Hifiman Edition XS

Picked up the Edition XS after the manufacturer lowered the price and… yeah, these absolutely slap. I had quite high expectations to begin with, but they were easily exceeded.Let's start with the most important aspect - the...View More sound. Tonality lands a bit on the bright/airy side - sparkly, clear, crisp. At the same time, there is absolutely no sibilance or harshness here, which I often struggle with in other "bright" headphones. I can easily listen to Edition XS for hours and not getView Less

Hi end headphones. A bit big for the average head size because of the ear pads size but, you can fit them well with some adjustment. Sound quality is top-notch, if you experiment a little bit with your device EQ you can achieve...View More the best sound experience you can have. It is my first Planar headphone pair, owning some Sennheisers like 6XX, Momentum 1,2,3, Heavys H1H, Bose QuietComfort, Philips Fidelio H2XR I can say the HiFiMan Edition XS is the best of them all. Using them with an OIDIO cable toView Less

Great headphones overall. I found both the sound quality and physical quality to be really good. Overall, these headphones have great balance, are neutral in nature, and sound very good as-is, but switch to greatness with a...View More little EQ (bring out the warmth and bass). If you’re looking for crazy bass, you’ll either need to EQ or look for a closed back mainstream headphone. I find the Edition XS to be neutral and more focused on the mid and upper mids. With a little EQ, they sounded very warm andView Less

The Edition XS are baby Arya Stealths; they have a lot of similar characteristics, but with a lot more tradeoffs (which you’d expect for a headphone that sells for less than half the price). They’re great for loud, complex songs...View More but struggle a little bit with quieter, more subtle tracks, where they give up some ground to the Sennheiser x Drop 6XX. They can be a tad bright, but my in my experience didn’t cross over into being harsh. Good, solid but impressive base, decent male vocals but maybe aView Less

Title is no exaggeration: At this price range ($270 at time of writing), the HIFIMAN Edition XS is the only headphone I’ve found that reaches true psychoacoustic transparency once EQ’d. Full extension down to 20hz, no major THD...View More problems, and no mechanical flaws subverting any EQ correction you want to throw at it. These drivers are fast and low-distortion, always. Soundstage is impressively wide and layered, imaging is precise, and sub-bass shelves can be applied cleanly with headroom to spare.View Less