HIFIMAN Edition XV

I've had lots of headphones etc over the years, from cheap IEMs to expensive IEMs, and "decent" closed ear headphones (around 300 euro type range). I've never had a pair of open back headphones though, and never quite spent this much. To say these are the best headphones I've owned doesn't quite cover it. As I always hope for when buying new audio equipment, I've heard so many new sounds in music I've been listening to for years - in some cases over 40 years. The sound stage is great. Imaging is fantastic. They aren't tiring to listen to at all (and I'm very sensitive). Earpads and headstrap are very comfortable too. The only thing I have against them is they feel like I could damage the earcup/diaphragm very easily - but maybe that's normal for open back planar headphones? I just need to treat them with respect rather than throw them around like I would some others! And, of course, speed of delivery from Thomann was great (a slight scare from the courier who said they were delayed by a day ... but then they delivered them a few hours later!). Hard to stop listening to them and been staying up far too late all week!

Like others, I was drawn to this model after finding other planars overly bright and artificial-sounding in the upper-mids. The XV doesn't have those issues, but are still very revealing and 'expensive'-sounding, especially in contrast to the big-name conventional models in the same price bracket. The only negative is that there's a bit of a dip around 1.6 kHz, but I adapted to it quickly and it's no worse than other models in the lineup.