🔶 HiFiMan Ananda

[lizardskins]

I find them to be very comfortable but they really aren’t very adjustable so they aren’t going to fit every head shape well. They also don’t do well with head movement, they are the kind of headphone you want to get positioned right and then just sit in one place. To me they sound absolutely amazing and they are my current favorite but I wouldn’t want them as an only headphone.

The sizing on the headband is mind boggling. I have a relatively normal size head I think, I wear a large in hat size. But I’m still at the lowest smallest headband setting to be correctly positioned. I can’t even imagine how large of a head you’d have to have to use the headband fully extended, I’m just not sure what they were thinking there.

[CarpentersFan]

Hi everyone. I was just looking through the Crinacle Headphone rankings, and he downgraded the Ananda’s technicality from A- to B. (S+ being the best) B means it is on par with the Sundara in his rankings. Generally he is a trustworthy guy and has good measurements on his website. Does anyone here have both and can compare them?

[Pokrog]

As a mild hifiman fanboy the only headphones they make that I thoroughly dislike are the sundaras, anandas, and 400i. I’ve said it before and people called me crazy but I’d even take the 400se with a pad swap over anandas. There’s just something off about them.

[CarpentersFan]

Wow, what do you hink is off? Tuning or timbre?

[DboyMac]

Looking back on when I had both the anandas and sundaras, the timbre is their best quality, its almost perfect, specially on the anandas, but the tuning is a complete mess, specially on the anandas.

This is completely subjective and to most reviewers agree there is nothing wrong with their tuning but now I trust my ears more than theirs.
on my previous posts in this same thread I still believed more on the reviews than myself, I think the reviewers didnt spend enough time with the product, as its flaws become more evident the more you listen to it.

I had and still have two main problems with the anandas based on listening to them again:

the dynamics are weak to the point I think they rival that of koss ksc75, a much cheaper headphone. I mean both dynamic range and macrodynamics, this results in a compressed sound.
he400i, he400se both have way superior dynamics.

Edit: also want to add some people like a compressed quality to their sound, theres nothing wrong with liking that, for example my dad cant get enough of compressed sounding speakers and files. But if you know you dont stay the f away from the anandas.

The staging is shit, most impressions are “omg the soundstage is so big” but after a good listen beneath its size; the instrument placement, separation and panning are so wrong on most songs, unless the engineer mixed with speakers with a somewhat similar tuning, it messes up the recordings.
This staging problem was evident in about 80% of my library, but on the other 20% it was actually very good. My testing music is in very good quality. Yours may vary.

Edit 2: once again, if you dont mind the instruments not being where the recording engineer intended this is not a problem, same goes for the bad panning, its unrealistic but you may like it anyway.

…

Anandas do 2 things right, tonal balance and detail retrieval, but to me the presentation is messed up and I really wish I went with the he6se v2 instead at that time.

[Pokrog]

Basically @DboyMac nailed it. I posted this awful picture I drew in paint for the sundaras imaging issue and the anandas have the same problem but like @DboyMac said it could totally be a non issue depending on use or preference.

Basically it seems like they made a tuning call to squish the soundstage closer.

@Pokrog

Center image vocal intimacy is something a lot of people like and I get the reason for it, it just messes with everything if you do it wrong like they did.

[CarpentersFan]

Wow! Crinacle’s opinion is almost opposite. He actually gave the tuning an S-, saying it is one of the best tuned headphones available. Well, this just got more confusing. So you think the 1.5khz dip is causing the issues?

[DboyMac]

That’s actually a language interference. As there is not a standarized language for reviewing audio equipment, im actually not sure who is using the right words.

What he calls tuning is what I refer to as timbre or tone, when he says its one of the best tuned headphones he refers only the frequency response tuning, which I agree, its among the best i’ve ever heard.

Just look at this its almost perfect:

when I say tuning I refer to the combination of all the sonic characteristics as a whole, not just the frequency response (which is tonally balanced almost perfectly to his target).

For me the word tuning includes other characteristics such as dynamics and staging, which as I wrote before, technically suck for the price range.

If im using any words wrong, someone please let me know as id like to correct my audio vocabulary.

[aldelaro5]

I received my pair yesterday and my verdict is VERY positive.

These sounds like you might as well have speakers far away from you. There is no concept of feeling like sounds comes from your head because the soundstage is this wide and big. The treble response is IMPRESSIVE, lots of bright ost hits me much harder on these than say the 58x.

I was using a pair of koss 95x before and I feel these are better in a lot of ways because they have a bigger scale of soundstage, but they also have p good bass response which is something the 95x lacked. Because of this big soundstage, separation is good, but the imaging is also impressively good at this size.

The 58x still sounds different enough for me to try either depending on the situation, but these are my new mains, I love it

[Mush]

Hifiman does a sale on open box and refurbished models. I bought my set for around $600 usd. It has a 1 year warranty as well after you buy it and customer support was really good last time I checked.

[Mush]

I would say tuning refers to the frequency response curve in most cases. Timbre and tone are separate hence the use of separate words for these characteristics. In most cases tuning could be synonymous with sound in the context of a simplistic statement on audio. Given Crinacle is using tuning in an “audiophile reviewer” context I would say the breaking out of specific terms like tuning, timbre, and tone all carry their own connotations here. So I’m simple terms you would be correct in using tuning to imply tone and timbre because those terms all fall under the “sound” umbrella.

TLDR; you are both right under certain contexts lol. Also im sitting waiting for breakfast with nothing to do so I went a bit hard on this

[CarpentersFan]

[CarpentersFan]

First impressions: Bass is more present than I expected. The bass from the huge driver is simply atmospheric. I also bought an HE400SE, and despite the Ananda not being a lot more resolving, it somehow sounds more beautiful. I suspect the 1.5k dip is making it polite

[Moldbrain]

Got these headphones a couple of days ago for a really good price and so far I’m loving them.

Comfort wise I can’t complain at all personally. I did get them brand new and they do have weird smell which for me is not a big deal.

Build quality is not at all what I would expect from a “high quality” headphone but on the other hand the sound absolutely is.

These are my first open back headphones, when I pictured a high quality open headphone I imagined something along the lines of speaker like soundstage which would envelop the sound all around me far and wide while sounding clear, crisp, and most importantly detailed so I can listen through my whole playlist and find out things about my favorite songs which I never knew before.

I got exactly that and I couldn’t be happier.

[Moldbrain]

TL;DR:

[RenEH]

IMO these headphones sound really different as you move up in gear. Replacing the stock cable to a better balanced one makes them sound pretty different too.

[ShungiteTrillionaire]

Completely agree with the weak dynamics part (guess you could also call it blunted). I don’t like bright headphones so I was also turned off by the treble forwardness (compared to bass) as well. Can’t say much else cause I didn’t want to spend more time with it (and yeah, it did sound big (“wall of sound”) due to its size).

[DonRamon069]

how do these compare against the Beyerdynamic DT 1990 PRO? I want to buy a new pair for around $500-600

[Pokrog]

edition xs>ananda and cheaper

[CarpentersFan]

These have more soundstage than Dt1990 pro.
These are easier to drive
These have a more neutral and better tuning than the treble monster beyer
These are not as well built
It is easier to get cables for ananda
Ananda has a softer impact, but more atmospheric bass