Had another listen to the Susvara at yesterday's DC area meet. This Susvara had the Dekoni Velour earpads, so not the stock tonality, but it seemed close enough to what I remember it being. Used the Schiit Yggdrasil and Mjolnir 3; I don't recall if feedback was enabled or not on the MJ3 - since I'm not a Schiit owner myself, I don't remember what each of their little icons means.
I enjoyed that demo, though this was only a few minutes. I didn't encounter that odd sort of transient sibilance or leading edge glare that I noted in my previous impressions (that was using stock pads on the Hugo TT2 + HeadAmp CFA3). Based on the graphs of the Dekoni velours, those pads slightly soften the lower treble, so that might be what's happening. But I also didn't use the exact same songs, and it was a louder environment, and it was a different chain. But what matters is that I liked the Susvara's sound.
I was also able to do a direct comparison vs the DCA Expanse on that same Schiit chain. The Susvara won that matchup handily. The Expanse had this upper midrange emphasis that I find a bit annoying and less natural while the Susvara has the more relaxed midrange tonality while not sounding recessed in that area. The Susvara had a more pleasing and natural (to me) sounding decay of percussive notes with drum hits having a noticeable air to their decay while the Expanse cuts off the decay a bit too early. The Susvara, importantly, had the more convincing spatial rendition of notes. Each note "blooms" a bit at its location in the soundstage, so it starts at a point, then fills out a volume around that point as the note decays. I use the analogy of a frosted LED light bulb illuminating a dark room. There's the actual lit surface of the light bulb, but there's also that halo of light around the bulb. That's how each note "appears" in the soundscape. The Expanse also has that volume, but no bloom, so it's like the light bulb is 3x the size, but it doesn't light up the rest of the room - there's no "halo" of sound as the note decays. To me, that lack of note "bloom" makes the Expanse sound constricted, like the notes are overlapping spatially in a forced way compared the Susvara which overlays notes in a natural way. The Susvara on the other hand sounds open in note presentation, and openness is a key attribute that I listen for in a headphone.
