We arrived in Tokyo the night before last. My wife, who always misses the comforts of home and garden after a couple weeks, had opted to fly home yesterday after breakfast. Naturally,
my overriding priority as a solo traveler was to hunt down the rare and elusive Susvara Unveiled for a demo! The venerable shop e-earphones had it listed and priced on their website, so I took the yellow line train from Shinjuku to Akihabara, and make a purposeful walk over a handful of city blocks from station to store, Google Maps guiding the way. Upon entry, it's a rather unassuming shop with a small footprint... until you realize it comprises five more floors above you! The high end stuff is on the 3rd floor, so I headed there directly up the back stairs, located the display case with HiFiMAN cans and..... didn't see a SusUV.

I caught the attention of the nearest sales guy, asked if they had the SUV anywhere, and was told they had sent their demo unit back to HFM
the day before. ARGH!! Missed it by
that much...

Summoning my old Buddhist learnings, I quickly accepted reality and regained emotional equilibrium. When asked who else might have a demo unit, the salesman suggested I try Audio Union. Before leaving e-earphones, I decided to survey the inventory, including the secondhand merch (
maybe someone had already moved on from their SusUV... spoiler alert: no) on the fifth floor. With the yen at a 30-year low vs. USD, the prices on offer were extremely attractive, not to mention a further 10% discount (waived VAT) if you show them a foreign passport. I could have walked out the door with a brand new Susvara OG for about $3,300, or a STAX X9000 for $3,500! Of course, short of smuggling them back, I'd remit the 10% discount back to US Customs. Still, something I considered.
Here are some photos in case you want to see how much your favorite headphone costs in Japan (divide by 161.5, as of today).
After finishing taking stock at e-earphones, I boarded the yellow line train from Akihabara to Ochanomizu for a visit to Audio Union. Like e-earphones, it's a small footprint, multi-story (five in all) shop, but it also features a lot of 2-channel gear, including some high-end stuff like Sonus Faber. I headed upstairs to the premium headphones, but they didn't have the SUV, and weren't sure when they might be getting it. This confirmed that my best shot had very likely been e-earphones. Ever the optimist, I decided to try one last place, the nearby Fujiya Avic in Nakano district, which is deep in the bowels of an
extensive semi-open mall.
Once again, it's a small footprint shop, but with only a single floor. Nonetheless, it's quite well-stocked, attractive, and features a handful of comfortable listening stations. The sales guy was very helpful and friendly (a recurring theme in Japan!), but SusUV was only available as a pre-order (with unknown delivery date), and they had never received a demo unit. I could have purchased the SUV in advance for just at $6k (with tax discount), with the
minor inconvenience that I'd have to pick it up in person whenever it arrived! If I decide I want an SUV in the future, I might have my American friend who lives in Tokyo buy it on the cheap and ship it to me. Or someone in the US might be offering a comparable deal on the SUV by then. But I don't yet know firsthand how it differs from Sus OG, plus I've had a deposit down on an Immanis for awhile now, so there's no real impetus to act quickly.
I had a quick look around the shop, and noticed they had a station set up with the Boulder 812 DAC preamp, and an RME ADI-2/4 Pro SE DAC/amp. I've never heard either, but have been impressed with Boulder's high-end 2-channel separates in the past, and the RME has an excellent reputation. I asked if I could audition the Susvara OG in the display case on said electronics, and they readily agreed to set me up!
I just got a new Galaxy S24 phone, and for some reason, Tidal (over store WiFi) wouldn't play when connected directly to the Boulder's USB input. I mucked around with settings for a good 10-15 minutes, but no love. I eventually punted, and decided to try the RME. After a bit more fiddling, I got sound, but it was extremely faint. I diddled with gain and other settings on the RME, and maxxed things out, but still only got moderate volume. What an underpowered unit, I thought to myself, as I considered abandoning the entire experiment. Just in time, a light bulb went on, and I checked my phone's volume, which was under 50%. Suitably adjusted, I was
finally getting the Sus OG to play at my usual level (~75-80 dB). I ran through a few of my traditional test tracks (acoustic guitar/vocals, jazz, classical), and the sound from the RME was quite musical and pleasant, but notably soft. Then I seized on the idea of feeding the RME into the Boulder's analog inputs. As was the theme of the day, this didn't work immediately, and I double-checked and fiddled with the chain some more until finally I hit some button on the Boulder with a circle with arrows icon (w.t.f?), and sound magically issued forth from the headphones. Hallelujah!! Inserting the Boulder's amp into the chain effected a stark and clear improvement to the sound, bringing it much closer to (though not quite on par with) what I'm used to at home. I played through my test tracks again, ending with Beethoven's
Violin Romance No. 1 in G Major, Opus 40 played by David Oistrakh and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Sorry, folks, but I cannot agree that string tone is (anything like) a weakness of the Sus OG...
Having worked long and hard to get a nice sonic fix, I unfortunately ran out of time to re-audition the Sus OG on the LTA Z10e, so I simply returned the Sus OG to the shop staff, and thanked them heartily for their assistance and hospitality. As I strode back toward Nakano station, my impression was that however good the Sus UV (and Immanis, and whatever future wunderphones) may be, I could probably be perfectly satisfied listening to music on the Sus OG for the indefinite future. I was and am at peace. Om.