Reminder to DM me your mailing address, still waiting to hear back from the following:
@DJHastings
@neiros
@Abohir
@kylereptyle
@EazyRedAudio
@eminent
@PL4Y3R_0N3
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Damnn, I guess I didn’t see this in time. Bummer! 
Would have been fun to give these a spin.
If there would be a EU tour, I’d be happy to participate! Thank you!
There will be, probably after Canada. Stay tuned to this thread.
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Hey all, thanks for those that have responded, another reminder to send DMs with your mailing address for the following members:
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Hey everyone, just a quick update, the loaner units were sent out to the first two recipients yesterday, so the tour is officially underway!
Please remember to post when you have received the headphone and to notify us privately if there is an issue with the headphone due to shipping damage so that we can address it quickly and get it back to you to continue to the tour. Looking forward to seeing people post their thoughts.
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Yep! Received them just today afternoon.
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Yep, I got em!
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@AD103 and @DJHastings one week warning. Please remember to post your impressions and ship out the headphones to the next recipients within the next week and DM me the tracking information please. If you need the next recipient information again please let me know.
My impressions of the Aurorus Audio Australis:
These sound very smooth, probably one of the smoothest overall listens I’ve had. They’re also a fantastic all-arounder headphone, as their downslope in the treble allows them to handle even the harshest tracks without sibilance or annoying harshness that most headphones, and especially closed-backs, have in this hobby. There’s also something about the bass that lends largeness and a sense of physical weight to instruments. These superlatives come at a cost, though, as clarity definitely is lacking on some of the more well-mixed tracks like stuff from Random Access Memories or Steely Dan. Furthermore, the choice to down-slope it to the degree that it is (i’m guessing 1.5 dB/8va?) leads to some bloating of the lower mids/upper bass. All around, though, I think if you’re a treble-hater like me, you’ll enjoy these headphones for ultra-long listening sessions and/or music all day at the office.
As for the physical comfort of these, the suspension system and generous amount of padding should allow for minimal discomfort through prolonged use, so long as you have a medium sized head or less. I think for people with big heads, this might need some end-user finagling, such as stretching etc., in order to make it comfortable to the same extent. Also, the opening of the ear cups is a little small to accommodate ears on the larger side of things, but I think should be fine for most people.
On the looks side, these things scream “audiophile” and “industrial.” They have a simple, yet professional aesthetic and their design makes them look unmistakably like only something a person really into audio would wear.
My listening was mostly done on a Cayin HA-3A amplifier, with the SMSL D0100 DAC, playing from Qobuz. I also did a little bit of listening directly on an iPad. The comparison between the two is that the tube makes everything sound much fuller with a more accurate soundstage.
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@DJHastings and @ad103 reminder to please send tracking in DM and ship out the loaner units by Thursday.
Thanks for the reminder will do. I’d like to amend my last impression post. I just listened to these headphones with the Woo Audio Tube Mini, and I heard what can only be described as near audio perfection. Holy wow, the impact and clarity of these things when driven correctly is second to none for a closed back. I don’t know what’s up with my Cayin but this was immensely more snappy and clear. EDM especially was a revelation. Dude, the synths just felt so razor sharp and sonorous without being harsh or fatiguing at all. 10/10 for sound.
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You’re not the first to find that the headphones can be source revealing, it may be due to a difference in output impedance as well, as these headphones tend to do better with amps with low output impedances since they are low impedance drivers.
The tour units are both off to their second recipients. @AD103 look forward to you posting your impressions of Borealis.
Yep, sorry for the delay, it seems I got COVID and have been feeling pretty horrific.
I’ve listened to these on a Schiit Asgard 3 and a Schiit Modi+. I am using Qobuz on exclusive mode as my streamer.
These headphones sound, and look as beautiful as their name, “Aurorus Borealis.” My first instinct was to try Muse. I needed to try the vocals on them, compared to my HD 650s. Vocals are pretty much my top priority in a headphone. Vocals on the Borealis is complete audio bliss, vocals were crystal clear, timbre on these are as good as it gets. I noticed one thing I really liked about them though – whenever I would hear a song with soft vocals, such as “Love and Truth” by Mother Mother, the Borealis really accentuated that compared to the HD 650s in my opinion. Same goes with powerful vocals, such as “Micro Cuts” by Muse – these headphones are insanely capable of captivating the right tone of any track you’re listening to. Bass on these is perfectly reasonable in my opinion, I am not at all a basshead, so the bass on this headphone is literally perfect for me. Not muddy, but also not limp.
As for build, fit, and comfort, it is pretty good. Build is stellar, it is rock solid and does not feel like it’s going to break or tear apart easily. Built like a tank. I really love the design of these, how they’re constructed and how both of those aspects come together. Comfort was amazing, I could wear them all day, but that is maybe due to my one and only gripe with these, the fit.
In my opinion, maybe I have a small head, but the fit was too loose. However, Listener did point out to me an aftermarket band to increase the clamping force. It reminded me of the LCD-2, as that would fall off my head whenever I would look straight down. Considering these were a loaner pair I didn’t really want to try that, haha.
