The treble attack on hifiman is harsh and bright to cover the crappy mids and make them seem more detailed and analytical. To me they are just overall torture devices and unpleasant in pretty much all possible ways.

There is also a problem that planar headphones lack impact, so you want to turn up the volume to get the same impact as dynamic driver headphones at lower volumes but when you turn them up all you hear is the harsh treble because the mids are poor and overall recessed. If you EQ to tone down the treble the headphones will just sound even more lifeless and dull.

It’s when the left and right speakers are different volumes or have different characteristics. It’s extremely common with Hifiman headphones.

My first pair of Ananda Nano headphones had about a 8db difference between the left and right speaker. The left speaker also didn’t have the same amount of sub-bass as the right.

The 2nd pair I tried had the same issue but at a lesser level.

This is a good test to notice driver mismatching or if the headphones will pop/clip or rattle during bass.

https://youtu.be/J0a2Prc_MQo?si=oK6d2WvMQx2vc0DT

Listen to bass tests at a higher volume and notice if the hifiman pop/clip. Mine did and no other headphone has ever done that to me before.

You probably have some audio enhancements on in the background within Android. I noticed the same thing using a passthrough vs using a cheap crappy dac and it was because there were some android audio enhancements checked on by default.

Sounds like a bit of a tamed down version of the Ananda Nano’s I owned. The lack of detail and recessed nature of the mids and the aggressive treble attack made me not like them but the bad comfort and driver mismatching on the two pairs I tried made me vow never to buy another Hifiman product.

The deep sub-bass and the large scale/bigness of the sound is cool but they were too wonky in every other way to me.

POCO F3. It genuinely shits on phones 4x as expensive (at the time of release anyways). Still holding up several years later.

MIUI has some annoying quirks but so do any phone OS’s including vanilla Android.

This old cheap Chinese phone also supports LDAC. No headphone out but an IFI Go Link can even drive my 470 OHM headphones.

My first pair lasted 5 days and my second pair lasted 4 weeks.

I own a pair of these and love them for their purpose (especially with EQ) but they’re definitely finnicky and I wouldn’t 100% rely on them. I wouldn’t be surprised if mine died soon (had them a couple years).

I think if mine died right now I might get a high quality wired IEM even though it would be regressive in some ways. LDAC is the main appeal of these and I think only Sony supports it.