Is there any that does NOT exceed €1,500 that you prefer to the Arya Stealth, either because of its better tonality, its better technicalities, or both?
With this post I want to look for something more sonically interesting than the Arya SE, which I think lacks personality.
HE1K stealth takes an Arya and smooths things out a bit, pad swap them and even better.
I’ve had the Arya SE a few times, and currently have the HE6SE which definitely has the personality or musicality you’re looking for. The Arya SE is for critical listening, gaming, or production work (listening for the most minute detail) if you ask me. The bad news is to get the most out of the HE6se with an autoeq profile that does a -6.9db preamp reduction, you need to be packing major heat for an amplifier. On the Topping A90 it maxes out, and even my A70Pro with a 5 volt DAC will have -17db left at loud volume before equalizing.
They sound so good, it’s worth it if you have that kind of power to equalize them. Even for them and the A70Pro and an SMSL DL200 5 volt DAC you’d be in budget.
I really like the older models from Hifiman like HE-500 and HE6SE. The tuning on them is a lot better than the current line up of Hifiman for my tastes.
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