HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled

Introduction to the HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled Review

The high-end headphones market has been quite saturated over the past few years. Flagship products come and go, but there are a few that stood the test of time and have proven their legendary status.

Headphones like the Sennheiser HD800, Stax 009, or the Orpheus by Sennheiser have all been valid choices in this market for many years now.

Another example I can easily give is the HiFiMAN Susvara. Ever since its release, it’s been one of the most popular headphones in the TOTL market, and for many good reasons. Its sound quality is absolutely spectacular, but it’s never been perfect. It requires a lot of power to sound best, which has been the biggest problem for this specific release forever.

At the end of the day, the Susvara has been the current flagship of HiFiMAN since 2017. Think about it…HiFiMAN, a company that releases a lot of products every year, hasn’t changed its flagship model for 7 years. It sounds crazy, but if there’s nothing to improve on…why just do it for the sake of it?

However, the time has finally come. After a long 7-year wait, HiFiMAN has released a successor to their almighty Susvara, called the Susvara Unveiled which we review today.

Of course, the market has evolved a lot, with more competition than ever, even in the high-end market. Companies like Dan Clark Audio, ZMF, or Meze didn’t really mean anything in this specific segment seven years ago, and nowadays they’re one of the most competitive out there.

Look at the Erzetich Charybdis for example. A new flagship from a small company, which has been an incredibly successful launch. This product has rapidly gained a reputation to its name, being worthy of sitting at the same table with the best in the world.

HiFiMAN is probably the biggest name when it comes to headphones though. They often dictate how the market looks, so it was just a matter of time for them to re-enter the TOTL market with something extraordinary.

The idea behind the whole “unveiled” thing is absolutely brilliant, but an idea alone isn’t gonna cut it in this price range. Let’s dive in and see if it’s a worthy successor to the legend.

Packaging

If you’ve ever unboxed the OG Susvara, you pretty much know what to expect here. The Susvara Unveiled comes in a faux leather-covered display box that feels quite luxurious and is very secure for everything that sits inside. 

On top, you’ll find a metal plate with the name of the headphones. Upon opening up the box, you’ll be greeted by the headphones themselves, two 3m long cables, one terminated in 4-pin XLR and the other one in a 6.3mm jack. Additionally, you’ll see two soft pouches that host metal lids, but more on that later…

Overall, the unboxing experience feels premium and I have nothing bad to say about it. Surely, there will be people who prefer more functional packaging with a true carrying case, but HiFiMAN decided otherwise. I don’t think people will carry their $8000 Susvara Unveiled regularly anyway.

Lastly, you’re getting a hard-cover book that is an awesome souvenir. Inside you’ll find some interesting facts about the company and HiFiMAN itself. I wish more manufacturers would include extras like this one. 

It’s a subtle addition to feel more connected to a very expensive purchase you’ve just made. It’s often small things that matter, and this book is one of them. 

Design, Build Quality and Comfort

The design and build quality of the new Susvara Unveiled is a little bit uneven. It’s built well, and it looks good (even though I’d strongly prefer black earpads and a headband strap over the beige ones), but at the same time, the OG Susvara just gives that more premium feel.

The wooden rings around the earpieces are gone, and the Susvara Unveiled is entirely built of aluminum. The finish of the entire headphones is superb with no imperfections or sharp edges. Yet I’m getting a cheaper feeling holding the new Susvara next to the OG one.

Don’t get me wrong. The wood on the OG wasn’t anything to write a book about. After all, it was just a sticker, serving no acoustics purpose. But it still gave that premium feeling, it was something interesting to look at. 

Obviously, HiFiMAN has always been known as a company that puts comfort first, but at the same time, it’s a $8000 pair of headphones we’re talking about. I wish HiFiMAN had put a little bit more effort and more premium materials into their new TOTL offering.

Also, I’m quite surprised that they’ve chosen the beige color over black. In the past, people weren’t really pleased with this color, which was basically the same as the OG Deva model (reviewed here). Also, because of this, say goodbye to your aftermarket earpads from companies like Dekoni, as they’re all black. Of course, as time goes by these kinds of companies will probably release a beige version, but I just wish that HiFiMAN has kept the black color of their leather parts.

Since the reviewed Susvara Unveiled has entirely open drivers, HiFiMAN has added metal covers that go on the cups to protect these precious drivers while you’re not using them. This is a great idea to keep your headphones safe, without the need to keep them in a sealed container all the time. 

Obviously, ever since people saw this idea they had 1 question – does it transform into a closed-back headphone after attaching the covers? Well…technically yes, but it literally sounds like a $1 earbud with the covers on. So while it’s true, I wouldn’t recommend doing this to anyone.

The covers themselves attach with magnets that keep them in place. While I wish these magnets were a little bit stronger, they do get the job done. However, keep in mind that the Susvara Unveiled is a headphone that requires careful handling at all times. These magnets are not strong enough for you to feel entirely sure while holding the Susvara Unveiled by its headband, so please, be careful.

