Hifiman Arya Unveiled Review

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The Arya Unveiled has a bass response that goes deep into the sub-bass regions, but it does so with a neutral approach from upper to sub-bass. It doesn’t play particular favorites with any of the bass sections, though the mid and upper bass carry a bit more body and weight. Although Arya Unveiled has generally good body and weight in its lows, it does miss out on impact and weight for bass-heavier, mostly electronic, genres to me.

Bass has good resolution and texture throughout, which especially shows with string instruments, bass guitars and lower pitched wind instruments. Here the Arya Unveiled tickles out very fine nuances of them.

On Underworld’s Jumbo, for example the Arya Unveiled has a snappy bass with great weight and density but could potentially do with a bit more impact and thunder to make this track an even greater listen. However, other songs like Egales’ Hotel California (Live at MTV) sound very convincing. The drum hits at around 30 seconds in, have wonderful body and weight.

For heavier tracks like Clark’s Winter Linn, I think the AU could benefit from a little more weight and presence to my ears.

The upper bass slightly transports some coloring and weight into the lower midrange. Although body and weight here are above neutral, for my personal taste, they could carry more density and coloring. The resolution in this frequency range is excellent, which also enables the AU’s splendid texture and rendering.

Deeper male vocals and lower pitched instruments, keys especially, have good body and weight, but again, could do with just a touch more to give me that exciting impression I like. Generally, the midrange sports wonderful levels of richness and resolution. Especially vocals are highly addictive to me. They come with wonderful emotions and air, giving them a bigger appearance but at a level that really captures me. The vocals are one of the best parts of the AU to me.

Midrange instruments and vocals have good warmth in them, to give the Arya Unveiled an easily approachable sound that can convince with realism and organics. Both male and female singers have superb vocal clarity and emotional presence. But especially female singers are highly addictive to my ears.

Nina Simone for example really has some magic in her voice in her track Feelin Good. This is one of my favorite tracks and the Arya Unveiled manages to fully catch me with it. Her voice sounds open and rich with excellent resolution and body. Just beautiful!

Another good example would be Apparat’s Goodbye, the vocals of Anja Plaschg (from Soap&Skin) sound lush and emotionally grasping. Male vocals like Michael Jackson’s, John Mayer’s or John McCrea (Cake) all have great emotions in their songs and are pure joy to listen to.

The midrange generally has excellent resolution, body and texture in them. Though it’s not a fattened-up sound with unlimited flesh on the bones, the mids sound full bodied to me. The Arya Unveiled convinces me most with acoustic instruments though, here the level of richness truly helps to achieve a sound that’s very hard to pass on.

In terms of technicalities, the Arya Unveiled also delivers great results. It has high resolution throughout with excellent texture. But where it really performs astonishingly good is in imaging sharpness and staging. It creates a wide and deep stage and sets spatial cues with precision. Although it has good levels of speed, the Arya Unveiled sometimes loses focus in complex and overloaded tracks.

For example, in the Chemical Brothers’ Sunshine Underground around halfway through the track information appears to figuratively explode. Here the Arya Unveiled does have a harder time keeping the structure and staying in full control.

Still, the Arya Unveiled has great abilities to render tracks with high precision and display the information to you. Jean-Michel Jarre’s Ethnicolor for example is a track where every little detail is easily distinguishable.

Arya Unveiled’s treble is slightly warmer tuned and has an accessible tuning to my ears. It does feature good clarity but doesn’t produce any sharpness/hotness. This makes it a headphone that could be listened to for hours to me. In my opinion, you should be fine even if your treble tolerance is lower. Instruments in the treble region have good speed and body, but their energy never crosses discomfort levels. Hi-hat hits and cymbals have a good presence in the signature but sound a bit tamed. The treble extension is good, but it could go even higher. It still pushes great levels of air into the rest of the spectrum.

Comparisons

In this section we will compare the Arya Unveiled to two other models currently available on the market. The first is my trusted HIFIMAN HE1000se. The second is Palma Audio’s headphone premiere, the DHS-1.

All comparisons were done using the Chord Electronics Hugo TT2 together with the Alto amplifier. This segment is supposed to give you a better understanding of how the Arya Unveiled sounds to me and compares to its competition. All headphones have been level matched.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to any of the previous Arya models. So, I cannot compare the Unveiled to either the Organic, Stealth or regular Arya. Sorry!

HIFIMAN HE1000se

The HE1000se has served as my favorite headphone for the past years. It even survived the Susvara back in the day. Both headphones are planar magnetic over-ears, though the HE1000se doesn’t feature HIFIMAN’s unveiled technology – this is reserved for the HE1000 Unveiled, which Lieven will review in due time.

At the time of writing, you can get a new HE1000se from HIFIMAN directly for 1,999$.

The HE1000se and the Arya Unveiled of course share some similarities in their tuning since both come from the same manufacturer. Both headphones have a wonderfully precise bass with superb texture and layering. Though the HE1000se sounds a bit tighter and faster to me than the Arya Unveiled, the AU appears slightly finer nuanced to my ears. The HE1000se reaches a little deeper into the sub-bass and delivers some of the missing impact.

In the mids, the Arya Unveiled sounds a bit fuller and warmer to me than the HE1000se. It sounds, for the lack of a better word, more musical. Vocals on the AU are just so good, even the HE1000se can’t compete with them in my opinion. Arya Unveiled’s vocal presentation is richer, grander and more emotional. Instruments have slightly more weight and body on the Arya Unveiled.

Both headphones have excellent technical performance, but the stage of the Arya Unveiled wraps more around you. It creates a sound stage with wider and deeper dimensions. However, the HE1000se has a more holographic appearance, where the musicians perform more in front of you than on the Arya Unveiled, which keeps the musicians a bit closer.

The treble of the HE1000se is a touch brighter and faster than on the Arya Unveiled. It also extends further up top. The AU is warmer tuned in this frequency region, which gives it less bite than the HE1000se.

Palma Audio DHS-1

The Palma Audio DHS-1 is a convertible dynamic driver over-ear headphone. Its most notable gimmick is to go from (semi) open to closed back with the rotation of the backplate. It cost €2.195 Euro.

The Palma headphone and the Arya Unveiled only have faint similarities overall. They both have a more neutral signature, but the Arya Unveiled does have slightly warmer tuning in its midrange, which makes it more pleasing to listen to. In the lows the Arya Unveiled delivers a more precise sound with better resolution and texture. It also has more body and weight, though the DHS-1 appears denser. The DHS-1 reaches a touch deeper; it also sounds snappier and faster than the AU.

Mids on the Palma are more transparent and neutral, but the Arya’s are fuller and richer. Every instrument has a touch more warmth in them than on the DHS-1. On the Palma headphone vocals sound more compressed and closed in, where the Arya gives them perfect air and space. Singers also sound far more emotional and addictive on the Arya than on the Palma Audio headphone.

On technicalities the Arya comes out on top to me. It creates a wider, deeper and taller stage, where musicians can walk through with more space. Arya Unveiled also has a darker background and sharper, more precise imaging. HIFIMAN’s AU also has higher resolution and better rendering.

Treble on the DHS-1 is faster, more upfront and harder edged than on the Arya Unveiled. Overall, the Arya Unveiled has a more effortless sound, that doesn’t sound as stressed as the Palma’s to me. Personally, I’d pick the Arya Unveiled over it any day.

Conclusion

HIFIMAN has created wonderful headphones with the Arya Unveiled. Its neutral warm sound is excellent for a broad variety of genres. The Arya Unveiled convinces with superb technicalities, a large-scale sound stage and immaculate imaging. Especially Arya Unveiled’s vocals are what truly struck me though. They are perfectly shaped and oh so addictive. The warmer tuned treble and top comfort make way for hours of fatigue-free listening sessions, where you can simply enjoy your music open-end.

The Arya Unveiled is a great headphone, with the only drawback to me being the plastic ear-cups. A change in material would have reflected the premium choice of the Arya Unveiled better in my opinion. But maybe HIFIMAN could not have offered the Arya Unveiled at that price then. Who knows. 

The sound quality of the Arya Unveiled in respect to its price is outstanding, and for this, they deserve their seat at our Recommended Headphones table.

Summary

Pros:

Addictive vocals
Excellent staging and imaging
Neutral to warm tuning
Comfort
Price to performance ratio

Cons:

Ear-cup material
Potential of damaging open drivers