. I think HIFIMAN were going for a similar type of voicing to what Sennheiser HE1 has (great highs - never harsh - with great imaging and clarity with a slight touch of warmth to the tone).
How does it sound next to my modded HE6’s? Ok it definitely can capture greater detail, just as hard to drive. I feel like its a successor to the HE6's but It has to be burnt in more. It has the HE6's characteristic in terms of visceral attack but has the fastness of an electrostatic headphone. Its currently kind of in the middle - visceral attack and bass isn’t currently as pure as my HE6's I fully think the 150hrs burn in will fix this. I’m looking forward to seeing!
By the way these headphones need lot’s of power!!! They scale excellently when driven by powerful clean high end amps. e.g I’ve tried them with high end low wattage speaker amps. (I did test some normal head amps first and much like the HE6’s they need good power to sound great) The first worthy amp I tried is the amp in the photos below, I call it the mini beast - its a Amp I built just for my HE6's based of a First Watt F7. Its fully dual mono design so it basically has double the power supply of the commercial F7.
The commercial F7 is a 20W of pure class A into (8 ohm) Fantastic pairing!! So fantastic I wanted to know if the headphones could sound better with my more powerful higher end amp nicknamed The Beast. This is a Pass Labs XA30.8 rated at 30W of pure class A per/ch (8 ohm) Fully balanced from start to finish. I was blown away!! This is the amp I used with the song impressions above. The realism was astonishing. I’m excited to see how good these headphones can become.
Thats it for now folks - I’ll give an update a little later - hope you like the pics below