[thefitz]

Got some more ZMF pads. The Universe Perforated Hybrid pads were a little too lean on the bass, hard on the mids, and crisp in the treble compared to the Auteur Solid Hybrid pads, so they will go.

The pads I was most excited about, Caldera Thick Lamb, ended up being one Thick Lamb pad and one Ultra Perf pad! Both sounded promising on one ear. I am going to see if I can order "the other half"!

 

[jlbrach]

The prevailing voiced opinion is as such because we owners are trying to curb people’s expectations. Most of us owners tout the Sus as one of the absolute best headphones on the planet, but newcomers come in with that, expecting something very specific and often are let down. I’ve heard many people quickly express, “What’s the big deal?” or “Is that it?” or “Susvara isn’t worth the asking price…”

Often times though, it’s someone who is dipping their toe in for the first time as an Sus owner and/or don’t necessarily have a great chain to PROPERLY drive the Susvara.

truth is most of the great things about the susvara are nuanced and do not jump out at you....it requires proper amping etc but most important the greatness of the susvara reveals itself slowly over the course of listening..discovering things you never heard before...hearing the pinpoint placement of instruments...it is a headphone that reveals itself over long periods of listening not a brief listen

 

[BillinSF]

Here comes a very long post, but I sure would appreciate any thoughts.

My scattered history of audio ending with an existential question.

At age 67, I’ve seen and heard a lot.

Pre-transistors, but studios produce records kids could buy as 45’s.
Pop buying a console stereo for the living room. Kids had a phonograph in their bedroom.
Audiophiles stepping up to components.

Then transistors took over in early 70’s, which enabled good quality recordings at a lower cost. (As an aside, the reason tubes kept progressing in the USSR was that they kept preparing for nuclear war and tubes don’t shut down from EMP from nuclear bomb – USSR kept using tubes in military communications systems until the Berlin Wall fell – so you get tube amps out of Poland, etc.)

On to the business side.

Dick Clark with American Bandstand realized that the kids don’t want to hear the song..they want to hear the record! So bands lip sync and fake playing on TV. (I’ll get back to this.)

Music from the 70’s and on is recorded very well. Classical and Jazz to play on FM and component stereos.

Did you know that the Beatles flew to Chicago and Detroit to record some of their music because they were so impressed with the engineering quality. And played live in the studio. (Will get back to this.)
Tapes..Cassettes, cartridges.. phoeey.



The CD’s. Herbert Van Karajan set the CD size because he insisted that Beethoven’s 9th fit on a CD. Decided the tradeoff between quality and size of the physical medium.

Did you know that on record albums the songs with the fastest beats and most excitement were the first or second tracks? Move information per revolution on the outside. Slow songs in the inside.

Now we stream.

But the kids listen on earbuds while they workout. They take a phone to a party with a playlist on it, and plug it in.

The history leads us to where we are today. Producers driven to make money. Studios wanting work. The BUSINESS of music.

I just read the most interesting article. Why does live music sound so much better? (provided it’s properly engineered.) Because the musicians are free to perform! In the studio, they are doing “takes” and don’t want to screw up lots of work by making a mistake. But “live” they can cut loose and just play!

All of this is a very long way to ask for thoughts re this. We have these great setups anchored with Susvara. But what are we listening to? Are recording engineered for us, or for Mom jogging with a stroller with Apple buds?

What percentage of music recorded today is produced, engineered, performed by the artists for our audiophile community?

Me? I love live music and am happy with Amazon HD. But I feel like most music just doesn’t do all this expense justice. But when it all is there. BAM.

Thoughts re my ramble?

One frustration I do have is that there is so much great music to discover on YouTube.. live performances recorded, but the SQ ain’t audiophile.

 

[Chronos]

I wrote a review/write-up on the Jewel a while ago and compare it to Traillii if it helps. Since then, I would say Aroma Audio's newer Fei Wan is the more musical IEM out of their lineup vs Jewel. Jewel was technically proficient with impressive bass, but a bit boring/emotionless, meanwhile FW takes the dynamics and energy on a whole other level while retaining natural timbre and excellent technicalities. It's honestly the first IEM I've heard since I parted with Traillii and UM Multiverse that has tempted me to complement open-backs with an IEM [i.e., a strong complement to Susvara's more laid-back presentation].

Aroma Jewel Write Up

Aroma Fei Wan Write Up (the first review)

Try the annihilator if you ever get a chance

 

[Leto Dal]

Sold Traillii today in favor of Anni 2023. But jewel was indeed somewhat dead sounding.

