HIFIMAN ANANDA Over-Ear Open-back Planar Magnetic Headphones, wired-Black

Product Information

Having used the Edition XS daily for a year, I’ve had ample opportunity to experience a variety of equipment alongside it.

If you listen a lot to atmospheric music, or if you like your music wide and airy, Ananda is the way to go, while if you enjoy your music more impactful and direct, more raw and more punchy, then CZ-10 would be the natural option here.One last note on the final mark: it is higher than that of the Ananda simply because these are Bluetooth headphones and I need to take that into consideration. Alas, many compromises were made in execution of this headphone causing roughness in frequency response in addition to macro tonality issues.

See, when rating the build of a headphone, we have to have the engineering process and the overall construction in mind as well. Before talking about music listening, let me comment on how loud and piercing the frequency response sweeps were. This continues to 3 kHz then we are OK until we notice the peaks exceeding our preference curve starting at 8 kHz or so.In the case of the Arya, the cable is fabric covered rather than the silicone tube style cables included with the other two, although the Arya only includes 1 cable instead of 2 with both the Ananda and HE1000se. This headphone is relatively easy going, i think what it excels the most at is being quite detailed and fast without getting fatiguing or too analytical (unlike HD800). The portion that comes into contact with your skin is perforated polyester, effectively mitigating any sweat-related discomfort.