And that’s probably the biggest con of this product after all. Considering the fact that the Susvara Unveiled is $8000, it’s extremely fragile at the same time. Literally, one wrong move and your finger can go through the driver. Every single time I had visitors asking me to try “the most expensive one”, I had to either give them proper instructions on how to handle the Susvara Unveiled or just put them on and off their heads myself. 

If you handle your equipment with care, this shouldn’t be a problem. However, remember that it’s extremely easy to damage the new Susvara. Well…the UNVEILED sound quality has its price.

When it comes to comfort, HiFiMAN creates extremely comfortable headphones, and the reviewed Susvara Unveiled is no different. This company always puts comfort first, because they know that you’re going to want to use these babies for hours at a time. 

Luckily, the new Susvara is vastly comfortable, as I’m having no issues using them for many hours in a row, without even needing to take breaks.

This is much more important than it might seem. Someone is spending almost 10k USD for a single pair of headphones…they might just want to use them basically 24/7. A poor comfort would have made that impossible, which, at this price, would have been unacceptable. 

If you’ve ever had the OG Susvara or something like HE-1000 in your hands, you’ll feel at home with the tested Susvara Unveiled. The entire headband construction is the same, because why change something that works perfectly? There are no overly sharp edges anywhere on this product, everything is well put together and feels sturdy. If it wasn’t for the quality of the materials, I would have praised the overall build quality a lot.

Compared to the OG Susvara, I have a feeling that the new beige earpads are slightly more shallow. For me personally, it’s not a big problem since I’m using Dekoni earpads on the OG Susvara anyway. However, remember that if you want to do the same, you either have to wait for them to release a beige version or just go black and make your $8000 headphones look weird.

Overall, reviewed HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled is, most importantly, very comfortable and well-built. While it won’t make you fall in love with the design nor feel really nice with quality materials, it will serve its biggest purpose – provide a very comfortable fit for you to enjoy the music for as long as you please.

Tech

When it comes to the technology that sits in the Susvara Unveiled, unsurprisingly, the whole “unveiled” concept is the most talked about. 

HiFiMAN has basically got rid of the grill outside of the driver, leaving the driver fully exposed. This is said to improve the transparency, speed, and accuracy of the sound, as the drivers have an unlimited amount of air to “work with”. 

Every grill in the world is a barrier of a kind, and they influence the sound. While some do it more than others, there’s just no way around it. HiFiMAN decided that instead of creating a new, acoustically invisible grill, they would just remove the grill entirely. While this idea might have seemed crazy at first, there’s a lot of sense in this decision.

By removing the grills entirely, HiFiMAN got the sound that is basically as open as it gets, while also being unaltered acoustically by the grill on the outside of the drivers. 

While this all sounds great “on paper”, we’ll dive in when it comes to the sound paragraph to see if it actually makes a difference. 

However, another very important change that isn’t talked about enough is the change of conductor on the driver itself, from gold to silver. Silver has the best conductivity of all metals, and on a scale of 0-100, silver is 100, and gold is 76.

This might not seem like a big deal, but oh it really is. The OG Susvara was infamous for being an insanely demanding headphone to drive properly. And even then, when you thought they were driven well, you could have been mistaken.

A good example is the Topping A90, which theoretically should have all the power to make the OG Susvara sing. In reality, though, it’s not really enough to make them sound in a way they’re supposed to. Here comes the Feliks Audio Envy, which drives the Susvara to absolute perfection. The difference between these two amplifiers is basically night and day in favor of the Polish tube behemoth.

Back to the reviewed HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled – it is now MUCH easier to drive, which is a wonderful change. A lot of people got tired and eventually sold their Susvara since it felt like a never-ending story bringing them to their absolute best. The Susvara Unveiled is much more forgiving when it comes to amplification, and you’ll be able to drive them with far less expensive amplifiers.

This is hugely beneficial for both end users and HiFiMAN itself. The OG Susvara was often misjudged by people that weren’t able to drive them properly and judged that these headphones were nothing special. There’s a reason why so many people drive the OG Sus from an actual stereo amplifier. Basically, the sky is the limit when it comes to this model.

I’ve tested the Susvara Unveiled on plenty of amplifiers and it proved to be much easier to drive than the OG. While it’s still not an efficient model, it no longer requires a nuclear reactor, which is a good change.

Sound of the reviewed HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled

So, here we are, the paragraph that matters the most, one to rule them all – the sound description of the Susvara Unveiled.

The OG Susvara is still one of the most popular TOTL headphones on the market, a product that redefined this segment in many ways. However, many years have passed, the competition isn’t sleeping and it was about time for HiFiMAN to come up with something fresh.

Don’t get me wrong – the OG Susvara isn’t outdated or it didn’t desperately need an update, but when you’re the top player, you have to adjust to your competition. Ever since releasing the Susvara, every single company has released a new flagship or even multiple flagships. The market is highly dynamic, at some point, you have to keep up and release something new, even if the current model is still competitive.

