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this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Headphones
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In my opinion, it's got a lot going against it, so it isn't too surprising.
Honestly, at the tail end of 2023, if you have to have an affordable closed back set, my vote would go to the (currently) $149 Hifiman Sundara closed back. Again, the same caveat applies to the Sundara CB - if you're expecting the exact same sound as the Sundara open back, it's not going to match up to that standard - but it's also nowhere near as bad as the Internet makes them out to sound.
I have been deeeply tempted by the Sundara CBs but haven't pulled trigger because of the hella polarised opinions I have heard.
Any suggestions on how to make them sound their best? I've heard mixed reports on EQing and nothing on pad swaps.
Yeah, I suspect that those opinions are the reason why there has not been any major traction with the Sundara CB's, so you'll likely not see much with community created EQ's and pad rolling experiences until more people get their hands on them. Hopefully, with the sale price that's going on now, that should become more realistic.
For me, they sound good without any tweaks, which is always a welcome experience. It's got what I would consider a more "average consumer friendly" sound to them, so I'm surprised there is as much negative impressions as there are - but how many people have actually listened to them, is the main question. Not sure if there may have been a silent revision or not, but I don't find them to sound as bad as the measurements suggest.
If you can try them out and just listen to them as-is, that would be the way to go, especially if you can buy from Amazon and have the return window available until the end of January. I generally don't go into any headphone purchase with the mindset that I have to have some kind of modding ready at the helm, but again, that's just me.
Reasonable! Thanks for the response, it's super helpful. I'm still trying to figure out which of the various holiday deals I want to jump on but this was definitely one I was eyeing.
Now I just need to sort out my own priorities and choose between a sweet deal on a fun closed back, or taking a little leap up to the Edition XS since that seems like a lot of headphone and detail for the money.
No worries.
Not sure if this may be your first time looking/trying any planars (and particularly Hifiman headphones), but if you're open to the idea, I would suggest to go with the cheapest possible entry first before going higher into the lineup. From my experiences, the $109 HE400se is a great entry point to give you a taste of the "Hifiman house sound", before sinking more money, which again you can leverage Amazon's return period window to your advantage for evaluating. While there are appreciable differences the higher up you go, the more you listen to their headphones, the more you tend to find a lot of tuning similarities across their product line.
Just my $.02. :) Good luck with the hunt!