Susvara Unveiled

"Endgame" can exist for some people, but there is no "endgame" that works for everyone. Headphones do get "better" as you work your way to about $1500-2000. Not that price is proxy for quality, but in the offerings up to that price point, there is a lot of room for very noticeable steps up in technicalities. Beyond that price point, headphones become more about what fits your tastes, your music and your particular ears. Picking high-end headphones is a very different game and process than when you were moving from $200 to $500 to $1000 headphones. A lot of headphones guys do not just have one high-end headphone, but different ones for different purposes. Beyond a certain price point, you are paying a lot more money on smaller improvements in technicalities. It gets harder to hear "wow!" factor, and you realize chasing that "wow" factor can mean looking at headphones that cost 3x, 4x or even 5x more. Different people can find the same set of headphones too bright or perfect in the treble, depending on what their ears are sensitive to. You can be at CanJam listening to the same $5000+ headphones with a friend, and each of you can have wildly different ideas about whether you like or dislike that headphone. I spent time at CanJam comparing a Susvara Unveiled against Raal 1995 Immanis on the same gear, and all of my notes are not about better or worse, but about how differently they do things.

Best listened to: Susvara Unveiled on a well setup DIY Aegis Best owned: Meze Empyrean OG, it does something special in terms of staging which resembles speaker setups. Could use more technical performance. Recently sold them to fund a set of ZMF Ori 3.0’s

Honestly, it sounds outrageous and it is, but most high end (summit fi) headphone setups will be north of 30k. Something like a lampizator dac, and amps and sound amp and a 1266/immanis/susvara unveiled is gonna be well over 40k. Or shangrila sr+ Energizer, he1 system, or Warwick aperio gse system are 3 high end electro stats systems that will be easily in the tens of thousands of dollars.   Can you get like 85-90% of the performance for 5-10k? Absolutely 

Susvara Unveiled my love, bested by the OG in all of these. I thought the unveiled was better in every way to my ears.

Caldera Closed and Susvara are the perfect complimentary pair to me.

I'm a sucker for the HiFiMan house sound as well man, started with the Ananda stealth then got a pair of HE1000 Stealth and a Serenade to pair it with and let me tell you butter would melt from that R2R ladder DAC/Planar driver combo (literally with the heat that thing radiates). I did however get to try the Susvara unveiled at Bristol Hifi for like 10 minutes and my god it annoyed me how flawless it made everything sound; just take the HE1000s (and a kidney of your choice to pay for it) and make it sound effortless. It was just so good. I've also been eyeing that new arya wireless with an itchy trigger finger but I'll reserve judgment for when the price inevitably comes down. The less said about the bad trip they called 'audivina' however, the better.

I tried both but settled on Arya Stealth because the HE1000 Stealth was too bright for me. In gaming the explosions would sound piercing to my ears. I think Arya Stealth is the max brightness I can take. Even though graphs may not show the real difference, it was definitely not worth it FOR ME. The very minor detail retrieval was muddied by the piercing sounds that caused me ear pain. On Arya Stealth I do not need to EQ anything and run them stock with the following enhancements: \- K13 R2R - provides full details but tames ever so slightly treble compared to delta sigma DACs \- Dekoni Elite Velour pads - tames treble and adds better bass and mids definition that helps with treble I even tried both of those enhancements to HE1000 Stealth to no avail and sent them back. Was a bit disappointed as many people told me I would get bigger soundstage or higher detail retrieval but for my ears it backfired. I could not perceive the bigger soundstage and details were exactly the same to my ears. To answer your original question - Arya Stealth is absolutely the best headphone I have used for gaming (both SP and MP). I have had it for now 4-5 months and am super pleased by it after trying over 100+ headphones. I usually play COD BO7 and BF6 with it. Hope this helps. YMMV. P.S. I am 2-4K and 8-10K treble sensitive.

You can do a frequency sweep - it will be from 20 Hz to 20 KHz and figure out if you wince/or it pinches you at a specific spot. Even if it doesn't my limited learning has to be that I need to try it out in a specific circumstance. For example, I need the grenades to be going off repeatedly in Nuketown to wince at HE1000 Stealth. Other options is usually female vocals. I A/B tested Arya Stealth and HE1000 Stealth and for example in a song by Selena Gomez she was saying TRUSSSS ME on HE1000 Stealth and TRUST ME on Arya Stealth. That meant that to my ears it was sibilant and I could not hear certain consonants in that song (it sounded wrong to me). As I said, everyone is different so I am sure there are thousands who don't have this issue but among Hifiman planars, I can only use possibly Edition XV (I own it), Arya Stealth (I own it), Arya Unveiled (I want to own it) and Susvara/Susvara Unveiled. All other stuff I tried like Arya Organic, HE1000 Stealth, HE1000 SE, HE1000 Unveiled, all the Ananda line and Edition XS are too bright for my ears. They actually hurt me so I can't really use 'em. :D.

Went to an audio store to try out the 3 planars that I short listed after lots of trial and error. Tried everything from ZMF cans to Meze to Fostex and beyond. Ended up with head to head of LCD-X vs Arya Unveiled vs HE1000 Unveiled LCD-X Pros \- Great impactful bass (reminds me of my Audeze Maxwell 2 post EQ) \- Surprisingly vocals didn’t feel as recessed as FR would have you believe \- Sparkle up top \- Good low end, never felt muddy or boomy \- Planar that felt it was in between Planar and Dynamics \- Organic sound with body Cons \- Those 612 g destroyed my neck within half hour. And I already daily an Audeze Maxwell 2 which is 560 g almost \- Pads got hot \- Can be shouty for some higher pitched vocals \- Layering and separation was less than what I expected; I felt Audeze Maxwell 2 does it better \- Small soundstage Arya Unveiled Pros \- Amazing organic smooth sound \- Great warm vocals \- Beautiful timbre \- Bass is clean and fast \- Top end is fantastic and never fatiguing \- No comfort issues Cons \- Some tracks can get shouty \- Soundstage smaller than HE1000 Unveiled \- Piano black plastic \- Exposed driver (though not bad like Susvara Unveiled) HE1000 Unveiled Pros \- Amazing organic smooth sound \- Most resolving and (hot take) felt even better than Susvara to my ears \- Best timbre \- Vocals are lush and smooth \- Holographic stage \- Best imaging I have heard \- No comfort issues \- Mid was never shouty \- Top end is ethereal Cons \- Exposed driver \- Bass impact was slightly lower than Arya Unveiled (might be source also as it was Astell & Kern DAP) \- Price At the end of the day, I wish someone would make a can with bass of LCD-X, weight of Unveiled, price of Arya Unveiled, Mids and top end of HE1000 Unveiled and resolution of HE1000 Unveiled. Here are some pictures of the planar wars.

I am a big soundstage guy with over emphasis on instrument separation. Once you hear that aspect, you realize that Susvara (OG) lacks a bit in that area. Soundstage is a bit underwhelming plus the separation and layering can be a bit in the center (or on top of each other making it hard to distinguish making it a bit less resolving to my ears). The Susvara Unveiled and HE1000 Unveiled I find very very close with maybe a limited advantage to Susvara Unveiled in resolution. But honestly for 1/4th the price, I can only afford HE1000 Unveiled. lol. P.S. I am not an audiophile so I maybe misusing some terms here.

Too many people think the he1000 unv sounds to same or better than sus. For me sus has 1 step higher realism, the he1000 is the most natural sounding he1000 but it has an ever slight artificialness to the sound. Would be interested in what you think of the sus unv.