[smk5r]

Totally agree.

A tour, as always, would be nice. IMO readers get a much better picture of headphones reading reviews from Head-Fi members as opposed to those 4-5 YT 'stars'. Also, established Head-Fi members could get first hand experience which is always the only way to finally judge a new release.

 

[Beagle]

A tour would be nice.

What will be the opening act?

 

[yangviolin]

Dear Headfiers:

We are excited to announce that our new products Audivina and EF600 are now available for pre-order!

Don't hesitate to place orders now!

AUDIVINA: https://store.hifiman.com/index.php/audivina.html

EF600: https://store.hifiman.com/index.php/ef600.html

From a classical violinist point of view, I prefer listening to headphones that can reproduce the sound close to what one can experience in an acoustically excellent concert hall. I’m lucky to perform in New York’s Carnegie Hall six times a years and give 120 opera concerts each season at the 4000-seat Metropolitan Opera house in Lincoln Center (New York City) for the past 14 years. In addition, I have traveled with the orchestra to perform in major concert/opera halls around the world. I am intimately familiar with what the best concert halls sound like. For me, the most important aspect of headphone listening is accuracy and sound stage. When I auditioned Hifiman’s Audivina for the first time I was extremely impressed by the soundstage presentation of the closed-back headphone. They reproduced exactly what I expect to hear when I go to the Carnegie Hall sitting In the front center seat -- open and glorious sound. There is this perfect tonal balance on all registers and no discernible coloration of any kind. String, wind and percussion all sound live-like and, for a lack of a better word, real.

Listening to The Met Orchestra’s Schubert Nineth symphony recording conducted by James Levine brings me back to the 2014 live concert experience when I performed the concert in Carnegie Hall. Putting on the Met’s Grammy-winning recoding of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle (that was superbly recorded), I feel like at home in the Lincoln Center’s cavernous opera house. The sound stage is exactly what I hear each day at the real venue that I perform. The ultimate test for vocal sound is Pavarotti singing Puccini’s Turando aria “Nessus Dorma”. As reproduced by the Audivina, the tenor’s sound is what an audience from the Met Orchestra “pit” would hear, true to the live sound.

Additionally, in reproducing large orchestral sound the Audivina also impressed me with its body/weight of sound as well as speed, which is a rare occurrence. Unlike smaller ensembles (such as classical chamber or jazz) and electronic music, orchestral sound involves a body of sound that can be thick and dense in the aggregate but also highly textured in details -- after all, there are 100+ musicians playing together as a whole but also individually. Most headphones can only meet one of the two requirements: either they can produce a thick, weighty sound but are unable to decipher all the details, or they have the speed to produce the minute details but cannot handle the aggregate weight. Audivina is a true exception, and it does not even try “hard” to meet both requirements – it appears that the design of the headphones simply allows a level of “bandwidth” that far exceeds what a full orchestral sound demands.

Tonal wise I am very intrigued by how Dr. Bian Fang could make Audivera sound so preside and euphonic at the same time. Usually when I hear from headphones that I consider accurate for each orchestral instrument and vocal, they have the tendencies to sound too analytical. But Audivina’s sound signature has none of that – they are tonally neutral, transparent, or simply invisible, which makes them a pure enjoyment to listing to.

I was listening to the Audivina powered by Hifiman’s new dac/ amp combo EF600. The combo has a powerful amplifier with an delicate r2r dac inside. The pairing works great. What’s also unique and smart about the dac/amp is the function of an headphone stand. The Audivina looks absolutely stunning when I put the close back headphone on the dac/amp/stand EF600.

The prototype Audivera has a beautiful light brown colored wood earcups that are actually ear shaped. I greatly appreciate Hifiman’s modern ear-shaped drivers. The closet thing I can relate to the Audivina is Hifiman’s own open back HE1000se. I think they are very similar in sound reproduction and aesthetics. But consider the Audivina is a closed-back, it has the added benefit of noise isolation, and is surprisingly priced lower than the mighty HE1000se. it’s a great achievement.

I started headphone listening while pursuing my master degree at The Juilliard School. I don’t consider myself an audiophile. I focus on music more than the equipment. But somehow I fell in love with Hifiman headphones. My first listening of Hifiman’s headphones was back in 2012 when the game-changing HE-6 was at the center stage of Hifiman’s lineup. I still own a pair myself and deeply appreciate them (for what they are) today. Now I have found my favorite closed-back planer headphones in Audivina. I have yet auditioned the electrostatic paramount Shangri-La to complete my fun Hifiman journey – I look forward to that someday.


Yang Xu
Violinist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (New York)

 

[hawk13]

From a classical violinist point of view, I prefer listening to headphones that can reproduce the sound close to what one can experience in an acoustically excellent concert hall. I’m lucky to perform in New York’s Carnegie Hall six times a years and give 120 opera concerts each season at the 4000-seat Metropolitan Opera house in Lincoln Center (New York City) for the past 14 years. In addition, I have traveled with the orchestra to perform in major concert/opera halls around the world. I am intimately familiar with what the best concert halls sound like. For me, the most important aspect of headphone listening is accuracy and sound stage. When I auditioned Hifiman’s Audivina for the first time I was extremely impressed by the soundstage presentation of the closed-back headphone. They reproduced exactly what I expect to hear when I go to the Carnegie Hall sitting In the front center seat -- open and glorious sound. There is this perfect tonal balance on all registers and no discernible coloration of any kind. String, wind and percussion all sound live-like and, for a lack of a better word, real.

Listening to The Met Orchestra’s Schubert Nineth symphony recording conducted by James Levine brings me back to the 2014 live concert experience when I performed the concert in Carnegie Hall. Putting on the Met’s Grammy-winning recoding of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle (that was superbly recorded), I feel like at home in the Lincoln Center’s cavernous opera house. The sound stage is exactly what I hear each day at the real venue that I perform. The ultimate test for vocal sound is Pavarotti singing Puccini’s Turando aria “Nessus Dorma”. As reproduced by the Audivina, the tenor’s sound is what an audience from the Met Orchestra “pit” would hear, true to the live sound.

Additionally, in reproducing large orchestral sound the Audivina also impressed me with its body/weight of sound as well as speed, which is a rare occurrence. Unlike smaller ensembles (such as classical chamber or jazz) and electronic music, orchestral sound involves a body of sound that can be thick and dense in the aggregate but also highly textured in details -- after all, there are 100+ musicians playing together as a whole but also individually. Most headphones can only meet one of the two requirements: either they can produce a thick, weighty sound but are unable to decipher all the details, or they have the speed to produce the minute details but cannot handle the aggregate weight. Audivina is a true exception, and it does not even try “hard” to meet both requirements – it appears that the design of the headphones simply allows a level of “bandwidth” that far exceeds what a full orchestral sound demands.

Tonal wise I am very intrigued by how Dr. Bian Fang could make Audivera sound so preside and euphonic at the same time. Usually when I hear from headphones that I consider accurate for each orchestral instrument and vocal, they have the tendencies to sound too analytical. But Audivina’s sound signature has none of that – they are tonally neutral, transparent, or simply invisible, which makes them a pure enjoyment to listing to.

I was listening to the Audivina powered by Hifiman’s new dac/ amp combo EF600. The combo has a powerful amplifier with an delicate r2r dac inside. The pairing works great. What’s also unique and smart about the dac/amp is the function of an headphone stand. The Audivina looks absolutely stunning when I put the close back headphone on the dac/amp/stand EF600.

The prototype Audivera has a beautiful light brown colored wood earcups that are actually ear shaped. I greatly appreciate Hifiman’s modern ear-shaped drivers. The closet thing I can relate to the Audivina is Hifiman’s own open back HE1000se. I think they are very similar in sound reproduction and aesthetics. But consider the Audivina is a closed-back, it has the added benefit of noise isolation, and is surprisingly priced lower than the mighty HE1000se. it’s a great achievement.

I started headphone listening while pursuing my master degree at The Juilliard School. I don’t consider myself an audiophile. I focus on music more than the equipment. But somehow I fell in love with Hifiman headphones. My first listening of Hifiman’s headphones was back in 2012 when the game-changing HE-6 was at the center stage of Hifiman’s lineup. I still own a pair myself and deeply appreciate them (for what they are) today. Now I have found my favorite closed-back planer headphones in Audivina. I have yet auditioned the electrostatic paramount Shangri-La to complete my fun Hifiman journey – I look forward to that someday.


Yang Xu
Violinist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (New York)

A closed-back HEKse!?!? Sign me up!

 

[Slim1970]

From a classical violinist point of view, I prefer listening to headphones that can reproduce the sound close to what one can experience in an acoustically excellent concert hall. I’m lucky to perform in New York’s Carnegie Hall six times a years and give 120 opera concerts each season at the 4000-seat Metropolitan Opera house in Lincoln Center (New York City) for the past 14 years. In addition, I have traveled with the orchestra to perform in major concert/opera halls around the world. I am intimately familiar with what the best concert halls sound like. For me, the most important aspect of headphone listening is accuracy and sound stage. When I auditioned Hifiman’s Audivina for the first time I was extremely impressed by the soundstage presentation of the closed-back headphone. They reproduced exactly what I expect to hear when I go to the Carnegie Hall sitting In the front center seat -- open and glorious sound. There is this perfect tonal balance on all registers and no discernible coloration of any kind. String, wind and percussion all sound live-like and, for a lack of a better word, real.

