If you have not heard of the Edition XS you probably are not looking for HiFi equipment. If you are interested in the best possible sound in headphones you don’t have to search any more than this Hifiman’s Edition EX. This product launched in late 2021 in October at $499. This is the cost that I paid for mine as well. And as far as I am concerned, this product was well worth the $499 price tag or more because it is the first perfect headphone. Well on Ebay the cost of these headphones has jumped up to over $500 and some have it up to $700! Not sure why the price has jumped as they are still available on Hifiman. Maybe it’s because this thing has no weakness. It defeats everything single headphone under or matched to its price. And as far as headphones that run higher cost than this, like the Arya($1299), it still defeats in key areas like timbre, treble, and upper-mids. Its Bass is better than any headphones in its range, which is to say that the Bass is phenomenal, perfectly neutral yet powerful, and perfect in the Sub-bass region. I haven’t ever experienced a purer Bass and Faster response with the proper decay.
And in the world of audiophiles… this makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Because this $499 headphone just made use of your $1500 on your high-end headphone, a moot point now. You don’t need to spend $1500 to get Highend performance thanks to this one single Headphone. And as long as you have a clean AMP and DAC that can power these headphones, you will experience most of all the bragging points High tier headphone owners talk about all the time. The Scale, the Depth, the Spacing, Imaging, and Soundstage are all there. And yes it fits perfectly on my normal size head. For Some, they claim it doesn’t sit on their head and just falls off, I’m sorry. I’m not sure how small of a head these people have but a normal-sized head can bounce left to right to music without it falling off. If you need vice grips for headphone pads by all means pass this up and go get yourself something else. I guarantee whatever you find won’t check the boxes like this. And I know this because reviewers like Dms and Josh Valor all claim that the Arya is the best headphone in the world but still confess that the XS is better than the Arya in multiple key areas and costs less. So for me, this means the Edition is the winner and overall best.
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