HiFiMANSUNDARA Closed-Back Over-Ear Planar Magnetic Wired Hi-Fi Headphones with Stealth Magnet Design, Detachable Cable, Wood Ear Cups for Home, Studio, Recording

I have a stereo which has the admiration of all who hear itTo add some head candy to make it worse, no thanks. These are pretty damn good 'phones.

I was quiet skeptical after reading all the reviews of these headphones.For £119 I thought it is a must try ... if no luck will be returned.I really wanted a good-sounding closed back for everyday use, which is comfortable to use for many hours of listening, gaming, video conferencing while having some isolation from home noises.First impression:Extremely comfortable, good weight/support balance. Breathing pads, with good seal even with thick plastic glass temples.Soundstage - exceptional for this price range. I just love it - being a huge soundstage fan.Treble - average, with good separation, noting exceptional.Mids - a bit muddy but actually fits well into the overall sound signature of thh headphones.Bass - very good, detailed and punchy, especially for planars.Overall - no fatigue for long time with a broad range of listening (movies, music (most genres (probably not for rock and vocals)).Compared to:Beyerdynamic DT770Pro 250ohm closed back. The HifiMan has more detailed treble and punchier bass. Equally comfortable. For the same price I would go with the HifiMan.Sony MDR-1AM2 closed back. Different league. The Sony is my travel companion, very versatile and VERY comfortable. Interestingly the overall sound signature of the HifiMan is so uniquely and well balanced that it is easy fall in love with. At home the HifiMan will have more head-on time.Monolith M1060C closed back. The HifiMan is way more comfortable. The Monolith is heavy and difficult to keep in place if I move my head around a bit. Also I had to modify it by replacing the internal foam inserts with wool which actually achieved similar sound signature that the HifiMan has out of the box. For almost third the price the HifiMan is probably better out of the box.

This is a preliminary review, and it should be noted that I haven't given these a massive amount of burn-in time yet. I would expect with more use that the sound should "fill out" a bit. Still, they've had about 10hrs so far, enough to form some first impressions.Build quality seems basically good, though my pair appear to suffer from "planar crinkle" in the lefthand driver if the ear cup is moved in and out around the ear - the suction seems to cause noise from the diaphragm. Doesn't seem to affect the sound as such. The wood cups are an interesting feature, the headband is pretty sturdy, the supplied cable connects via a pair of 3.5mm jack plugs and seems un-necessarily thick. There's no tactile indication of left/right, except for the earpads being thinner at the front and the cable plugs angling slightly forward. They're not easy to get the right way around in the dark, or if you're visually impaired. Similarly, the left/right indication on the two plugs at the headphone end of the split cable are almost indiscernible - very faintly moulded L and R.Physical sound isolation isn't all that good for closed cans, and they are large and fairly heavy, and don't fold down. But they are nonetheless very comfortable.Moving on to the sound, my expectations are set by competition from conventional dynamic headphones at a similar price. I paid around 120 pounds for the HiFiMAN SUNDARA closed-back, and I'm comparing them with both over-ear and on-ear Sennheiser Momentum II headphones. I paid around 170 for the over-ear Momentums, but they dropped to around 125 when discontinued. These Sundaras apparently originally had a MSP of around 300 and, had I paid that, then I have to say I would have been disappointed.Details of the way they sound to me are, obviously, subjective and personal. I've enjoyed the Momentums for years, and you get used to a particular presentation, and the way the headphones physically couple to your ears - which depends on the individual shape of your ear canal as well as the ear pad design etc. - is significant.The closed-back Sundaras are to me bright sounding, very crisp. The soundstage is better than expected for closed-back cans, albeit a bit imprecise. There's not much by way of extended bass, especially compared with the Sennheisers. And despite the extended bass response of the Sennheisers, to me, the Momentums also sound snappier/punchier in the bass.It might be a consequence of separating out the sounds pretty well (presumably because of planar diaphragm speed) but the sound of the Sundaras is slightly "hollowed out" seeming, to me. It's hard to pin down - everything is clear enough, but midrange and vocals lack emphasis, and to some extent realism. Maybe they are accurate and un-coloured, but I'm not at all certain thats the case. Bass stuff seems to lack detail, compared with the Sennheisers, and there's less of it. HiFiMAN claims a response down to 6Hz, but these are definitely not "bass monsters".To some extent the jury is still out, because as I mentioned, I haven't yet given the Sundaras time to burn in, but right now, while I think they're impressive for £120, I nonetheless still prefer my old Sennheisers.Note that I don't have the open-back Sundaras to compare, but other reviewers report that these closed back ones sound very different, have different drivers, etc. They are styled similarly, they're still planar magnetic, but they're not the same headphone with a closed back.Still, planar magnetic headphones for a small amount over a hundred quid, that's some kind of bargain I think. It's not like they sound *bad* - they're way better than most in this price bracket. However, my personal preference in modestly priced closed-back wired headphones remains my Sennheiser Momentums.[UPDATE] After many hours of burn-in (estimated over 100hrs) these started to fill out in the midrange, and they're now much more balanced. They're still not quite as involving as the Sennheisers (and don't have the (probably unrealistic) bass extension), but they have do a pleasantly transparent quality to them. The "planar crinkle" seems to have disappeared - it may be that as the ear cups have worn in, they don't make such an airtight seal. They're not wearying to listen to, and they remain super comfortable, if enormous. I'm still not convinced about the cable, and I'd prefer a single sided cable entry, but with 3.5mm jacks on the cans, the cable ought to be pretty easy to replace if necessary. Possibly with one that has a remote for devices.