Dunno, people can knock Hifiman, but if I had to choose between the 009S and Susvara, I’d keep the Susvara. The 009S might have crisper treble clarity, but the soundstage is not as unified and it has issues with panned sounds wrapping around and sitting right on my ear.
Dunno, people can knock Hifiman, but if I had to choose between the 009S and Susvara, I’d keep the Susvara. The 009S might have crisper treble clarity, but the soundstage is not as unified and it has issues with panned sounds wrapping around and sitting right on my ear.
I think the majority of Hifiman bashing is the "Quality Control" aspect and not too much on the Sound.
Quoting Bian, "Because it sounds good". This is kind of actually true. And people (Stax Mafia) dont want to admit.
If I list Hifiman headphones on Sound Quality alone. Than Hifiman is somewhat unstoppable! And again no one wants to admit this! Black sheep protoss will!
HE500 -- Audition
HE6 -- Audition
He Audio Jade -- Base on my pair
HE1000V2 -- Audition
Susvara -- Audition
Shangri-la Jr -- Base on my pair
These headphones alone areTOTL. Judging only on sound.
Dunno, people can knock Hifiman, but if I had to choose between the 009S and Susvara, I’d keep the Susvara. The 009S might have crisper treble clarity, but the soundstage is not as unified and it has issues with panned sounds wrapping around and sitting right on my ear.
Considering Stax need a T2 to sound as good or better than hd800, I'm surprised most people wouldn't want an 009s if they've never heard it on a T2/T2-DIY.
Considering Stax need an T2 to sound as good or better than hd800, I'm surprised most people wouldn't want an 009s if they've never heard it on a T2/T2-DIY.
Susvara is unremarkable for classical. It does distance well, but soundstage poorly. I'm still lusting over the baby orpheus, old though it is. If I ever make a deeper jump into electrostatics than KSE1500, it will be for at least two and probably three cans — 007, Baby O, and 009/S.
I think the general takeaway here is that there is no "endgame" setup that will please everybody. Most of the comparisons I see here don't mention the source component (DAC). For instance, one fellow on here, whom I forget, drives his T2 and 009/s setup with an Audio-Gd M7, which I owned and don't feel like stood up to my Chord DAVE for headphones and that was with HDMI i2s and a fully-loaded Empirical Off-Ramp 5 + Dynamo power to bypass the USB on the M7.
When I graduated to the 009 and Carbon CC, I experienced something I'd never experienced before and that was that I felt I was no longer missing out. I'm not a big collector of headphones/audio gear/anything. When I decide to move to a different setup, I typically let everything else go in that class.
Put me solidly in the 009/KGHSSV (Carbon CC) camp.
Susvara is unremarkable for classical. It does distance well, but soundstage poorly. I'm still lusting over the baby orpheus, old though it is. If I ever make a deeper jump into electrostatics than KSE1500, it will be for at least two and probably three cans — 007, Baby O, and 009/S.
I think the general takeaway here is that there is no "endgame" setup that will please everybody. Most of the comparisons I see here don't mention the source component (DAC). For instance, one fellow on here, whom I forget, drives his T2 and 009/s setup with an Audio-Gd M7, which I owned and don't feel like stood up to my Chord DAVE for headphones and that was with HDMI i2s and a fully-loaded Empirical Off-Ramp 5 + Dynamo power to bypass the USB on the M7.
When I graduated to the 009 and Carbon CC, I experienced something I'd never experienced before and that was that I felt I was no longer missing out. I'm not a big collector of headphones/audio gear/anything. When I decided to move to a different setup, I typically let everything else go in that class.
Put me solidly in the 009/KGHSSV (Carbon CC) camp.
True in all regards especially about DAC. I love my SR-009 + KGSSHV Carbon setup now, but substitute in most R2R DACs and/or cheap interconnects and then I dislike it. Stax headphones are chameleons.
Looks like we had the same SR-009 and KGSSHV Carbon experience.
I used my 009/Carbon system first with an AGD M7, then moved to a yggy.
I'll say the two things the system did quite a bit better than my hd800 chain was soundstage and dynamics.
Although, for resolution, timbre, tonality, I greatly prefer the hd800.
My current dynamic chain is Yggy B -> Eddie Current Aficionado (upgraded / modded) -> HD800SDR
I can say nothings "best" I just think a good hd800 chain checks more boxes in a pros/cons list.
I have Hd800s and I can say that it has emphasized trebles, and in the right setup, it isn’t supposedly bright, but just emphasized. My 009 was said to be bright, but I never took it as being emphasized in the trebles, just a lot of details and clarity.
Then on the 800s sub bass, it is actually a rumbling frequency of resonances from the drivers into the cups chambers, and so it is more like an artificial sub bass rumbling rather than an authentic rumbling by the membranes itself. I experienced an extreme phenomenon that if I was to swap out HD800s stock pads into Denon pads which doesn’t have the plastic ring behind it, the sub-bass rumbles are mostly gone, and bass just fall down on it face
That is just me. I do like the 800S in the dynamic world, it gets a very similar signature to the Stax, but if you ask me to pick out it cons, that is what I just said
Sometime I like that emphasized trebles by the hd800S, so I just pick it up. But to enjoy genuinely done music, it gotta be Stax
I do like the HD800 a great deal and with the right amp but they still won't touch my SR009+KGSSHV Carbon combo (though it is nearly there with my ECP L3/Ravenswood). I think we may be preferring different qualities of each headphones here. For instance, the SR009 will not have the width of the soundstage compared to the HD800. Still I find the SR009 is able to render depth cues and imaging better. The SR009 is details monster and HD800 is also great at extract those nuance.
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