Awesome analogy, thanks for the input!
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Hey man, i got the Ananda today.
You are a master of analogy ābeing hit with a big pillowā is a perfect description! lol
I am deciding if i keep the Ananda or the LCD2C, tough choice! The LCD has that satisfactory slam/punch to its sound which the Ananda lacks, but the Ananda has other qualities such as bigger soundstage.
Lets see how it goes after some burn-in / brain burn-in.
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Tough decision. When I was faced with it a few years ago I ended up buying both 
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Yeah, very very hard to compare A/B the ananda vs the LCD2C, its bright vs dark, both detail machines. Funny thing is I kept neither lol, but they certainly are their price range value kings.
Well i apply oratoryās eq to both, so there is no such difference, both are equaly ābrightā, i even feel like the LCD is brighter with the EQ.
But the way the sound is delivered is super different.
Probably 2 of the most different sounding planars to compare lol, you seem like the type who would keep both (just a guess). Enjoy.
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IMO if I were to do it again, Iād probably keep only the Anandaās. They scale better and over balanced the bass becomes on par with the LCD2C. The mid range of the LCD2C for certain vocals is the only reason I keep them.
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Hey guys, Iām probably nitpicking but I noticed some āwrinklesā on the left driver of my newly bought Anandas. Iāve contacted the support and received a response that in their experience this should not affect the sound of the headphones. I didnāt notice anything odd with the sound just playing music, but when playing the driver matching test on audiocheck (The Ultimate Headphones Test) I can notice some slight unbalance between the left and right channels in the 1000-2000hz region. Not sure if itās just me getting biased against this particular unit, but would like to get some opinions on this from you. Can you guys notice something similar on your Anandas?
Hereās a video that shows my pair: Ananda wavy wrinkled left driver - YouTube
BTW. Iāve looked around and couldnāt find anything about this regarding Anandas, the only thing similar was regarding Aryas and these were way finer wrinkles that looked more like ācracksā in the membrane, due to the driver substrate being quite a bit thinner Iād guess.
Well, I just sold my Ananda,Amazing sound but very uncomfortable for me, Back to Sennheiserā¦
Been using the anandas for about a month or two now and I kind of agree. I love the clamp on them but they are so goddamn big and it feels pretty heavy especially with a bulky custom cable. Iām going to keep them cause I can wear them for a decent amount of time till they get uncomfortable for me but I really like the staging on these in comparison to anything else I won for orchestra music.
I find them to be very comfortable but they really arenāt very adjustable so they arenāt going to fit every head shape well. They also donāt 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 wouldnāt 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 Iām still at the lowest smallest headband setting to be correctly positioned. I canāt even imagine how large of a head youād have to have to use the headband fully extended, Iām just not sure what they were thinking there.
Hi everyone. I was just looking through the Crinacle Headphone rankings, and he downgraded the Anandaās 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?
As a mild hifiman fanboy the only headphones they make that I thoroughly dislike are the sundaras, anandas, and 400i. Iāve said it before and people called me crazy but Iād even take the 400se with a pad swap over anandas. Thereās just something off about them.
Wow, what do you hink is off? Tuning or timbre?
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 āomg the soundstage is so bigā 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.
ā¦
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.
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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.
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.
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Wow! Crinacleās 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?
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Thatās 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 iāve 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.
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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 
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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.
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