Introduction

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 even been in existence. Yet it just so happens that nearly every price point for open-back headphones has a HIFIMAN product in the discussion and often in the strong recommendations too. We've covered plenty of HIFIMAN products in the past and one thing I've noticed is how often the audio brand tends to revise its existing products. HIFIMAN commonly discounts previous products, but sometimes completely overhauls its own product line to where a $3500 set now comes in at $1700, and the very first HIFIMAN flagship—the HE1000 series—went from $3000 for the original to now being $1400 for the latest and arguably best version yet. In fact, pretty much every open-back planar magnetic set from HIFIMAN has seen a steady price cut over time, although there has been a very notable exception—the HIFIMAN Susvara.

Introduced in early 2017, the Susvara broke the price barrier (and many minds at the same time) about what a set of planar magnetic headphones could cost. It launched at $6000 back then (~$7700 in 2024 money with inflation accounted for), and even had a dedicated $15k amplifier made for it. Both of those continue to be sold today for the same prices as seven years ago, although no doubt you can get a deal simply by talking to dealers or even HIFIMAN directly. Either way, what started by denial and anger quickly went through all five stages of grief to where we are not only at the acceptance point, but many have even gone past it to where they can even justify the $6000 price tag of the HIFIMAN Susvara! There have been several flagship sets released since from other brands, yet the Susvara continues to be strongly discussed and recommended whereas most others have not enjoyed this longevity. A single thread on Head-fi has nearly 27,000 posts about the Susvara, for context. The Susvara has thus become the default benchmark for any flagship released since, and yet more and more people have been wondering whether there was going to be a successor. After all, the Susvara is notoriously hard to drive and a more efficient successor with perhaps some of the newer tech developed by HIFIMAN in the years since would no doubt be of interest. It's July 2024 and HIFIMAN has finally unveiled a successor to the famed Susvara.


I hope you enjoyed my joke above, because the product name chosen by HIFIMAN is Susvara Unveiled. There was a private showing earlier this year for a select few who attended Munich High End before loose lips eventually led to HIFIMAN itself having a launch event in June to talk more about the Susvara Unveiled. The name isn't catchy perhaps, yet it makes a lot of sense when you realize HIFIMAN had been trying hard to come up with a worthy successor and failing until it realized the biggest obstacle to open-back headphones is the grille on the back. Remove the grille, and now you have a fully open-back set which should not have any sound wave reflections off the grille that can otherwise detract from your listening experience. There's a bit more to it than just this, and of course the Susvara Unveiled has additional updates inside and outside too. The photo above shows what look like bare, or unveiled, drivers on the outside thus and this might well be the boldest move I've seen from any audio brand in ages given the potential handling risk involved too. As such, I was naturally eager to get my hands on one to find out how it pays off in practice. So let's thank HIFIMAN for providing a review sample to TechPowerUp and begin this review of a hotly anticipated flagship set of headphones with a look at the product specifications in the table below.

Specifications