The Hifiman Arya is arguably one of the most-loved headphones in the sub $2,000 range which is saying something considering the headphone has been out since 2018 and have even gone a couple of minor revisions.
I had to pleasure to keep these headphones for more than 3 months which afforded me to produce an initial sound impressions writeup and now, a full review. Alright, let’s jump right into it.
I never once in my life thought I’d be able to listen to flagship headphones for an extended period. Sure, I can go to meets and hi-fi events but that’s pretty much it. Not that I’m complaining but there’s more to pick up when you’re able to keep something for months as was the case with the Focal Utopia that I’m going to be finally reviewing here.
More than a decade ago, Audeze was THE brand I was saving up my pennies for, and looking at their headphones, I’ve always said “this is going to be my headphones one day”. Fast forward to today, I own a couple of pairs of their cheaper ones and have heard a lot of their other high-end models but never their truly high-end, the LCD-4. Guess we can now add the LCD-5 to that list!
The Bose QC35 has for the longest time been the gold standard for noise-canceling wireless headphones. It had something to do with Bose really knowing what they’re doing as they were the pioneer of this type of technology. That was until other manufacturers started catching up to level the playing field in the last couple of years or so. Not even the refreshed mark 2 version of the QC35 could prevent the inevitable.
Budget studio headphones have always been in abundance whether you have your eyes set on mainstream brands or you’re looking for that obscure find that only a few can recognize. The SR850 from Samson isn’t the most popular model when it comes to studio headphones but ask about it in your favorite headphone forum, and you can be certain a good number of fellow enthusiasts have heard about it. How does this headphone fare against the competition? Let’s find out!
Noise-canceling headphones have always been expensive. They probably should be. Aside from the tech to cancel out noise, they’re usually also feature-rich while still being housed in a compact form factor. But what if you strip it down to the basics while still allowing it to sound good? That’s exactly the Sennheiser HD450 BT noise-canceling headphone which we have for a review!
Grado headphones are unique in that most audiophiles have probably owned one somewhere along their journey but have decided not to keep it as time goes on. The SR60/SR80 was touted as a gateway drug to audiophilia because they just look and sound so different than your average $50 consumer bass-heavy headphone. For this review, I have the Grado RS1i which is quite far from the “gateway” but is unmistakably Grado. Here’s the full review.
I loved the original MSR7 when it was first released! I was 3-4 years from the beginning of my headphone journey and it did sound wonderful to me despite being a little bright for relaxed listening. It also didn’t extend well in the low bass but those I could forgive at the time as I liked that type of tonal balance.
Fast forward to now, the special edition of the MSR7 was created, released, and now discontinued. It promised to fix the flaws of the original one in addition to the bells and whistles of having an ‘SE’ label. I’m super glad to get my hands on this and here’s my review.
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