 

[tawmizzzz]

Try the annihilator if you ever get a chance

I briefly heard Annihilator at last year's CanJam (I think it was the OG before the 2023 version?) I know the Elysian X very well, however, and that treble is absolutely surreal, vivid yet silky smooth. Lee (Elysian) really has some special treble in his IEMs. I wasn't a fan of their bass presentations (not enough midbass on X, and not enough subbass in the OG Annih). Mids were also on the thinner side. I imagine they improved on these facets for 2023 so I'll be sure to check it out at CanJam-cheers.

 

[Chronos]

I briefly heard Annihilator at last year's CanJam (I think it was the OG before the 2023 version?) I know the Elysian X very well, however, and that treble is absolutely surreal, vivid yet silky smooth. Lee (Elysian) really has some special treble in his IEMs. I wasn't a fan of their bass presentations (not enough midbass on X, and not enough subbass in the OG Annih). Mids were also on the thinner side. I imagine they improved on these facets for 2023 so I'll be sure to check it out at CanJam-cheers.

Yes it’s improved and the Brise Yatano Ultimate improves it significantly. I almost sold them until I heard it with the Brise Yatano.

 

[up late]

Every single (non audiophile) person that's demoed my headphone collection has unanimously picked the Susvara as the clear winner. Often-repeated descriptions were "natural", "smooth" and "warm". I'm not sure why the prevailing opinion in this thread is that Sus doesn't wow people on first listen because in my experience it absolutely does!

i wasn't so much wowed as charmed by the susvara on first listen

 

[jlemaster1957]

Here comes a very long post, but I sure would appreciate any thoughts.

My scattered history of audio ending with an existential question.

At age 67, I’ve seen and heard a lot.

Pre-transistors, but studios produce records kids could buy as 45’s.
Pop buying a console stereo for the living room. Kids had a phonograph in their bedroom.
Audiophiles stepping up to components.

Then transistors took over in early 70’s, which enabled good quality recordings at a lower cost. (As an aside, the reason tubes kept progressing in the USSR was that they kept preparing for nuclear war and tubes don’t shut down from EMP from nuclear bomb – USSR kept using tubes in military communications systems until the Berlin Wall fell – so you get tube amps out of Poland, etc.)

On to the business side.

Dick Clark with American Bandstand realized that the kids don’t want to hear the song..they want to hear the record! So bands lip sync and fake playing on TV. (I’ll get back to this.)

Music from the 70’s and on is recorded very well. Classical and Jazz to play on FM and component stereos.

Did you know that the Beatles flew to Chicago and Detroit to record some of their music because they were so impressed with the engineering quality. And played live in the studio. (Will get back to this.)
Tapes..Cassettes, cartridges.. phoeey.



The CD’s. Herbert Van Karajan set the CD size because he insisted that Beethoven’s 9th fit on a CD. Decided the tradeoff between quality and size of the physical medium.

Did you know that on record albums the songs with the fastest beats and most excitement were the first or second tracks? Move information per revolution on the outside. Slow songs in the inside.

Now we stream.

But the kids listen on earbuds while they workout. They take a phone to a party with a playlist on it, and plug it in.

The history leads us to where we are today. Producers driven to make money. Studios wanting work. The BUSINESS of music.

I just read the most interesting article. Why does live music sound so much better? (provided it’s properly engineered.) Because the musicians are free to perform! In the studio, they are doing “takes” and don’t want to screw up lots of work by making a mistake. But “live” they can cut loose and just play!

All of this is a very long way to ask for thoughts re this. We have these great setups anchored with Susvara. But what are we listening to? Are recording engineered for us, or for Mom jogging with a stroller with Apple buds?

What percentage of music recorded today is produced, engineered, performed by the artists for our audiophile community?

Me? I love live music and am happy with Amazon HD. But I feel like most music just doesn’t do all this expense justice. But when it all is there. BAM.

Thoughts re my ramble?

One frustration I do have is that there is so much great music to discover on YouTube.. live performances recorded, but the SQ ain’t audiophile.

I’ll have a go. Back in the day I was too busy gunning on my academic career to focus on whatever I listened to on the radio on the fly. When I got more settled after I got older I finally started streaming Pandora (I was never too much into vinyl) which gave me a start broadening the range of my listening and still I wasn’t listening for SQ. Finally in the pandemic, during a particularly hard patch I got started with a pair of Drop HD 6XXs and an iFI Zen stack, and a Tidal subscription. I joined Head-fi , started seriously reading/watching reviews, and building my system. I am still heavy into streaming. mostly I use Spotify for music discovery and Qobuz for quality (I was dumped by Tidal when they dc’d the Best Buy subscription deal last year and I haven’t looked back).

