Introduction

HIFIMAN has been busy lately, real busy even. Earlier this year we saw the release of the new planar magnetic flagship Susvara Unveiled, which brought with it a new driver concept involving the removal of the outside grilles. This effectively exposed the drivers, making for a fully open-back set which should not have any sound wave reflections off the grille that can otherwise detract from your listening experience. Of course that also meant the Susvara Unveiled required more care and attention in use, and came with magnetic veil covers to help protect the drivers when the headphones were not in use. I thought the Susvara Unveiled were absolutely fantastic and more of a specialist set than the original Susvara, meeting my music library and preferences with ease even if the $8000 was a lot to cough up. Then late September came and HIFIMAN brought out the HE1000 Unveiled for nearly a third the cost of the Susvara Unveiled. This was the unveiled take on the HIFIMAN HE1000se, and we were beginning to see a welcome trend in terms of more filled-out mids that lended favorably to vocals, as well as a generally tamer and smoother treble. The HE1000 Unveiled is also far less concerning in use thanks to the drivers being less exposed, yet I was left asking myself—will this unveiled driver technology trickle down further?


It did not take much longer for HIFIMAN to do it, and just a few weeks ago we saw the launch of the brand-new Arya Unveiled. This helps explain why the likes of the Arya Organic and HE1000 Stealth have been heavily discounted lately, not to mention the Arya Stealth from a few years ago that is a great buy at its current price—no doubt going to be discontinued soon. The Arya Unveiled looks quite similar to the HE1000 Unveiled, both with the teardrop-shaped ear cups that we've seen in multiple HIFIMAN headphones before, and having unveiled drivers on the outside in a manner that I do feel more comfortable using compared to the Susvara Unveiled. That said, the black chassis, headband, suspension band, and ear pads combined with the silver drivers on the outside do make me think this is the best looking HIFIMAN headphones ever made—a subjective take, but one that I am sure others agree with. This also suggests that perhaps the Arya Unveiled is using the Arya Stealth as the base platform as opposed to the Arya Organic that has a bass shelf which alone generated many fans of the product. Let's see if the drivers being unveiled result in a similar effect here too, which may well make this the best HIFIMAN release of the year given it's also the most affordable of the unveiled trio. Thanks to HIFIMAN for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp, as we begin this review with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications