HiFiMan Susvara - Summit-Fi Headphone Review 

Tried all 3 (sus, utopia, lcd5) the susvara is just better. Utopia has great sound tho. Lcd5 SHIT comfort. Good sound.

agreed, Ive had a bunch of amazing headphones and I think the mysphere 3.2 is my favorite.

I disagree wholeheartedly

I don't notice that, no. It's difficult to put into words how many 'problems' Susvara has managed to solve.

Watch Passion for Sound's Lachlan talk about the electronics of the Susvara. He pretty comprehensively tests the appetite and performance of the Susvara with respect to the "speaker amp" myth. He substantiates that while they're uniquely insensitive, the variations in performance between amps has mostly to do with how bloody REVEALING the Susvaras are. Electrically, they follow the math of power, current, and decibels. I drive them well off the balanced outputs of the Bryston BHA-1, which is a beautifully designed and over-engineered amp... and tops out a little over a watt. But it is a dual-mono design with a very high slew rate, which can deliver four times its power into a balanced load no matter how demanding the transients and dynamics, and never clips; This amp makes it sound GREAT, but it thins out prior to a satisfying volume level. The ten watt Burson Soloist drives it fantastically, with no upper limit and full juiciness.... but is a touch aggressive and not as texturally real as the Bryston is within its sweet spot, to my ears. The high-output 300B Woo WA5-LE puts out twice what the Bryston does, roughly, and can drive the Susvara to dangerous levels without any wheezing, clipping, or other complaining. And it is friggin' gorgeous. There are also advantages to an amp built for headphones, given that headphones at this level are brutally revealing in the absence of big speakers in a room, even without the bodily pleasures of SPL and vibrating bones. The less the amp is built to feed a beast of prey, and the more pristine signal (=music) it gets out of just a few watts, the better the pairing. A 3 - 12 watt (the Holo Bliss, designed to be the perfect mate to the Susvara is reported to be 12) watt dedicated design has fewer challenges in the way of being a straight-wire-with-gain. You might find some technical weakness in Lachlan's review. I didn't. And I have a nice cross section of good to great amps here, and I know what the Susvara can do with a high-powered headphone amp with no more power than it would take to drive an ultra-sensitive horn speaker. If you find something that makes "it needs a speaker amp" more than Susvara urban legend, share it - I'm not being sarcastic at all. I've been pleased the last few weeks to hear what a few headphone amps could actually do with it. The Susvara IS a level and a half above the Utopia '22 in transparency and sheer detail (like the ability to hear a touch of reverb on sibilance, or a tiny brush of a standup bass against a music stand - as well as little details of the instruments themselves). It is a bit more resolving than the dangerous Abyss 1266TC, but with a richer, more realistic timbral and harmonic capacity. Its just faster and more complete than any Audeze I've heard (which doesn't include the CRBN). It is a huge achievement, in short. some people don't care so much about the micro-details. Its not a preference I choose; I find this absolute purity and clarity-without-glare to be the most emotionally satisfying. And there are many headphone amps which can actually feed it. I think. Tell me if I'm missing something.

@@mortcola there is a lot to unpack here, First of all bliss will be arriving shortly, and CRB N is already on the desk utopia will be the next release, so keep an eye out for that When we are talking about SUS and powering it with speaker amplifiers, we are not talking about getting the headphones loud, you can get SUS loud with a topping 890 I think you need roughly 0.75 W to get freaking loud. But getting loud, where, which part of the frequency response, what happens to the other frequencies, when that point peaks? We find most of the time the treble region increases in volume leading the rest of the frequency response behind such as the subbase and mid Base. SUS has a sensitivity of 83 dB, we’ve got to take into account a song is not a singular tone a song is complex and that amplifier and the power supply need to hit each one of those frequencies simultaneously And this is where headroom is necessary, and in most situations, most amplifiers crap themselves when it comes to SUS Also, I urge you to take every reviewers perspective with a pinch of salt, including my own, take into consideration what equipment they have on the desk, and make sure what they’re saying, they have actually actively tested in the real world with equipment on their desk, I tell you monobloc benchmark with SUS is the most authoritative best performance, I have gotten out of it, compared to everything else because it’s on my desk I have been putting this unit through its paces over the last 18 months with as many amplifiers and DAC as the channel gets, a comprehensive review will be arriving shortly

@@mortcola 3) Power output is almost always tested at 1khz. And the power output of an amp may differ at other frequencies, particularly in the lower frequency range. You might have slightly to substantially less power at say 40hz than you do at 1khz. The power spec won't tell you. Same could be true for high frequencies. There's been a couple amps I've tested that had pretty much even performance across the FR at lower levels but then either high or low freqs started suffering at higher levels 4) The spectra of music isn't flat either. Again, headphone sensitivity is tested at 1khz. And so to get the 1khz content to say 90dB might be fine on a given amp. But if you look at the spectra of nearly any song you'll see that lower frequency content is typically 10-30dB higher than stuff at 1khz and above. So even if the mids/treble are loud and sound fine, low-end will almost always be the first thing to suffer. This is why the biggest improvement you hear people talking about when they put susvara or HE6 (or even other planars) on an 'overpowered' amp is that the bass gets so much more controlled and overall better.

