Yeah something like a zen DAC. Bass boost goes with hifiman in general pretty well.
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My XS came in today.
Itās great, but I need some FR graphs or some AutoEQ to get the EQ right. Iām not quite as dialed in with this as I am with my HE6se V2.
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Yeah I thought the Bass boost with the Sundaras went perfectly and completely compensated for the purported ālack of bassā people complain about in the Sundara
purported? Get a FR map. It tries to use middle and upper bass to fill in the missing bass. 4XX does about the same.
Donāt know about the XS, but for real bass HFM 6se v2 is your best new can bet,
Hello all, I have been a longtime lurker here, but never posted anything. Following this thread to support the blind buy helped me a lot, so I feel like contributing. Bear in mind this is much more of a initial impressions than a review.
Mine have arrived today, and they look gorgeous:
My initial amazement was with the driver size and how they felt on the head, it seems like Iām wearing a helmet over my ears, and yet I have 100% transparency, so they are very very open, much more than the 6XX and MUCH more than my DT 880s.
With sound, that amazement persists with soundstage and imaging, as it is big and wide, definitely due in part to their open design.
They sure are detail monsters, and can be too much for my 6XX accustomed ears at times. Everything is bigger and wider, finesse and sparkle is show much more clearly, SEPARATION and IMAGING being the big words here. I put on the new Let it Be remix from the Beatles and felt like that there was a concert playing around me.
Bass is linear, but too linear for my liking, thatās where EQing comes in though. Shelving them produced a very neat result, although different from the pillowy effect I had with the 880 and the 6xx. I donāt dislike neither the pillow nor the planar sound, they are just different. With my dynamics I feel the slam much more than with the XS, where I feel the actual rumble of the headphones. It can be called a slight resonance, maybe, and I suspect this after seeing CSD graphs of the other headphones, but they are not audibly bad (I canāt say for distortion though). I have pad swapped my DT880 with brainwavz XLs and those resonate like crazy and are terrible.
Mids are indeed the weakest link of this headphone. I havenāt listened to Hifimans in person before, and I see that their reputation precedes them: mids are thin although detailed. Coming from the linear mids of the 880 and the vocal richness of the 6XX I was a bit disappointed, but not much, as I had been warned. If you are used to less substantial mids like with the Sennheisers, the mids here wonāt be much of a problem. For me they need further tweaking, so I added some gain between 1500-2250 (low Q and mid-high Q, respectively) and the effect was very good. They approach my sennheisers more now, sounding more āveiledā but yet tonally correct for my ears.
Highs are the high point here. As said, these are VERY detailed, and that is unfortunately noticed, for my treble sensitive ears, with some sibilance and quirkness over 10khz. Dialing this down was easy though.
Here is the EQ profile Iām using as of the moment, while no FR graphs are out yet (pre-amp is just very aggressive anti-clipping safekeeping, I power these from my L30 and they are very efficient):
Overall they are a good pair of headphones. It is to soon, and Iām to skeptical and ASRbrained, to call them more resolute, transparent, fast etc, than my mid-fi cans, and a very neat experience when considering the difference in technology and driver size, and a superb pair if you donāt mind EQing.
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I was to put some energy to find a used pair of Edition X V2, then I found this threadā¦
The XS seems interesting, but since I listen to a lot of jazz and vocal-oriented genres, mids naturalness and timbre is quite important to me. Some owners are reported that the midrange is the weakest part of the XS tuningā¦
I owned the Arya (V1) and loved their insane presentation (staging, separation, etc.), but found the mids a tad bit dry and the treble a bit thin and sharp up top. I also owned the Sundara and Iāve not been impressed much (they have great dynamics for the price, but I miss the presence and the presentation of the Arya and the fit was horrible for me). Not a fan of the Ananda either (missing some bass punch, a bit lean and boring overall to my ears). So Iām thinking that the HEX V2 is probably more in-line with my likings (more natural mids, more balanced overall tuning, maybe a little laidback)ā¦
So, is there a problem with the XS mids?
In terms of what Iām looking for, should I try the XS or simply go for the HEX V2?
The mids arenāt bad, they just feel a bit too thin IMO for female vocals. With Jazz and classical I actually preferred the stock mids on some tracks to my EQ because they are cleaner and feel more detailed. Itās personal preference really.
