I think the XS could fit your soundstage monster category. You have a pretty diverse collection with quite a few different sound signatures so if you like what you hear on the he6 and want a bit more soundstage out of it, I think it could be a nice addition. Swoop a Douk U2 pro too 
Iāve seen them on sale too lol and itāll benefit your whole chain and headphone collection in one fairly cheap purchase.
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Thanks for the recommendation and sharing! Iāll look into them!
I just used the informations available in this thread. First contact directly the seller and ask whether they can provide a special discount for you. Then at the checkout, you have the opportunity of adding one cupon: the user ācrawā posted a list and I found a further 30USD discount I could use there.
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Ordered! I hate that itās micro USB input, most of my cables are USB type A to type B.
Edit: oops just realised that the one I ordered was U2, not U2 Pro. Just rectified the mistake, U2 pro is Type B input haha
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Iāve recently purchased this unit as well. Iāve also grabbed a pack of cheap 0.25m to 0.3m hdmi cables of different versions from ali, so Iāll post my impressions in about two months when all parts of my chain arrive and when I have enough time to compare everything
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Please help! How? I canāt get it below $400. Which store and coupons?
Okay now a couple of things Iāve noticed so farā¦
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These are power hungry. You definitely need a good amp to power these properly so none of you best come around telling anyone you can run these off your phone or laptop or stuff. I tried a dongleā¦ I see that dongle powering my M1060C quite, quite reasonably I must say, and just barely enough for the XS. And these are the only headphones that are making my ifi microDSD run hotā¦ and I donāt even want to run that thing in turbo yet - actually turbo (Class A or AB, 6watt a channel mode) may be a tad too much, as these donāt need THAT amount of power, but there is surely a minimum power requirement that these haveā¦ Easily more so than your 4X0 series Hifimans.
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They scale well. Pretty well. I donāt remember pushing my 300 ohm Sennheiser HD6xx as much as Iām pushing these. And they take it. It just keeps going, and I then dial down a bit. But Lordā¦ They donāt blink. They donāt fatigueā¦ They keep on going! They stay effortless! And yes, the slight dip in the mids goes away then. They really shine beyond a limiting-friction point.
And it seems to me now that itāsā¦ I donāt know, but I have not been able to distort them at any point yet. One can end up doing that to some cans sometimes, but seems like that word is hard to find in XSās dictionary.
These, continue to keep impressing me.
Again, could be just me, but I wanted to put this out there if it means anything.
Personally, these are my endgame. Iām no longer looking into any more headphones, even when I have budget for some. But I know it would make no difference to me.
Donāt forget to use your grains of salt with this though. Iāll end this with the ever so classic acronym: YMMV.
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delete this
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10charlimit
usb to optical converter? any benefit vs just feeding a dac with toslink out of a soundcard? (my old mobo had awful usb noise which made usb dacs unusable so a basic soundcard was my stopgap)
Did you try using a powered USB hub for the USB DAC? That way itās only signal being passed between the 2, worked at least in my case.
at the time I didnāt have any powered USB hubs
Itās a DDC with its own clocks.
Seems like I was not the first one who asked for updates.
Any suggestions what to do now? Wait or cancel and buy on aliexpress? All the stores on aliexpress āonlyā have like a 93% positive feedback. Of course Linsoul with its restocking fee and the āif the parcel went missing we only pay 50% backā is kind of a shady place too.
Wished I would have bought on hifigo when they were available. Never bought there but at least they donāt have those risky terms like Linsoul.
Update: After finding out that the price showed on Aliexpress will be reduced due to the german VAT system ( Below 150ā¬ the seller has to declare and pay tax, above 150ā¬ its the buyers job) from 450ā¬ to 360ā¬ I canceled on Linsoul because there I paid the full price (450ā¬) directly, with no official guarantee that the german custom wonāt collect more taxes from me, and bought at āelectricxiaomi storeā too ( code 11NOV27 worked for me, 27$ discount). Just hoping they really have them in stock.
Did you get a special discount from the seller? It should be 30USD. Then use the 30USD coupon code you can find in the page posted by ācrawā (you insert the code at checkout).
I ordered from electricxiaomi store, but they have not shipped them yet. While chatting they told me they have them in stock, but who knows whether thatās true. I think at AliExpress too are running out of units.
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Just the one review I could find on AliExpress so far. Nice to hear he doesnāt want to EQ. I normally donāt, and I surely havenāt, the XS.
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Had to register to chip in on my experience with Ali to help others decide if itās worth a shot.
For some reason electricxiaomi doesnāt deliver to California (or US at all?), so I went with GZZB store and expedited shipping for $12. Overall, I paid $480 (incl. $43 tax).
Order was placed on Nov 15th, and according to USPS will be delivered tomorrow-ish (Dec 1st). So it should take roughly 2 weeks, but given they shipped headset late due to BF madness, it might be even faster for others. Iāll try to share more information once I receive the unit.
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Welcome! Dump your impressions here when you get them!
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Hifigo has more in stock. In case anyone was waiting on them. I asked them to let me know when they got more and they just emailed me saying they have a few, but I got mine from Linsoul already.
This is my first pair of headphones of this caliber and Iām more of an average music enjoyer than audiophile, so I donāt have much to compare them to. Iām pretty happy running them off a Qudelix with a balanced cable though.
Thanks for the early impressions, especially Pokrog, that convinced me to pull the trigger on them. I was about to buy a Sundara or 6xx a month ago but decided to hold off for reviews when I saw this one announced.
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Sounds good.
You most definitely did the right thing. I donāt think the 6XX competes here - I have the 400is, and that sounds like it has quite a higher resolution than the 6XX - the 6XX, I know, is a very well talked about can, and I do keep it for its ālegacyā, but I find it least impressive overall in my collection. And it is very veiled, and the EMU Teak sounds much higher res than the 6XX definitely (sounded like a radio or a tunnel to me one time when I was A/Bāing), and the Focal - well, that def is a profound upgrade over the 6XX, so you can understand the gaps here - I donāt talk about the 6XX much cuz people usually donāt want to hear it. They will go on about amps and tubes and whatnot, but I donāt think that headphone competes in the current market. Mids - yeah, that may be. But missing a lot for me in the upper spectrum - and Iām not even talking about bright - I donāt like Beyers. I hate sibilant cans. The 6XX is fine at $200 but it canāt compete with these new alternatives, so definitely gets defeated by ~$500 cans. So if one skips it, thatās perfectly fine.
As for the Sundara - this is definitely better.
And I know, may sound cheesy, I know - I knowā¦ but besides maybe the dynamics on the Focal Elexās, these are the only comparable cans to it. I do believe the XS is on that level as far as presentation is concerned - that speaker like presentation. It wins in soundstage, it has similarly good imaging, it has that similar, though a planar (still good, and quite flat down) low end for an open back of this kind (which is usually tough to achieve), it has the remnant sound of the Edition X (going from memory here), it is comfortable - feel to me more than the Elex, that one feels a bit heavier sometimesā¦
So if I were to just float the idea that the XS, for me, is a planar Elexā¦ Iād say - well done!
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