The HIFIMAN Mini Shangri-La came out of nowhere a couple of months ago. I had heard rumors about a new flagship in the works for a while now, which turned out to be the impressive Susvara Unveiled. In fact, we have since also seen the release of the new HE1000 Unveiled, and I'll try to get one in for review too. HIFIMAN is the only audio brand I am aware of which makes and sells their own dynamic, planar magnetic, and electrostatic driver headphones. The former has had a lot of love recently in both the IEM and over-ear space, with the planar magnetic lineup being what HIFIMAN is known for. Amidst all this, I was left wondering whether we'd ever see more e-stats and the Mini Shangri-La was a solid reply. This now makes for four e-stat open-back headphones from HIFIMAN, covering a price range of $900-$18,000. Each of the previous three were unique enough in tonality and technical performance to warrant a spot in the lineup, and the Mini Shangri-La continues this trend by carving out a niche to itself by offering a fairly unique—for e-stats—relaxed and mid-forward presentation. Some of this can be attributed to the use of a specific headband system that HIFIMAN typically uses on its more affordable products. It has generally resulted in a relatively weak clamp force, and also happens to have fewer sizing options for those with small or average-sized heads. The end result of this, as well as perhaps some internal leakage, is a dip in the sub-bass that's atypical of these oval ear cup HIFIMAN headphones. Add to this a pronounced drop in the mid-treble, and you have a set which feels like a Sennheiser HD 6XX in tonality, but with more detail retrieval and that exceptional layering and accuracy you get with e-stats. It's also very comfortable to use, making it a contender for gaming and general media consumption too.

The tonality makes it a special set of sorts, yet that brings with it some caveats too. Those who like lots of dynamic bass typically stay away from e-stats to begin with, and the Mini Shangri-La emphasizes this further by being light sounding in the lower frequencies. It's best treated as a set for vocals and strings, with the likes of pop, acoustic jazz, classical, even modern country music faring very well. The more relaxed treble makes it feel smoother and non-fatiguing, yet I wanted to add some of the mid-treble back to fill in the space on offer. The Mini Shangri-La, out of the box, has a wide soundstage, albeit it ends up less deep as a result. Likewise, this results in the upper mids and lower treble being more emphasized, and those sensitive to increased energy in the upper treble should also try and demo this first. Being an e-stat, you also need a dedicated energizer for it. HIFIMAN has released the Mini Shangri-La amplifier alongside, which is in a price range that I really don't have a lot of context with. I can appreciate that it's a transformer and MOSFET-based design, but there's more going on inside which makes it sound substantially better than, say the TOPPING EHA5. I was generally pleased with the feature set, especially in the absence of any dreaded low volume channel imbalance or transistor noise at idle, and it seems built well enough to not cause any concerns there. Bass extension could be better, but you would only notice it next to a more capable amplifier which usually costs significantly more. The entire Mini Shangri-La system costs $2300, a $300 discount compared to purchasing the two separately—which you can, I appreciate HIFIMAN always allowing this option. It's not inexpensive, and there are certainly things I'd rather see improved on the headphones build side, but such is the nature of e-stats that the Mini Shangri-La system has a compelling argument to justify its asking price.