Audiophilepure

The driver housing is made of aviation aluminum material with precise CNC machining with the precise placement of the holes determined by hours of testing and experimentation to maximize linearity and uniformity of production.

Gold color embroidery thread and soft goatskin are combined together to create an ergonomic and comfortable headband with a unique and exquisite design. The detachable earpads are also made from goatskin incorporating a memory-foam interior to produce an ergonomic and special-shaped earpad that matches the ears perfectly and prevents sound leakage.

The headband brackets and gimbals are made of aviation aluminum for high strength, durability, and low weight.

Hifiman used leather and a nicely padded memory foam headband on the R9 and I must say that it is very comfortable. Additionally, the skeleton of the R9’s headband is steel and features a good bending capability. Overall, I found it very comfortable and there were occasions when I used it for over 12 hours in a single day. Furthermore, the earcups of the R9 remind me of Fostex’s TH-900. The TH-900 had these wonderful dark pearly red cups made of Japanese Cherry Birch. The Hifiman HE-R9’s ear cups also feature a similar red to the TH-900 but are slightly lighter in color. 

The shapes of the earcups are unique and Hifiman states that this shape was specially designed for the driver, taking the acoustic properties into account. Moving on to the ear pads, well, these are one of the most comfortable pads that I used in my plus 10-year audiophile journey. The padding is thick, the memory foam is comfy and the clamping force is perfect. It is not too strong, not too light, just right. The pads cover my ears completely and provide very good isolation during listening sessions.

How good is the Arya Stealth?! Waw! It isn’t cheap or available to everyone but the performance for the price is highly remarkable.

The Arya Stealth’s tuning is very good. It’s pleasing, yet technically strong as well as musical and exciting. The Arya Stealth always has good body, presence, impact and depth. It’s very easy to understand why this headphone is getting so many recommendations. It’s an absolute award winner and in this price category, the Arya Stealth is hard to beat.

The altogether more considered sound of Mountains by Prince & The Revolution [Paisley Park] is no less compelling in the Elite’s hands. Like all the best Prince songs, Mountains sounds like a high-class demo – and the Elite gives the spaces, the absences and the silences that constitute a big part of this recording full expression. The level of bite and drive they summon is deeply impressive – the steroid-assisted horn section has never sounded more clipped or austere, the vocal has never sounded more impassioned, the drag on the kick drum has never sounded so deliberate. Whatever the intentions of a recording are, it seems, the Elite have no trouble understanding them.

The Bluemini R2R sounds very good. HIFIMAN says a lot of work went into the custom-designed DAC and listening to the same tracks I auditioned with the wired hookup, I was hard-pressed to hear a difference. I could detect a very slight difference when auditioning the highest quality tracks in my collection. I found a slightly compressed dynamic range and a very slight reduction in the highs. Having said that, it was the best Bluetooth sound I’ve heard.

https://audiophilestyle.com/ca/reviews/audio-technica-ath-adx5000-review-r1093/

This comparison is a little more difficult. First, the HD800S is much, much more position and seal-dependent than the ATH-ADX5000, the HD6XX, or the Clear. Second, the HD800S I purchased don’t measure as well as the pair I reviewed earlier. Third, the right spot to anchor the graphs for comparison isn’t as obvious with the HD800S as for HD6XX or the Clear. Those issues aside, the ATH-ADX5000’s “W”-shape still predominates. However, the magnitude of the differences around 500 Hz and 2 kHz differ from both previous comparisons. Most notably, the HD800S’s downward slope from the lower-to-upper midrange minimizes the 2 kHz divergence seen with the other cans. While it’s not a large difference, the ATH-ADX5000’s low bass doesn’t roll off quite as fast as the HD800S’s — a characteristic of the latter that’s often bemoaned. In the treble region, the two cans seem to have a lot in common, except that the ATH-ADX5000 doesn’t fall above 12 kHz the way the HD800S does.

In my experience, the Audeze LCD-5 Flagship Headphones are truly as good as they get right now. You certainly may spend more than their $4500 retail cost on some other brands and not get a wit of additional neutrality, definition, or performance for your money. Comfortable, elegant, and flexible, I could not find a good amp or DAP that did not power them well. With the best amps, they were the best reference planar design yet built by Audeze, and better than anything else I have auditioned.