The question comes up here sometimes whether we are using TOTL gear to listen to music or the other way around. It feels like both most days, improving my system to improve SQ to experience the dopamine of a fine recording, trying out new musicians, albums, genres, building playlists and blogging here- all brings a lot of joy. I wish there were more people in my ordinary, non-online life to share my love for the hobby with. It’s pretty niche when you think about it in tbe grand scheme of society (US at least). I recently had a good chat with my wife and she agreed to really try to listen/understand when /if I am all jacked up about some audio thing, but she asked me to try to focus more on the music end if I’m going to draw her in and less on the gear side. I think that could be healthy for me—one can only spend so much of one’s free time obsessing about the next/best.. what? … speaker amp? that will finally drive Sus to the limit. I recall I once did have a life before I was a Sus owner and did enjoy music albeit with less refinement- I am working now on ‘good enough’ SQ as a goal rather than the chase for sonic nirvana, and trying to stick to a budget and a reasonable number of major purchases per year. ‘Enjoy the music’ they say- I think for us audiophiles it is a deliberate choice.

 

[AudioVice]

When I was a new Head-fi member, I received the advice that, before I listed a high value unit in Classifieds, I should ‘hang out’ for a while in the threads and this proved excellent advice as Head-fi has become a trusted community. So welcome and do stay. Tell us please about your audio journey- how did you obtain the Susvaras, how did you drive them via DAC, amp etc, what is your other hobby?

Hi, thank you for your kind words and suggestions.

Well, my audio journey started once I decided to pay the difference on my Realiser A16 preorder. Once I did that I had to buy a pair of Sennheiser HD 800s for the A16. Once I heard how good a high-end pair of headphones could sound I fell down the audio rabbit hole and did not come back up until in my mind I put together the best setup I could afford.

Which included the Holo Audio May KTE for the DAC, Holo Audio Bliss KTE for the amp/pre amp, Feliks Audio Envy Performance for the tube amp experience. For the headphones, I picked the HIFIMAN SUSVARA for classical music and the Abyss AB1266 Phi TC for pop and rock in roll.

Which brings us to the present day where my pinball hobby is taking up most of my time and money and is just as expensive as the high-end audio hobby.

There are a couple of brand new pinball machines I want to buy and yes if you did not know already they still do make brand new pinball machines. Check out sternpinball.com

So most of my high-head headphone collection needs to go. I will still have my Realiser A16 and my HD800's for movies and my MEZE Empyrean for pop and rock and roll so I will not be leaving the high-end headphone community completely.

After writing this it makes me want to keep my headphone gear and maybe just sell a couple of my pinball machines to fund new ones. We will see how my for-sale adds pan out.

 

[Sand Dan Glokta]

i think my arya v2 can be a good option for someone who wants that kind of BIG and ethereal sound of susvara for much less money. Both present the music in the same musical laid-back way, but detailed at the same time. Of course susvara does everything much better but they always reminds me to the susvara. I think in arya v2 as a budget susvara. The only thing is that you must EQ with the arya, like 70% of music and with susvaras like 10% of music. I know some people think eq its a crime. I think eq is not due to your chain its because not all the music is well recorded, mixed and mastered.
I listened to arya stealth but v2 reminds me more to the susvara sound.
Of course again, arya sounds dirt and grainny compared with susvaras, but in its price i think they are the more similar headphones.

 

[jlemaster1957]

i think my arya v2 can be a good option for someone who wants that kind of BIG and ethereal sound of susvara for much less money. Both present the music in the same musical laid-back way, but detailed at the same time. Of course susvara does everything much better but they always reminds me to the susvara. I think in arya v2 as a budget susvara. The only thing is that you must EQ with the arya, like 70% of music and with susvaras like 10% of music. I know some people think eq its a crime. I think eq is not due to your chain its because not all the music is well recorded, mixed and mastered.
I listened to arya stealth but v2 reminds me more to the susvara sound.
Of course again, arya sounds dirt and grainny compared with susvaras, but in its price i think they are the more similar headphones.

Yes- still have V2 also. It is so different from Sus- lots of ways one could say ‘not as good’ but really good bass if properly eq’d and the soundstage is BIG. A good one to hang onto.

 

[OlafP]

I am always thinking about buying a Susvara again. Currently I have an TA Solitaire P but in my memories the Susvara was really great. I am worried that if I buy one now Hifiman will announce a Susvara II. Anyone heared something?

 

[Exekuhtor]

Don't worry. They will announce a Susvara Organic the next day you ordered yours.

On a more serious note: I made a post somewhere in this thread how we reached a ceiling when it comes to planars. There is nothing better. Different, yes. Better, no. So chances are extremely low that this will change in the near future.

 

[Sand Dan Glokta]

Maybe a susvara with bigger drivers, something like Charybidis. Or maybe a susvara easier to drive, but i dont think they will, its the use of gold coating conductor in its diaphragm what makes them sound so clean.