@@ConvinceMeAudio Dunno if you know.... I ordered my bliss, it is on the Kitsune site as of two days ago! And I have my Utopia '22. It was a good week. Musically it is a great week. Financially....well, no pain, no... TOTL audio! Bliss will be here physically in a few weeks. The reviewer grain of salt is very right. Passion for Sound's Lachlan, along with Currawong, are consistent references for me. I don't agree with them, and don't need to, but I know how to translate their responses to my own, and they do their homework... and as far as my knowledge goes, they know their technicalities and seems o have very good ears. I'm just getting to know Mr. Wave Theory - enjoying so far. You clarify in electrical terms something I try to argue: real music is a very different challenge from normal testing parameters, and once the design and build are taken care of, the measuring device I care about is my ear-brain. A Bryston designer, and the CEO, both explained to me why, electrically, their design MIGHT handle the Susvara better than the nominal numbers would suggest, because of particular design features. And, in fact, the under-powered Bryston drives them better in every respect than two different "powerful enough" amps. Most amps at that level wouldn't, I bet. I would love to hear/read what you review. Seems Passion for Sound's Lachlan knows his electronics quite well. But I know electrical and electronic engineering least well of most subjects. And I thank you for your answer and info. I've read about the Benchmark, as the benchmark against which other Susvara-ready amps are measured. Bliss is designed by someone very good at what he does. The May KTE is an extraordinary DAC - can't wait to hear what he can do with a bespoke amp. Will you be reviewing it, do you think? So, thank you for this. A few thinky-thoughts: For more objectivist folks, it is very hard to avoid treating post-hoc mathematical confirmation of "accuracy" (as in, what a consumer does rather than what the designer intentionally and or unintentionally did in the creation of the device) as a a transfer of authority from human listening and emotional experience to infinitely cruder measurement parameters - or to a lethal "scientific" cognitive bias that the consumer-listener IS the flaw in the chain, since we can be "fooled", and not realize that the math tells the truth. My ear-brain has a lot more work and time invested in it than any 21st century machine. I hear the way I do because it is my nature to. I like a frequency signature because it suits my highly but imperfectly evolved nature. I can do the philosophy, but that's also beside the point. I have a philosophy degree, which teaches me how limited philosophy is as well.... and the philosophy of music tells me a bit about why my listening and emotional response are paramount. Do the engineering, yes! Understand the principles, design better. But few if any "bad" designs will sustain their shiny reputation, unless they fit a set of human priorities. Tube 2nd harmonic "distortion"? Well, I like a slightly live room for playing and for listening to in-room hi-fi. My mom's voice is right in that midrange, and we're built to hear with greatest acuity and emotional "meaning" there. Flat might reflect a "neutral" design.... but music and listener aren't neutral, and don't have to strive to be. No, a device "should" - not - prioritize flatness. Some people will like the sheer objectivity, or some facsimile of it, for listening or mixing/mastering reasons. But music IS distortion. It is turbulence, communication, it sings and screams and insists, it follows the contour of the emotional life. I let the designer figure that out. I listen and decide what pleases me. Then I'll read and learn the engineering stuff, because I like to understand. But first.... music, feel-thinking it with my flesh. No yummy numbers until I'm done. And no measurements can take priority over my listening. Its not possible. My flesh and emotions and psychoacoustics are not flaws, and they are not flawed. They ARE my musical nature.

@@ConvinceMeAudio I have the goal of understanding the science better, now that I've gotten a few life goals taken care of. And to play Chopin and jazz competnently. Given what you've explained, what do you think of how a lower-powered amp like the Bryston might do a better job than its specs would indicate? No problem if you don't wanna explain more. But I'm curious to know more.

I have heard claims they are different as well. My current Susvara is a 3.5mm. There was a year in between hearing the 2 versions so I cannot confidently speak to differences. I will say the 3.5mm version still sounds fantastic and is still my personal favorite.

@Reviews By WaveTheory awesome thanks so much!

stay tuned...

@@wavetheorysound Hehe. How about a little preview, like you did with the Abyss in this video? :)

The utopia and he1kse are more fun! The Susvara is boring. Too much sharp edges, and too soft hitting imo. I had the Susvara twice.

@@bunozen1Hehe, thanks for that. :) I suspected this could be the case. I am actually saying goodbye to my Utopias now; so far the HEKse is the closest to my dream headphone that I have experienced.

I’d like to know how the HEKse compares when using the AutoEQ settings for it. I believe those settings make it sound more natural.

Fortunately, I know how to swim ;p. Ironically, my wallet is also very light and floats a little too much too...

@@wavetheorysound ha i know of this problem

susvara sounds pretty different than all other hifimans in my opinion

I can agree to an extent. Cheaper HiFiMans can be harsh and sharp in the treble and create that metallic sound you speak of. Sus is very smooth and tonally balanced up top. ZMF doesn't bring the resolving power to catch it on overall realism, but they do a great job on midrange timbre.

U will need to give it a listen ;-)