Note: I main HD 600s daily, so my perception of too loose might be skewed, as I know those headphones have really high clamping force.
I am very grateful to be given this opportunity to try them out! Thank you so much! I look forward to purchasing these the moment I get a chance to!
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Australis showed up this afternoon. Looking forward to digging in!
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Borealis Impressions
For starters, I did most of my listening through a Nistch Piety and SMSL d6s stack. I also did some work with my Geshelli J2s and Topping L70 stack.
I’ll admit, at first I wasn’t super impressed by these. They were good but not great. At the time I was just listening to some of my typical favorite progressive rock, progressive metal, post-hardcore rock etc and I was listening through my Topping L70 which is quite a clinical amp. Something was off, part of it was a bit of a nasally tilt to male vocals, this was very apparent when I was listening to the Window of the Waking Mind album by Coheed and Cambria on the first day, his singing voice which can already be a bit nasal and closed was even moreso. It was offputting.
But as I gave these time on my head to figure them out a bit, and when I later shifted them to my Nistch Piety amp (which is way less clinical) and started figuring out music that really was able to shine with the Borealis the experience flipped around entirely for me.
I spent about a solid week on the Piety without EQ listening to the Borealis through a broad range of music. I absolutely loved what it could do with acoustic guitar in a more singer/songwriter or folk style song. The album ‘Sometimes’ by Dallas Green’s side-project ‘City and Colour’ was a great experience start to finish. Going further down that rabbit hole he did a collab with P!nk called ‘You+Me’ and through the Borealis there is this rich yet stripped down sound to it. In the song Capsized P!nk’s vocals come through so rich and full while at the same time you can feel the intimacy of the two recording in a small studio room as they sing over this acoustic guitar. The Borealis pushes the vocals a little bit forward and adds to that presence you feel.
I could go on and on about how well the Borealis paired with acoustic guitar, stripped down vocals, solo piano work, it all worked so well. But in the interest of keeping this somewhat brief lets move on.
I wanted to give it some more tries with more complex, face paced, congested tracks. More prog rock, more metal, more emo, that kind of thing. So I did, and I burned through my catalog for hours and hours sitting in the bed with the Piety and Borealis pairing. Some stuff just worked like magic, I had a blast with The Dear Hunter and The Mars Volta with the Borealis in stock form. You want bass? The Mars Volta’s track ‘Equus 3’ has these deep digging bass thumps in the last 20 seconds or so of the song and the Borealis brought them with authority, maybe not like a planar or a closed back, this is an open back dynamic and expectations should be as such, but the hits were there and they were deep. Again some tracks I think maybe that slightly forward vocal presence felt a touch off to me.
Soundstage was great, I’m not a big soundstage nerd and haven’t used the headphones that are proclaimed to be the kings of soundstage like the 800s so take this as you will. It was wide, it was tall, it had some depth, and imaging was precise. Is it as good as speakers? Of course not, its a headphone. But it’s great.
Next let’s talk equalization. I am unapologetically pro-EQ and I love to EQ my headphones. So after about a week I decided it was time to make some small changes to these to see what happens. Step 1, I added in a 4db bass shelf at 70hz, a pretty typical adjustment to dynamic driver headphones for me. Step 2 I dropped 1khz by 3db with a 1.41 Q factor. This brought that added vocal presence a bit back to neutral, it made the Borealis play nicely with basically everything, not a single song troubled me, but I did feel like I had taken something away from the Borealis, some of its personality, so there was some give and take with that. But either way I jammed out for days with that EQ profile and the headphone had so much more to give still.
Let’s talk a couple of other specifics. I want to mention something I noticed on day 1, again this was through that very clinical Topping amp and doing a bit of AB testing with my usual Sennheiser 6xx. I was listening to the MTV Unplugged album by Florence+The Machine which I adore listening to. Specifically the track ‘No Light, No Light’ when played through the Borealis, Florence Welch’s voice wavers on the edge of sibilance in this config, not quite fully there and not ear piercing sharp, but enough to catch your attention. When swapping to the 6xx that muted down quite a bit, my guess is there’s a bit of a spike in the Borealis around 6khz that is accentuating this. Again, not fully sibilant, but something indeed was there and noticeable. However my Piety fixed this by about 50% so it seems very track and chain dependent, I think I had a bit of a Perfect Storm there.
Finally, lets talk fit. The short of it is I really wish it had more clamp, a lot more. I like to listen lying down in bed or reclining and I felt like I had to balance it on my head to get it to stay put and keep a good pad seal. Other than that I loved the suspension strap and the earcup/pad design and shape.
Overall I had a fantastic experience with this headphone over the past week and change. It was not perfect, it has its strengths and it has its weaknesses but I think it plays very well to those and it feels like a headphone that was designed and tuned with a purpose and a goal. The tuning is stellar, the timbre is exceptional and realistic (both with the caveat that the 1khz bump may or may not trouble you) the headphone has detail to give for days and I feel there was no stone left unturned in that department.
I think if someone was looking for the next step up from the 6xx, they want that kind of timbre and tuning but with significantly better soundstage, more detail, and maybe a touch of its own flavor, this is the headphone for you.
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