The extended guitar section by Don Felder and Joe Walsh was simply marvelous. It was bright yet not fatiguing and as clean as I have ever heard it. The auxiliary instruments all sounded like they surrounded the guitars and built upon each other. One thing I noticed was that the Sundara struggled to fully give the spotlight to the guitars and instead had many of the other instruments encroaching in with similar loudness and impact.

Hifiman Sundara 2021 Planar Magnetic Open Back Headphones Hifiman Sundara 2021 Planar Magnetic Open Back Headphones

Ground-Zero’s Consume-Red, for example, ends in a nearly 30-minute assault of constant cymbal crashes. Heard through the Sundara, these cymbal crashes are quite bright, and also clearly hazy and blurred-together. Detail in the treble becomes hard to make out because of the ringing here. To get the ruff out first, the lower bass response needs some assistance to be up to my taste since it seems almost absent until you use some equalization and turn those frequencies below 50Hz up at least by 5 decibels. As you have tested both Vali and Sundara, do you think that Sundara would be a nice complement to the Vali ? Or the Vali is superior and the Sundara would not bring anything ?

What Is The Pitch?

This is part two of review series where I will look at the HiFiMan HE400se, Sundara, and Ananda. Stay tuned for the final installment with the Ananda! The Sundara is reputed to be a relatively stylish headphone, and I do like the way the earcups look. They’re very nice and circular, and the minimalist design hits all the right cues – it’s perhaps a bit less special than something like Audio-Technica’s Air Dynamic series, but it certainly looks relatively nice.

HiFiMAN SUNDARA Over-ear Full-size Planar Magnetic Headphones HiFiMAN SUNDARA Over-ear Full-size Planar Magnetic Headphones

There’s a visible perforated plate or phase plug in front of the driver diaphragm so it’s not a completely open driver which outputs directly to the ear, it’s closer in appearance to a T50rp driver. It seems to be the only driver within the HIFIMAN lineup that employs some sort of phase plate or that I can recall. There is a bit of shortfall around 2 kHz as well which I tend to like! No, it is not good that way but it means that once I compensate for it, it should open the sound more. As part of that neutral bright tuning, there is a good helping of lower treble energy on the Sundara. Yes, it does get sibilant at times and yes, certain notes have a piercing quality to them. But note that this is different from the 7 kHz peak on the HE400se that’s clearly prevalent. On the Sundara, it’s a general spiciness without a specific culprit. I personally don’t think this is an issue but if you’re especially sensitive to treble it is a point of caution. While I like the Sundara’s treble as it continues the lively, energetic sound of the mids, there is a brittleness the timbre that’s noticeable on the hats and cymbals. It can be a little immersion ruining when it appears. Not a deal breaker for the Sundara as a whole but it does diminish the experience for me. PresentationMy experience has always been with wireless over-the-ear headphones( Sennheiser PXC 550-II, Sony WH-1000XM3, Bose SoundLink—the Sennheiser’s are for me the clear winner of these threeby the way). I had no need for wired headphones and the amp to drive them. I’ve had wireless headphones exclusively—some Apple AirPods Pro earphones as well because they are just so practical. This should, to hear Hifiman tell it, allow the drivers to “ produce tremendously low distortion levels yet offer a highly dynamic response.” The distortion levels of the Sundara are indeed relatively low. It boasts the typical low impedance and low-ish sensitivity of a planar headphone, meaning it won’t be the easiest to drive, but more on that later. But, although the Sundaras are scalable, they really do sound remarkably pleasant even when under power. If I plug my K712s into my phone, they sound weak and thin and unpleasant. Recently, I tried running the Hifiman HE-5SE off my phone, and it sounded like dog crap. The Sundara, on the other hand, maintains its soundstage and its general majesty driven by my phone, even if I have to have my volume almost at max to get there.

Hifiman Sundara - A Breath of Cool Air - Headphonesty Review: Hifiman Sundara - A Breath of Cool Air - Headphonesty

PS:- Now I am looking for a case for this one, along with the headset and mic combo i talked about above. Included in the box was also a HIFIMAN Owner’s Guide for the Sundara specifically. Most people gloss over these as who needs instructions listening to a headphone? I strongly suggest you don’t as this guide contains a complete overview of HIFIMAN ’s methodology, a message from Dr. Fang Bian, a run down of the technology used on the Sundara, and recommended usage and care.I took a peek inside the cups and there is little damping material inside the cup and there’s a minimum amount of tuning inside the cup but the driver itself seems to have some visible tuning tweaks. For example, the driver itself looks to be a never before seen driver design, different from all the other drivers within the HIFIMAN lineup. The driver is not a round type and it seems to be oval and around 80mm x 60mm in diameter or at least the frame does. Also, instead of the driver being installed vertically, it’s mounted horizontally. The sound signature of the Sundara can best be described as clear with a wide soundstage, solid bass response and extension while still fun enough to be non fatiguing. It’s not only a balanced signature on all frequency ranges but also dynamic enough to sound good with close to any genre. There’s also a nice peak in the upper mids which adds a sparkle onto most string instruments.