Conclusion
The Arya of HifiMan: noblesse in a sober jacket. For about half the price of a HE1000 you have the same technique on your ears. The Arya looks less impressive than the HE1000 and may not have the comfort of its legendary big brother, but you get a whole lot of listening pleasure in return. Everything that makes planar headphones attractive from an audio perspective is found in the Arya. Make sure you get a good match with an amplifier that has 'balls'. Because this Arya requires quite a bit of power before she really starts singing. Once there is a match, then there is a good chance that you do not want to take off the headphones.Measurements Hifiman Arya
Contents
When we connect the Hifiman to our Illusonic measuring setup with Harriëtte, we see excellent results. The response is extremely straight. (Note that you should read these graphs above according to the Harman response curve for headphones; headphones never measure linear because we are dealing with a compensation curve for the ear). Hifiman follows the harman curve almost perfectly, which should result in a flat response.
Distortion is extremely low. And right away. The only thing we notice is the peak at the end. There is a resonance point around 18 kHz – 20 kHz. Now that seems dramatic, but know that this ‘peak’ is still around 0.12%. In short: Hifiman really did a great job.
Pulse behaviour is fast, but we do see a very small afterglow. (Probably because our pre-amp has some trouble with these spicy headphones).
Specifications Hifiman Arya
| Headphone type | Over-ear |
| Unit | Planar |
| Impedance | 35 Ohm |
| Sensitivity | 90 dB |
| Frequency response | 8 – 65 Hz |
| Weight | 404 grams |
| Price | 1599 |