šŸ”¶ Hifiman Edition XS

any news on when Headphones.com is supposed to get them? I asked a couple weeks ago and they only told me ā€œsoonā€

I just couldn’t resist the hype about xduoo mt-604, so I grabbed one recently. For me personally this little amp with 6j1p ev voskhod tubes is just a phenomenal pairing with EDXS. Soundstage is huge and holographic, brightness was fixed and turned into air. I’ve purchased this amp to use it mainly as a preamp and it is also very good at that, just don’t fry your equipment, it’s max output voltage is 10V. It’s probably not safe to go above 5.5V, although I’m not sure

Cons: bass of this amp is average, speed is average, so it won’t work great with all types of music. Channels are reversed on purpose, and reversing them back made the sound linear and bright, you also can’t game on it because of that. It’s only balanced. Stock tubes are garbage and GE tubes are mediocre. Getting soviet rocket tubes is a must for this amp

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Has anyone tried the Dac Smsl DO200 with XS? It’s very similar to Gustard x16 as well as price.
Edit: I might just still grab the Gustard when Chinese New Year Sale comes due to shitty Smsl QC even if it sounds better than Gustard lol.

For those who are looking for a way to upgrade the headband. Here how it looks if you stick a hd650 headband to a wool sleeve with double side adhesive tape.

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Rocking my new HiFiMan XS and really enjoying it I will add, works just divine on my Tube hybrid pushing large watts, but still works and plays quite well on just my little Zen DAC v2 lol.

Using single ended with OEM cable, volume dial @ 12 O’clock and I’m getting roughly 85dB playback in-headphone (92dB+ with True Bass)

edit: Update using balanced on the lil iFi Zen dac throwing them back on using BAL… Only 9 O’clock (quarter volume lol) reads 82dB…True bass on 88dB +

2nd edit: Put them on bigger amps feeding them better and they lap it up, more juice please and boogie on down.

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They’ve got the Ananda over Arya? That’s interesting because I’ve always heard the Arya has a bigger stage due to increased height. I do miss the Soundstage of the Ananda but that headband didn’t work for me. I wouldn’t mind taking the Ananda drivers and housing them into the XS headband

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How are they on the zen can?

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Hifiman Edition XS Measurements

credit: Resolve [as posted on ASR]

More Links

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Kinda getting into pokrog gang, i am not sure yet.
But those, who claim XS are fine with 280mwatts are deaf or have never heard a good powerfull amp.

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Yeah I figured they could use more power.
Watch out though bro you got the national grid on these right now lol!

Soon as I’m back home I will post some impressions… on my Emotiva basX A-100 lol - at least the noise-floor will be much less audible - usually is with hungrier cans on that thing.

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As I and others have suggested these cans are a bit like Oliver, they’ll eat up what you feed them and still say, ā€œplease sir I want some moreā€.

Moving to the Zen CAN it’s better obviously but also now you start to notice how these love/need more real power to get better out of them. SE runs out of steam and headroom so I’d use a high gain or even better go balanced and I’d still boost the gain till your happy.

I love my little Zen stack and I like the sound myself (I’m addicted to XBass lol) YMMV, I use it a lot but the XS will still take more/better if you have it to offer.

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Awesome. was running my Sundara balanced on my stack and managed to sell them today and will be replacing them with the XS ASAP! balanced and high gain it is! Thanks!

Well, I was pretty excited when all these goodies turned up today. And when I finally found five minutes to sit down and hear what all the fuss was about? Right driver dead. Brand new. Swapped cables and amps, nothing. Upset!



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Ahh that’s scuffed dude… I was really hoping not to see these posts anymore on they’re newer releases… Still trying to get they’re shit together I suppose.

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Supposed to get mine Saturday. Hopefully im as lucky as I was with the sundaras. Had my sundaras for about a year now and no issues.

It’s funny, I’m in search of a headphone to beat my HE-500; that’s still going strong all these years later!

Man, so sorry to hear that - that is such a bummer!

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I guess it was bound to happen eventually that one comes DOA… Just hate that it happened to someone here :frowning:

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With a little EQ (I like to use edition X v2 wavelet preset and some extra bass at times) the XS really shine. The extra detail is fantastic and some good bass gets them rumbling

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