Someone just made a post showing that they’re now $150 on amazon. For that price are they actually that bad? The name only goes against them because I know they sound nothing like sundaras. But with eq, are they really worse value than other $150 closed backs? K371?
I bought them, and while I don’t think they are spectacular, they are very good. They don’t deserve the negative press they got. I say this for the price of $150. For $400, I’d be a little bit disappointed. But I also have the Ananda, which I paid that much for, and they don’t perform as well as that headphone, mostly because they are a closed back. On their own, and if you have nothing else to compare them to, they are solid in every sense of the word for $150. They’d be a great gift for someone who wants to try a planar but needs closed back.
I would hesitate to recommend them for on the go, running off your phone or even a Bluetooth dongle. They will get enough volume, but they won’t have the same impact as any powered amp would. I would say that running balanced or with a 6db gain makes them sound the best. This is just the nature of planars. They run best with power, but they’ll still sound fine without the extra juice it you want to use them like that. Fine isn’t really good enough for me, though.
I think they are visually quite beautiful. I didn’t think much of them from the pictures, but they are quite attractive in my hands and I am drawn to that lovely wood. They really stand out on my desk!
I have other closed backs, including the R9 which I bought recently because Hifiman dropped the price down to $109. I haven’t done a close comparison, but I think the R9 has much wider soundstage than the closed Sundara and definitely more bass. They are tons lighter and have a softer clamp force as well. I like the looks of the Sundara way more, but ultimately I can’t see these things on my own head and I’m not wearing either one of them in public so it’s not an issue. I think the R9 is a more fun headphone, but less sophisticated. If I were a billionaire, I’d rather display the Sundara closed on my desk. There a certain elegance to them you have to see in person to understand. “Sundara” means “beautiful, lovely” in Sanskrit. The closed Sundara really deserves the name. They really do sound and look beautiful,but it’s unfair to directly compare them to the open back version. I think this is really where Hifiman failed the closed version. They should have gone with a different name because it’s inevitable that the reviewers were going to do a direct comparison, and it’s pretty apparent that they are aren’t the same thing.