Sundara Means “Beautiful”

Several years ago, a Schiit Audio Modi DAC and Magni head-amp came to grace the Dismal Wizard’s desk. Some time later, he bought a pair of Audeze LCD-1 headphones. While shopping for these he also found the HiFiMan Sundara open backs, also a planar magnetic design. Having some spare coin lying about, he ordered a pair and has been listening to them. After five hours or so of listening with Sundara Open Back, I’m really impressed by Sundara. My first impressions follow.

Revisions

2023/08-11 Original

References

With the demise of the local audio shop, YouTube reviews by enthusiast audio journalists have become an important source of information for the audio gear enthusiast. I’ve also found the Head-fi.org community helpful.

Audeze and HiFiMan

HiFiMan is an interesting company. The founder and owner, Dr. Fang Bian [5] founded head-fi.org and its associated headphone shop before starting HiFiMan. HiFiMan has a listener oriented audio company while Audeze appears to have a recording producer orientation indicated by featuring artists, recording engineers, and mixing and mastering engineers using Audeze on its website.

Audeze LCD-1

In addition to Sundara, I own and use a pair of Audeze LCD-1 headphones, now discontinued. These were designed for field use by recording engineers offering a good sound, sturdy structure, and folding design for packing with field kit.

Sundara

Sundara is a planar magnetic headphone made by Chinese/American company HiFiMan. The company name is a big gimmicky but HiFiMan has been in business since 2005 and developed its first planar magnetic headphones in 2010. Since then, HiFiMan has added styles and price points. The website shows a rather complicated family tree of headphone product evolution from the company’s original product to today’s best selling products.

Reviewers [1,2,3] have done an excellent job describing Sundara’s sound and its position in the headphone firmament. Sundara is shamelessly designed for music listening and is engineered for good sound while remaining easy to assemble and easy to fabricate with a consumer grade finish. HiFiMan likely achieves Sundara’s low cost by eschewing exotic case construction and by embracing automated component fabrication and assembly.

There are 2 Sundara Products

HiFiMan offers two distinctly different headphones, both planar magnetic, the open back shown here and the closed back. The two coexist in the value end of the high end market but closed back has a different sound as the closed back design forces the device to deal with the waves radiated from the back side of the transducer. In the open back, this energy is released into the room to dissipate. In the closed back, it must be prevented from reflecting off the back structure and passing through the transducer into the listener’s ear. How successfully a closed back headphone does this has a big effect on its clarity of presentation and voicing. Needless to say, closed back Sundara has a very different sound and staging than the open back original.

Listening Impressions

Since they arrived Thursday, I’ve spent 5 or so hours listening to Sundara. I listen to live music monthly including our local jazz concert series and Virginia Symphony’s orchestral programs but sometimes some holiday pops. We’re fortunate to have Sandler Center in Virginia Beach, perhaps the best orchestral venue in Virginia. Acoustics was a design priority. These two series give me a familiarity with well-produced live sound.

Comfort

With its strap style suspension and larger area ear cups, Sundara is the most comfortable of the 3 headphones I have used. It is also the best sounding. The voicing is wide and neutral. Transient response is fast and well damped.

Small Acoustic Ensembles

Sundara Open Back is a great jazz and bluegrass headphone accurately portraying upright bass sounds, Chris Thile’s mandolin both plucked and shred, and Brad Mehldau’s Steinway on the Thlie-Mehldau recording. I’ve also listened to Nickel Creek, Dave Brubeck’s Time Outtakes, and Joni Mitchell’s Live in Newport 2022 (Joni Jam).

The Sundara Open Back does the best of any headphone I’ve used at reproducing the spatial presentation captured (or constructed) by the mix engineer and mastering. Instruments and voices are well positioned left and right and Sundara does a good job separating Chris and Brad singing the Scarlet Town chorus.

Large Mixed Ensembles

I’ve yet to listen to classical music using Sundara but I’ve sampled Snarky Puppy’s Sylva recording made with Metropole Orkest. Snarky Puppy is a jazz-funk big band known for its energy and its complex sound. In this recording, it partnered with Metropole Orkest to develop and produce an orchestral take on the Snarky Puppy experience. The jazz band and orchestra play together, trading off melody play. Sundara keeps all the parts organized and in their place. Orchestral timbre is preserved.

I had a go at West Side Story, more a film score than an orchestral recording. It mixes elements of jazz and orchestral music and show tunes. Sundara does an excellent job staging the Jets and Sharks with the orchestra. The hand drumming and other percussion is crystal clear. The presentation has the clarity of a good seat in a good hall. Intimate vocals like Maria are natural. The big dance encounters between the two gangs are as you’d hear them at the show.

Electric Music

As I was editing this draft, I realized I’d not listened to any electric blues so I cued up Seasick Steve’s Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks recording. On the opener, Treasures, Steve’s beater guitars come off nicely as does his rode hard and put up wet voice. That warm rich gravelly intonation is rich and full. Steve can get loud as he shows on You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks. Danny on drums and John Paul Jones (yes formerly of Led Zeppelin) join in. Danny tunes his drums! The kick is clean and the tom and snare are live-sound real. There are sticks on skin. And Steve’s voice remains clear and gravelly up front. The third track, Burnin’ Up, is a mix of loud rocking and soft spoken verses. Everything stays in focus and contrast between the loud parts and the quiet is nicely done. The 3 string trance wonder is clear and Steve’s voice purrs. Steve’s “Mississippi Drum Machine”, a packing box he stomps on, is easily identified.

Did I tell you that I like this record? I do. I also listened to the Cowboy Junkies The Trinity Session, perhaps the ultimate headphone recording. Cowboy Junkies, just starting out, didn’t have money for studio time or a drawn out mix and mastering process so they recorded direct to two track in a rented church. The recording microphone was a single Ambisonic stereo pair around which the band gathered as you’ve seen Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers do on stage. There’s no multi-tracking. No fixing it in the mix. Just a live take to tape and post production to make the stereo master. With Sundara, the five artists are properly placed in space. The presentation is very you are there on set.