Oh ok. My hifimans xs should arrive soon and maybe thats im too biased about them and i find ways why they are better than others. I did alot research and found they seemed best choice for under 500. However i missed the recess thing about them and now im second guessing. I have to try em myself, my old headphones are ath m50x so i do not know what to expect.

The k812 and HD800 were out my pricerange so i hope i got the next best thing. HD800 would be my dream headphones but they cost a fortune sadly

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It’s true that recessing in those regions does give a sense of increased distance of instruments. But to me, the K812, HD800 & 800s already do this to its maximum tolerable level. Hifiman’s range overdoes it in an attempt to maximize percieved soundstage width, and it comes of too contrived to me.

It’s also my biggest critique of the K812 & HD800 lines.

Happened on my Macbook Air while trying to stream High-Res Lossless via Apple Music. Had to select a lower quality stream until Apple fixed the problem

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/hifiman-edition-xs-launched.960155/page-59

Heres a guy who compares Aryas and XS and talks briefly about the recessing thing and says its improved on XS.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/hifiman-edition-xs.27903/page-20

Also here people talk about the same issue, but it does not seems as bad as you make out to be. It kind of increases soundstage at the expense of little recess. Im no expert tho

Seems like really minor thing and if you are no hardcore audiophile you get more out of Hifimans than everything else there is under 500 dollars. But that is my opinion.

And theres also wiring problems in k702, there loads of people complain about it. I wouldnt risk. And about the soundstage you are right, they seem slightly better at that.

The frequency dips exhibited across the hifiman range are located in two specific frequency bands, and those bands and several others are often the distinguishing factor between a professional or reference quality headphone, and one meant to maximize consumer enjoyment of poorly recorded music from the last or indie groups of the present.

Hifiman range house FR tendencies are not there to be neutral or fully exposing of everything there. They are made to make harsh recordings sound less harsh in the two frequency bands which a large segment of the population find irritating.

Problem is, when you listen to extremely well engineered well mixed great recordings, the vocals and upper midrange detail as well as percussion sparkle are very recessed in every hifiman headphone, it’s a conscious tuning choice the company has made to please a significant portion of sensitive lay consumers.

So for those who find many treble - rich headphones fatigueing or irritating, hifiman can be a good choice. But for those who want something more neutral and more honest, more revealing of every detail present, or those who need such detail to work properly, they are not the best choice.

I would also add that the XS soundstage is not superior at all to the AKG K6/7/8 series. The soundstage width does come very close though. But because of the tuning, they simply cannot match the upper mid fine detail and high end sparkle and overall FR honesty in the similar width space the XS can provide.

AKG’s k6/7/8 lines can do more detail and more sparkle and more revealing, accurate placement, in a giant Nearly 360’ space, as opposed to just a laterally wide space

I can't comment on the customer service issue you're experiencing, but they are legit.

I ordered the 5x models a few months ago, and they came pretty quickly.

Hmm.. Well you seem to know more than me. But after reading peoples feedback and rtings tech review then all seems to be fine. You got any source where theres issue on that particular frequency thing?

But still soundstage what you advertised on AKGs is alot better on Hifimans, maybe theres that frequency thing but overall Hifimans should be superior headphones in almost every aspect.

And suggesting headphones for your personal ears not thinking about wider audience is not a good look.

I ordered mine back in late July (traditional fit) and still waiting on a set that both works and fits. They were responsive to emails at first concerning getting scans but ran into issues sending my scans when my emails were going into their spam folder. Will be sure to post a full review of my experience once I get them. They're a 2 person operation so you'll get the product eventually, but I'm not sure it's been worth the wait.

I disagree. Hifiman’s entire range, while technically impressive in some aspects, all seem to have unnatural, recessed ranges in key frequency response zones, namely, from 1.5k-2k, and from 9k-10k. I am very very particular about these ranges, and especially avoid headphones without sufficient presence between 1k-3k.

I don’t dispute that the edition XS is impressive for its price in some regards, but it’s frequency response adjust has two glaring spots I could never tolerate, nor fix with EQ, without introducing other problems which would proclude them from being used in reference work and sound design work.

To be honest it looks more like an app issue.

ATH R70X

Thanks for the response, what bit-rate are you streaming at? When they announced lossless I switch to the highest possible so I have some suspicions that it could be that?

never happened to me

Oh wow no that has never happened to me and I love listening to Apple Music on my btr5, good luck! Most of my problems with the setup always lead back to Apple Music though. Like sometimes it pauses out of nowhere, sometimes it skips songs midway through, idk but that app has got issues.

Never said I knew it's better. If you read the rest of my comment you'd know I asked HOW exactly the 38x is better.

> That's odd. I find the TYGR to be extremely accurate in terms of imaging. Now I haven't tried the PC38X

If you haven't tried headphone PC38X, how do you know PC38X is not better (or worse) than TYGR 300R in directional imaging for gaming. Just because TYGR is sufficient, doesn't mean there is no other that is better.

Would HD800s also have a wide stage? So then Sundaras are narrow stage?

It's really down to personal preference. I use my K712's all the time with PC gaming, the imaging has been decent enough, but I like the wider sounds to sound a bit quieter and further away which they don't really do, unless I enable something like Dolby Atmos or even Windows Sonic.

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I would highly recommend you checking out the edition xs

Chill bruh

660s since the rest of the headphones are know for their tiny soundstages.

For gaming I would stick to the 560s.

Personally I find sound stage a little overrated for gaming. Having used the AKG K7XX for quite awhile I found using something with a wide sound stage to be too imprecise. I could tell general directions but, it seemed to make things like footsteps and gunshots sound farther away than they actually were. Imaging is probably more important for telling elevation and precise direction.

But, these days I use Sundaras for gaming because I just like them.