Introduction

By now I would assume anyone clicking on this review is aware of HIFIMAN. When I think of planar magnetic headphones, the first brand that now comes to my mind happens to be HIFIMAN, which is incredible when you realize there have been others in this field far, far longer than HIFIMAN has been in existence. Yet it just happens that nearly every price point for open-back headphones has a HIFIMAN product in the discussion and often in the strong recommendations too. There's the HE400se at the $100 range, the Sundara at $300, Edition XS at $450, and then things get murky with a lot of recent releases and sales that can get you the Ananda for $550, an Arya at $1000-1300, and the HE1000se at $2000 as of the time I write this review—could be temporary sales—with the planar flagship Susvara having steadily remained at $6000 (MSRP). You will notice there is a big gap between the Arya and the HE1000se now and that is where the HE1000 series needs to be further discussed.


I'm not going to give you a history lesson here, let's just make it short and say there was a HIFIMAN HE1000 and HE1000 V2 before the HE1000se came out at its original MSRP of $3500—a big increase of $1500 over the previous versions. The HE1000 V2 was often regarded as HIFIMAN's bassiest open-back set, with many people finding it a lot more agreeable than the overly bright, but insanely detailed HE1000se. With everything in the HIFIMAN planar magnetic lineup seemingly going towards stealth magnets now, I suppose it was inevitable that the HE1000 got the same treatment. Except for one thing—the HE1000se was that already, having been the second product ever to get stealth magnets after the Susvara. So imagine everyone's surprise when late last year there was a HE1000 V2 Stealth rolling out in China which then became just HE1000 Stealth internationally earlier this year. This is not the HE1000se and I'll talk more about it over the course of this review which begins with a look at the product specifications in the table below. Thanks to HIFIMAN for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp!

Specifications