HIFIMAN SUNDARA Planar Magnetic Over Ear Hi-Fi Headphones

Solid metal construction that doesn't feel heavy and fits snug on my head even with glasses on. The earcups have a strange shape but it fits better than my previous cans " DT990 Pros, AKG K712-Pros " Soundstage for Music is fantastic.... Now it has reduced horizontal soundstage compared to my previous 2 cans but not by much.. However vertically it smashes both of my previous cans! Outstanding to tell you the truth.. Gaming is rather impressive and not only does it easily destroy my AKG 712 pros but it beats out the DT990 pros too which was somewhat surprising! Very pleasing as a gamer. Comfort is brilliant but not as good as AKG 712 pros. I used to be able to GAME all day long on my AKG cans if I wanted too and would get up and forget that they were on my head! Now these do feel great and are very comfortable but just not the best! But I can still game for 4+ hours before I feel like I HAVE to take them off! Probably would be better without glasses to be fair as I do feel that added pain right by my ears and not the headband area or squashing the head! I'd say yee without glasses would fair better here. I use an IFI Zen DAC V2 connected to my desktop computer with balanced cables and it does sound outstanding....Balanced cables did improve sound slightly but it isn't night and day as expected anyway. I also own a Creative G6 BlasterX DAC/AMP - Creative G1 BlasterX DAC/AMP - Creative Sound Blaster Z - Fiio - FIIO E07K DAC/AMP and my onboard Realtek 1200 chipset. IFI ZEN DAC V2 blows the rest of them out of the water.. pointless having anything else except for the IFI ZEN DAV V2. Creative have lost their identity.. soundstage for gaming was laughable...useless trash.....IFI just blew my mind.. shocking actually.. This is a great buy to be honest.... if you want something that sounds great for music, great for movies especially with Dolby Atmos and Netflix! and when it comes to gaming.. I was gobsmacked..very impressed with how they perform! Very wide soundstage and no need for virtual surround.. it just works right out of the box without the need for any of the fancy creative SBX controls..... finally after 15 years I don't use a creative sound card.....

There's nothing else quite like the HiFiMAN Sundara for £300 or less. Planar magnetic headphones are still a relatively rare choice of driver for headphones with only a few companies attempting to make them. HiFiMAN is not only unusual as a company for making planar headphones, it specialises in them. Planar magnetic headphones are essentially a thin sound producing diaphragm stuck between two rows of magnets. The diaphragm is suspended in the air between the two rows and produces sound from the fluctuations in the magnetic field as current is passed through the magnets. Planars specialise in reproducing fine detail from a recording for relatively little effort. At least, in theory. In practice, with a solid enough design, traditional dynamic driver headphones and planars can and do trade blows in fidelity on a regular basis. What is true for sure though is that planars have a totally different character to their sound than dynamic drivers - planars have a habit of throwing that fine detail they can retrieve in your face whether you're listening out for it or not. The Sundara model currently being sold on Amazon appears to be the July 2022 revision or newer. The Sundara was originally released in 2017 and has been modified several times since then, but this review will focus on the version I received. If you have an earlier version of the Sundara and want to update the headphone, all you need to do is replace the earpads with the latest revision as that is the only build change. The version I received came with the redesigned and much more modest cardboard boxes with foam inserts instead of the more elaborate display cases of earlier versions. The foam insert in the box includes a removeable piece that functions as a free headphone stand if that takes your fancy. It barely weighs anything so it's a little difficult to keep in one place on a desk. You also will receive a complementary dual 3.5mm to 3.5mm headphone cable and a 3.5mm to 6.5mm jack adapter. I had no problems with this cable, but this is easily replaced with aftermarket cables if it's not to your liking. The Sundara supports balanced audio input, and I recommend using it this way if you're able to do so. Unlike most of HiFiMAN's more expensive offerings, the Sundara uses their older round earcup design. It's quite snug on the ears and takes a little getting used to, but you should soon forget you have it on your head after a while. The headband is a simple metal band with a faux leather support band designed to even out the pressure on your head. In my experience this design is quite effective and comfortable, even if it feels a bit cheap. It's clear the budget is going mostly to the actual headphone drivers themselves, and I'm fine with this tradeoff. HiFiMAN has a house sound that all their headphones broadly adhere to like most headphone companies do. The sound signature is bright-leaning - the treble (3 - 10KHz) and air (10 - 20KHz) regions are emphasised slightly more than in a completely flat frequency response - and there is also a significant dip between 1000 and 3000Hz which further emphasises the treble and air regions. These regions contribute the most to a sense of detail and precision in what you hear, so this house sound is likely designed to highlight the planar's favourite party trick. Bass is audible but rolled-off - you can hear it all the way down to the lower audible limit of 20Hz but it's quieter than it should be in a flat response. If you are used to bassy headphones or a typically tuned car stereo, this will come as a shock at first, as this is the inverse tuning of what you're used to. Overall though, while there is light emphasis and de-emphasis in places, the sound signature is mostly neutral, not drawing specific attention to any region and giving every section of your music and audio equal attention in the presentation. As the cliché goes, you'll hear things in your music that were always there but that you never noticed before, over and over again. If you end up dissatisfied with the way they sound, they respond extremely well to EQ, so you can fill in and/or boost the bass and eliminate the 1-3KHz dip if you so wish. In other words, these are audiophile-grade reference tuned headphones with significantly better detail retrieval than the average. If you're unfamiliar with what makes a headphone or speaker audiophile-grade, it can be described as what was originally recorded and mastered is what you hear played back. If you're listening to a recording with a violin way off at the back of the room, an acoustic guitar right next to the recording mic and a cello slightly off to the side, on an audiophile headphone you will hear an acoustic guitar right in front of you, a violin that sounds very far away, and a cello slightly off to the side. This sense of a space instruments are playing in and how big it is is referred to as the soundstage and being able to precisely locate where the instruments are playing in the room is referred to as the imaging. If you wish to watch movies with surround sound or game on these headphones, the imaging and soundstage become much more important. Headphones can use binaural audio playback to mimic (or exceed!) surround sound in movies and games while still using a stereo signal. By audiophile headphone standards though, the Sundaras are nothing special in either imaging or soundstage. That is not to say they are bad - they will blow your socks off still if you're coming from mainstream audio but they do not particularly excel in either category - they are simply good enough for the job on both the vertical and horizontal axis, and that will probably be enough for most people. There is one caveat to this, however. You will probably get better imaging performance out of a HiFiMAN headphone at any price point if you feed it with a "dual-mono" source. This is a form of audio reproduction that keeps the left and right channels completely separate - the channels use separate amp circuits and never have any chance to mix by mistake at any point in the chain. If you do not do this, you may experience a "deadzone" of sorts in the centre image, where sound lightly panned less than ~15 degrees in either direction is artificially snapped to the centre channel at 0 degrees. This can subjectively make music sound more coherent in the centre but could be quite disorienting when gaming. The iFi Zen DAC v2 and the FiiO K7 are both dual-mono amps and you need to use the balanced 4.4mm connection on these amps to keep the channels truly separated, which will require a specialised aftermarket cable that you can find right here on Amazon. I said there's nothing else quite like the HiFiMAN Sundara for £300 or less. That's because there is no other headphone on the market that is this close to the complete package with the planar sound signature that doesn't cost more money. If you just want to buy one audiophile headphone and get it over and done with, this is the one to buy. If however you like the planar sound but want a headphone with exceptional soundstage and imaging, not merely adequate and dead-flat bass extension without the rolloff, consider extending your budget to £500 and looking at the HiFiMAN Edition XS.

First of I'm no audiophile and my hearing probably isn't brilliant but I can hear the detail of the music with these headphones. I work from home and had been listening to Tidal with a pair of closed back Sony bluetooth noice cancelling headphones or on my speakers. I use my laptop with Tidal and the hip dac. I struggled with I know it's gross but sweaty ears when using the closed back Sonys. I'd read reviews and researched these headphones. In my opinion they have a well balanced sound, not to bass heavy and the detail is fabulous. Lyrics I struggled to understand before I can now make out clearly. I listen to a lot of synth music and I find them great for this type of music. They sit on my head and ears so comfortably. They don't make my ears hot and I can easily wear them all day while I work. In my opinion they are worth every penny and I'm very happy with my purchase. Only negative I can see and it doesn't really affect me is the cable isn't really long and you might struggle if using an amp if your chair isn't very close to it. Otherwise they have a great sound, are comfortable, appear to be well built and my main method of listening to music now.

Die Kopfhörer sind das Einstiegsmodell in Planarmagnetische Treiber und haben sich wirklich als Referenzmodell der Einstiegsmodelle der 'audiophilen' Kopfhörer etabliert. Ich kann verstehen, warum. Mein Modell war gut verarbeitet und klang schon aus der Box gut. Für jemanden, der gerne basslastige Musik hört, sind offene Kopfhörer vielleicht etwas fragwürdig. Leider ist der Bass nicht ganz so voluminös und geht nicht so tief wie bei geschlossenen Kopfhörern, selbst im günstigeren Bereich. Mitten sind dafür toll, und Instrumente sehr schön separiert. Man entdeckt manche Lieder wirklich neu, wenn man sie davor nur mit 'consumer' Kopfhörern a la Bose / Sony gehört hat. Ich habe die Kopfhörer an einem Fiio K7 betrieben, für meinen Geschmack waren sie aber auch schon an einem normalen Endgerät (MacBook / normales PC Motherboard) laut genug. Und nicht viel schlechter, aber doch deutlich undynamischer. Für mich waren sie leider unterm Strich nicht 'punchy' genug, und auch nicht laut genug im Tiefbassbereich. Ich höre gerne elektronische Musik (z.B. Skee Mask) aber auch ab und zu Metal (Lorna Shore, FFAA...) und brauche dafür einfach die Power untenrum. Ich liebäugle nun mit den Hifiman HE6se, welche leider nochmal in einer anderen Preisliga sind. Aber die Suche nach den perfekten Kopfhörern endet wohl nie. Was ich gerne noch erwähnen würde, ist dass es sehr angenehm war, die Kopfhörer zum Spielen zu verwenden. Insbesondere in Calls (Voicechat) mit Freunden während des Spielens waren sie sehr angenehm in der Benutzung, weil man stets die eigene Stimme noch ein bisschen mitgehört hat. Für meine nächsten Desktop-use Kopfhörer kommen daher nur noch open-back Kopfhörer in Frage.

What can I say but WOW! These cans really are a huge improvement over standard headphones and their drivers. I am particularly impressed with the frequency response which I believe is better than the Sennheiser HD800s series. You will not be disappointed with the Sundara even as an Audiophile or an amateur starting their budding collection. 10/10!

Hello, A bit disappointing about my headphones. Sound quality is very interesting, very neutral bass to mid. a little coloration on the treble but no a lot. Very accurate, sound separation and sound stage is so wide . At this level on price it's very good ! But mine was arrived with a problem that's not acceptable. the diaphragm was deform on the right side and dent so, it's not affect the audio, but was audible when wearing. a little plasticky noise when the music spot too. very weird and not sure if it survive more than a month so i prefer to return it. on the photo it's not the cloth protection who reflect, it's the driver. i test with a light to confirm. The left side was ok, no prob at all I order a second one to test, it's possible to have a problem before arrival, i hope that will be better next time. First time on hifiman product. i give you a second and a last chance to shine.

Fast shipping amazing quality

This is my first truly audiophile pair of headphones. The details are excellent without sibilance. Base is well defined and has great texture but a bit recessed. Mids are good. Build quality on the phones themselves are good enough, wish. I can use them for hours without any hotspots. Pads are easily removed. 3.5mm jacks klick in and sit secure. What i don't like is the cable. It broke within the first month. Get a new cable as soon as possible. Include this in your budget. There are much better ones for under €20.