HIFIMAN ANANDA Over-Ear Open-back Planar Magnetic Headphones, wired-Black

Product Information

What is the general tuning? Neutral. To my ears there is a shift towards a U shaped sound with slightly elevated bass & treble. However, the shift is so small that the headphones are closer to neutral than anything else. All in all, the Ananda is an open sounding headphone that performs very well across the board – with a dose of extra charm in midrange." Ananda does staging and imaging better than the Hex V2, cues in the "3D space" are easier to make out, traced and sharper drawn. It's certainly not due to its tuning alone but more founded in the improved drivers and how they maintain better control of the diaphragm. I have to pair them almost every time with my s21, since I cant just turn them on. Plus, when paired, they often only connect for “calls”, not for “audio”. Also, with LDAC disabled (have to manually turn it on), which also is crap (you can actually hear the difference in sound). Let me try and put it in context. Although I have been experimenting in the headphone world for a few years, my whole experience with audio has been mostly based around live sound or at least venues aimed at live performances (in which I am also including venues with live DJ’s and not always live musicians), with some studios thrown in along the way. That means that all of my life, speakers have been my source of music, some very good and some very bad. Other than listening to other peoples setups, I have very little experience with audio outside of the live or studio realm.

I didn't find much difference when running the Ananda balanced (Gain 1) or single-ended (Gain 2) on the THX AAA 789. Phenomenal audio performance with superb sense of space, accurate bass, and lovely detail throughout frequency range. The sound was good now but still I felt some bass was missing so dialed in the 1.5 dB broad boost centered around 90 Hz. That warmed things up a bit more which was nice. I still had some grunginess I did not like so put in the dip 930 Hz and that helped. At the beginning of the sound section of this review (although this has become so long they should probably be called “chapters”), I mentioned the words “end-game”. I just want to point out that “end-game” is something that is dependent upon each person but, to me, it means that you have found something that you don’t need to improve. In my case, the detail and definition of the Ananda is enough for me to not need to look for anything better, but that is something personal and only relevant to me. That also doesn’t mean that I won’t still be looking anyway.Sub-bass on the Ananda can only be described as minimal. Roll-off begins high enough up that anything below 150Hz is well behind the rest of the signature. Those looking for more low end, will be better served by other models in the Hifiman lineup. Mid-bass is much better represented and realistically from about 200Hz up, linearity is very good. To my ear, mid-bass is neutral or just a hair less, but mid-bass detail and texture are extremely good. While I would prefer a bit more bass, the fact that what the Ananda presents is as clean and well defined as it is, makes what is missing almost ignorable. Transition from the bass into the lower mids is very smooth and clean and where mid-bass bleed usually contributes a bit of warmth to the signature, here the tuning provides it as no perceptible bleed was present. Hex V2 doesn't handle louder volumes as well as the Ananda though but don't expect Ananda to let you crank it up like a HE series oldschool Hifiman, which not only sustain much more power but are more dynamic as well and therefore also give you a better reason to crank it up. Ananda and Hex V2's compressed dynamics don't allow for the "startling effect" anyway. This startling effect describes the explosive power of the HE-6 to fire at you from total darkness, nothingness with a hail of supernovae. I'm exaggerating here but you might understand what I mean. I invite you to read the wired Ananda review to get the full picture, but I’m going to make a recap here. From the perspective of technical ability, the Ananda BT are able to place you in a relatively wide soundstage, where they place instruments with good accuracy while offering quite good instrument separation.

There are some really, really well-made headphones in the market, including goodies from Abyss, Audeze, HEDD etc. But they all have problems. They are either plain heavy, or uncomfortable, or both. The Ananda is built okay when it comes to the finishing and overall feeling, maybe even a bit underwhelming considering the asking price. But you’ll forget about it a second after putting them on your head.

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The bass is impressive from the very beginning, and it also teases the overall characteristics of the Ananda. It is lightning fast, agile, detailed and even. If you’re looking for a very neutral and natural bass section, you’ll most probably find it here. The midrange continues what has been started by the bass, but with a slight twist. It’s as detailed, as fast and as transparent as the low end, but the overall timbre is sacrificed a bit in exchange for outstanding technical capabilities. Thanks to that, you’ll end up with a very, very detailed and insightful sound that is not as natural sounding as it could have been.