Listening to The Met Orchestra’s Schubert Nineth symphony recording conducted by James Levine brings me back to the 2014 live concert experience when I performed the concert in Carnegie Hall. Putting on the Met’s Grammy-winning recoding of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle (that was superbly recorded), I feel like at home in the Lincoln Center’s cavernous opera house. The sound stage is exactly what I hear each day at the real venue that I perform. The ultimate test for vocal sound is Pavarotti singing Puccini’s Turando aria “Nessus Dorma”. As reproduced by the Audivina, the tenor’s sound is what an audience from the Met Orchestra “pit” would hear, true to the live sound.

Additionally, in reproducing large orchestral sound the Audivina also impressed me with its body/weight of sound as well as speed, which is a rare occurrence. Unlike smaller ensembles (such as classical chamber or jazz) and electronic music, orchestral sound involves a body of sound that can be thick and dense in the aggregate but also highly textured in details -- after all, there are 100+ musicians playing together as a whole but also individually. Most headphones can only meet one of the two requirements: either they can produce a thick, weighty sound but are unable to decipher all the details, or they have the speed to produce the minute details but cannot handle the aggregate weight. Audivina is a true exception, and it does not even try “hard” to meet both requirements – it appears that the design of the headphones simply allows a level of “bandwidth” that far exceeds what a full orchestral sound demands.

Tonal wise I am very intrigued by how Dr. Bian Fang could make Audivera sound so preside and euphonic at the same time. Usually when I hear from headphones that I consider accurate for each orchestral instrument and vocal, they have the tendencies to sound too analytical. But Audivina’s sound signature has none of that – they are tonally neutral, transparent, or simply invisible, which makes them a pure enjoyment to listing to.

I was listening to the Audivina powered by Hifiman’s new dac/ amp combo EF600. The combo has a powerful amplifier with an delicate r2r dac inside. The pairing works great. What’s also unique and smart about the dac/amp is the function of an headphone stand. The Audivina looks absolutely stunning when I put the close back headphone on the dac/amp/stand EF600.

The prototype Audivera has a beautiful light brown colored wood earcups that are actually ear shaped. I greatly appreciate Hifiman’s modern ear-shaped drivers. The closet thing I can relate to the Audivina is Hifiman’s own open back HE1000se. I think they are very similar in sound reproduction and aesthetics. But consider the Audivina is a closed-back, it has the added benefit of noise isolation, and is surprisingly priced lower than the mighty HE1000se. it’s a great achievement.

I started headphone listening while pursuing my master degree at The Juilliard School. I don’t consider myself an audiophile. I focus on music more than the equipment. But somehow I fell in love with Hifiman headphones. My first listening of Hifiman’s headphones was back in 2012 when the game-changing HE-6 was at the center stage of Hifiman’s lineup. I still own a pair myself and deeply appreciate them (for what they are) today. Now I have found my favorite closed-back planer headphones in Audivina. I have yet auditioned the electrostatic paramount Shangri-La to complete my fun Hifiman journey – I look forward to that someday.


Yang Xu
Violinist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (New York)

Great write-up. Now, I have to try these!

 

[MusicalDoc8]

damn that review got me curious. But tell me, the EF600 can it play a dsd or how should i go around it? Convert to PCM?

 

[hp4fun]

From a classical violinist point of view, I prefer listening to headphones that can reproduce the sound close to what one can experience in an acoustically excellent concert hall. I’m lucky to perform in New York’s Carnegie Hall six times a years and give 120 opera concerts each season at the 4000-seat Metropolitan Opera house in Lincoln Center (New York City) for the past 14 years. In addition, I have traveled with the orchestra to perform in major concert/opera halls around the world. I am intimately familiar with what the best concert halls sound like. For me, the most important aspect of headphone listening is accuracy and sound stage. When I auditioned Hifiman’s Audivina for the first time I was extremely impressed by the soundstage presentation of the closed-back headphone. They reproduced exactly what I expect to hear when I go to the Carnegie Hall sitting In the front center seat -- open and glorious sound. There is this perfect tonal balance on all registers and no discernible coloration of any kind. String, wind and percussion all sound live-like and, for a lack of a better word, real.