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The timbre is something that I really think is done very well with the XS and is much more natural than all but a couple hifimans. If youāve heard hifiman mids you should know what to expect. I personally donāt find a problem with them but I also think theyāre done better than the HEXv2. Highs are more relaxed than the Arya which is nice, IMO, because the Arya was a bit sibilant. Bass has fantastic extension, well controlled and very capable of decent amounts of sub bass rumble. Stage handling on the XS is phenomenal and completely outclasses the HEXv2 and is more linear and natural without being overblown like the Arya while being really close to the Arya size.
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Yes I also like the timbre very much on these. Itās almost as good as my EMU Teaks, if not better, and those bio-cellies have a very nice, natural, organic timbre.
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Oh, in my case i placed an order at GZZB shop on Aliexpress on 3rd of December, on 6th they created track number, but still not shipped the order, The status is: āPending shipping by the sellerā, is this ok? Iām just need to wait?
I donāt think should be a problem - I had some delay with my SH-9 with ShenzenAudioās official AE store (back in May - it took itās time but I got it eventually). Maybe it may take longer than usual, with Christmas and holidays coming up, I do see some other stuff sellers offline also, I think things may generally be slow with AE right now.
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It is very much the same for me with electricxiaomi: ordered on Nov 27, then on the 30th I got the tracking number but no real movement of the package for a week. Today I got a new tracking number, still no real updates though. It looks sketchy but it seems thatās how it works with AliExpressā¦
This situation sounds bad, 10 days without real movement, you can open dispute and return this money, but it will cost you 5-10 days more for dispute and money return, BUT: im in the same boat with you, i donāt need this money, i want hifiman edition xs! Please let me know is things will change or you decide to get your money backā¦ Maybe this is new scam scheme, they wil take a lot of money - and run awayā¦ How long are you going to wait? Maybe better to return our money, and reorder them in hifi go, but money return on this step is already problematicā¦
Sad to say im lately started to read feedback, there is some that sounds not good, similar to this our situation, but with another headphones. In general feedbacks are 5 stars, but there are small amount of feedbacks like out situation. I hope he will send the correct headphonesā¦ I agree to wait, but just want to know, they donāt fool me.
Well, i will wait, i have no other options, order already placed, i will wait.
Well, to open a dispute one has to wait 10 days after the reported shipment, so eventually it will be possible for me only after a couple of more days. That being said, people in this thread have been reporting their experiences with Aliexpress and they got their headphones, so for the time being I am willing to wait at least another week moreā¦ Hopefully we just need to be a little patient!
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Absolutely agree, i will wait for several weeks
My order from 25.11 started to move on 4.12 and today left China. Same story with new tracking
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My XS came in on Monday.
Ordered from Linsoul on November 12th.
By no means a detailed review, but some notes I took over the past 2 days.
Pros
soundstage
Instruments sound big while keeping vocals intimate
great bass texture
nice micro details
great Decay
Cons
Initially cymbals seem a bit harsh
-Completely resolved after a few hours of use
Initially imaging breaks up during busy sections of music
-Completely resolved after a few hours of use
Hard to get a good seal from the earpads in the front temple area
Iāve tested on:
BTR5(balanced cable)
xDuoo XD-05 plus
Asgard 3
They work fine on all, but more power definitely suits this cans better.
On the Asgard 3 I typically only need to put the volume up to 9 Oāclock to get my desired volume, but it still sounds much fuller than the portable amps, though the XD-5 plus is a fair compromise.
In short, these are some fantastic open back plannars. I wouldnāt be surprised if when they are officially sold in the US that the price will be higher.
Edit - Additional notes
The mids are not the best as others have noted. Especially if you just listened to a pair of 6xx, well anything after that has lacking mids.
I will say though that even for Jazz these can be great, especially stuff reordered by Rudy Van Gelder as he had some amazing mic placement that created great soundstage. So depending on what your coming from you loose a little in mids, but gain a decent amount in stage.
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Iāve learned to enjoy the mids after a while. Youāre also the first one Iāve seen noticing the cymbal pierceness beside myself. On my vinyl rig (no EQ) they are not bothersome at all on the LPs I tried, but do take some prominence. On tracks like Billie Jean though, they are almost unbearable IMO.
That said, my EQ after a day of listening is just a very basic shelf under 70hz and another, more aggressive one after 13khz. Those neuter most of the āproblemsā of these (I donāt consider the bass a problem, just preference).
Yea I donāt find the mids bad at all. They are good, just if theyāre compared to some others they lack a bit. But after all thats the ājoyā of audiophile gear. Many of it has its pros and cons and not a ājack of all tradesā. Did you find the cymbal harshness clear up after some use?
I didnāt try on my vinyl setup yet but plan to soon.
Can you share a screenshot of your EQ settings?