That’s exactly what happened here. Luckily, HiFiMAN hasn’t pulled back the OG Susvara with the release of the Unveiled version. They both exist simultaneously, and you can still get the OG. That’s very important since these two are different and offer different strengths.

In fact, I wouldn’t actually call the reviewed HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled a straightforward upgrade over the OG model. There are some traits of the OG model that are absent in the Sus Unveiled and vice versa. I would even go as far as saying that there’s a point in owning both.

Let’s dive into different frequencies and see what’s changed, and I’ll focus on a comparison to the OG Susvara.

The bass of the new HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled is really impressive. It sounds dynamic, powerful, and really, really fast. The OG Susvara sounds more relaxed in the bass department (and not only here, but more on that later). Because of this, the bass response in the Unveiled model sounds more nuanced and technically superior. It’s still not on the same level of punch as some dynamic driver headphones, but for a planar, this is very, very good. Planar-magnetic headphones are usually softer when it comes to low frequencies than dynamic driver counterparts, but the Susvara Unveiled slightly closes that gap here.

Compared to the OG, tested HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled sounds more powerful and it offers even more texture. It’s even more impressive knowing how textured the bass of the OG is. While this is not a night and day difference, it’s quite obvious when you try both. 

The midrange is where the biggest change occurred. The Susvara Unveiled sounds much more forward in the mid frequencies, but this stick has two ends. The OG Susvara is loved by many because of its effortless, soft, and rather easy-going character, and you won’t really find it in the Unveiled.

Gone is the buttery-smooth midrange presentation, but at the same time, you’re getting even more texture, detail, and speed. While the different tuning is obvious here, the same goes for technical capabilities. Not only, objectively speaking, the Susvara Unveiled offers a better midrange presentation, but also it offers a different approach to the sound as a whole, which definitely is going to be a hit or miss for OG Susvara owners.

Luckily, HiFiMAN had many years to listen to feedback on the original Susvara and they seem to address two of the most common issues – power required to drive these behemoths, as well as a somewhat “easy sounding” midrange, which definitely isn’t everyone’s taste.

However, whether you’ll like the new presentation or not will depend entirely on your taste. I actually prefer the tuning of the OG Susvara myself, as it was always that effortless, smooth type of sound combined with incredible technicalities that kept me loving the original flagship.

The market, demand, and capabilities of headphones have evolved though, and nowadays it’s harder than ever to satisfy the most demanding audiophiles. Luckily, HiFiMAN has chosen the best possible approach with their new flagship – it might be quite different from the previous one, but in terms of objective aspects, it’s just a better-sounding headphone as a whole.

The treble is probably the most similar in both models. The Susvara Unveiled has a more pronounced upper-midrange region, so it sounds a bit more open, spacious, and forward, but everything above it sounds quite similar.

Once again you’re getting a fantastic detail retrieval, superb resolution, and incredibly fast decays. The Susvara Unveiled does sound a little bit more pronounced and slightly firmer, but it’s not a night and day difference. 

Where the Unveiled model has an upper hand though is the sense of openness. It just sounds more crisp, open, and spacious, which, surely is widely connected to the soundstage, but the treble as well. You can easily hear the lack of a grill here. 

Since I already mentioned the soundstage, it’s time to go into details. The whole “unveiled” idea should benefit the soundstage a lot, and it surely does. 

Reviewed HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled has an impressive feeling of listening to a completely open pair of headphones. Getting rid of the grills really makes a difference. If you think about it, people have been doing it for years.

I still remember the HE5-LE and its basically unlimited modding potential. The first and most important mod to this headphone was to remove the original grill and enlarge the distance between your ear and the driver. This modification alone made the HE5-LE a much better headphone overall.

This model is quite legendary for these perks, and if you’ve been in this hobby for 10 or so years, you surely remember this well. While the distance between your ear and the driver remained the same, the whole Unveiled aspect is quite close of an idea to those original HiFiMAN mods that were quite popular years ago.

Actually, I would go as far as admitting that HiFiMAN has done everything it could with its new flagship. They could have just slightly retuned the Susvara and launched it as a new model years ago, but it’s not something that they wanted to do. They wanted this update to be significant, to offer something never seen again, something revolutionary, and in many ways – they have succeeded. 

HiFiMAN Susvara Unveiled Review – Summary

We have waited years for a successor of the HiFiMAN Susvara, and finally, when we got one, HiFiMAN didn’t disappoint.

While it might be questionable whether you like the changes or not, the most important thing is quite obvious here – the Susvara Unveiled is indeed a better-sounding headphone when it comes to objective performance. 

It’s not without its flaws, and it’s nowhere near being a perfect headphone, but in some ways, it’s the best pair of headphones we’ve ever had the pleasure of testing/using/listening to. 

If you’re looking for a TOTL headphone that will make you fascinated by its punchy bass, insanely detailed presentation, and soundstage that is as open as it gets, the Susvara Unveiled is the headphone to get in 2025. And most probably, for many more years to come.

Recommended!