Listening to The Met Orchestra’s Schubert Nineth symphony recording conducted by James Levine brings me back to the 2014 live concert experience when I performed the concert in Carnegie Hall. Putting on the Met’s Grammy-winning recoding of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle (that was superbly recorded), I feel like at home in the Lincoln Center’s cavernous opera house. The sound stage is exactly what I hear each day at the real venue that I perform. The ultimate test for vocal sound is Pavarotti singing Puccini’s Turando aria “Nessus Dorma”. As reproduced by the Audivina, the tenor’s sound is what an audience from the Met Orchestra “pit” would hear, true to the live sound.

Additionally, in reproducing large orchestral sound the Audivina also impressed me with its body/weight of sound as well as speed, which is a rare occurrence. Unlike smaller ensembles (such as classical chamber or jazz) and electronic music, orchestral sound involves a body of sound that can be thick and dense in the aggregate but also highly textured in details -- after all, there are 100+ musicians playing together as a whole but also individually. Most headphones can only meet one of the two requirements: either they can produce a thick, weighty sound but are unable to decipher all the details, or they have the speed to produce the minute details but cannot handle the aggregate weight. Audivina is a true exception, and it does not even try “hard” to meet both requirements – it appears that the design of the headphones simply allows a level of “bandwidth” that far exceeds what a full orchestral sound demands.

Tonal wise I am very intrigued by how Dr. Bian Fang could make Audivera sound so preside and euphonic at the same time. Usually when I hear from headphones that I consider accurate for each orchestral instrument and vocal, they have the tendencies to sound too analytical. But Audivina’s sound signature has none of that – they are tonally neutral, transparent, or simply invisible, which makes them a pure enjoyment to listing to.

I was listening to the Audivina powered by Hifiman’s new dac/ amp combo EF600. The combo has a powerful amplifier with an delicate r2r dac inside. The pairing works great. What’s also unique and smart about the dac/amp is the function of an headphone stand. The Audivina looks absolutely stunning when I put the close back headphone on the dac/amp/stand EF600.

The prototype Audivera has a beautiful light brown colored wood earcups that are actually ear shaped. I greatly appreciate Hifiman’s modern ear-shaped drivers. The closet thing I can relate to the Audivina is Hifiman’s own open back HE1000se. I think they are very similar in sound reproduction and aesthetics. But consider the Audivina is a closed-back, it has the added benefit of noise isolation, and is surprisingly priced lower than the mighty HE1000se. it’s a great achievement.

I started headphone listening while pursuing my master degree at The Juilliard School. I don’t consider myself an audiophile. I focus on music more than the equipment. But somehow I fell in love with Hifiman headphones. My first listening of Hifiman’s headphones was back in 2012 when the game-changing HE-6 was at the center stage of Hifiman’s lineup. I still own a pair myself and deeply appreciate them (for what they are) today. Now I have found my favorite closed-back planer headphones in Audivina. I have yet auditioned the electrostatic paramount Shangri-La to complete my fun Hifiman journey – I look forward to that someday.


Yang Xu
Violinist of The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra (New York)

Exactly what I want to know. Thanks! Got one immediately.

 

[MusicalDoc8]

Exactly what I want to know. Thanks! Got one immediately.

Any feedback?

 

[Beagle]

Exactly what I want to know. Thanks! Got one immediately.

 

[bluenight]

This has similar sound signature to HD800S?
But with more bass weight?
Can it be an all-rounder for more then classic music?
Seems like it has great comfort for long listening.

 

[simonelvladtepes]

Has anyone ever used HiFiMan's 30-day return option? Do they really refund you after you try the headphones if you just don't like them? If that's the case, what's the big deal ordering the Audivina and returning it if you don't like them?

 

[hp4fun]

Yeah, it was an impulse buy and I did not receive it yet of course.

I was just in Carnegie Hall and totally got what Yang Xu said. I just want the classical music sound that way, and anything that makes the string less shining / full, or the piano slightly dull, would eventually drove the satisfaction all the way down to the point that you dislike the headphone. Yang, as a renowned violinist, definitely had the credit to attest what should sound right on stage / front row (I assume this headfier is the same as https://www.metorchestramusicians.org/portfolio/yang-xu-violin/)

 

[MusicalDoc8]

Now I'm even more curious

 

[Takeanidea]

I'm also waiting for more impressions on these.

It does make you wonder about them. There are no reviews of the Audivina’s that I can find. Not even from the usual suspects.

You can put me in the line up

 

[vsg28]

I'll just leave these here: