Edition XS | My experience as my first audiophile grade gear.

Submitted by pheonix10yson t3_z8gzzu in headphones

This is the noob who posted that he's not impressed by Hifiman Edition XS.TLDR: I feel it's much better now.

I don't know what it was but I couldn't hear the good sound stage it is supposed to have. I tried it after some time not listening it for two days. After that I gave it some time to grow on me, trying different things. I can now say, they are good. I can also identify the instruments in different places other than just left and right. But I do feel that there's not much depth to it.However, I don't think I am a headphone guy to begin with. I still get quickly fatigued with these. After three or four songs my ears starts to get warm and I have to take a pause.I don't have access to my 100$ bookshelf monitoring speakers right now, but I feel I would like to go back to listening on those.

I would also like to mention some other things I observed:

  • I realized it was me and maybe my song choices. I tried it first on some old Bollywood songs. It turns out, a lot of them doesn't sound good in lossless. From my observations, the lossless ones tend to have a shouty high treble, which sometimes even will crackle my headphones. This was much less playing directly from YoutubeMusic. Weird!
  • For such songs, I have made an EQ preset which lowers the treble. It does make the song not as lively, but better than the shouty crackling sound.
  • For other songs I can comfortably EQ without it crackling and actually significantly improving the experience. I generally tend to boost the vocal range as most of the songs I listen to are vocal. For pop/ rock, I use a V shaped EQ.
  • AM also has an option to choose an EQ for each song. I don't know how it works though.
  • I found this android app: AirReciever. The paid version of this let me airplay high res audio (at least that is what it says on AM). This makes my setup sort of wireless. I can listen on my bed without having a cable attached to my laptop.Mac -Airplay -> Android 12 -> Ifi HipDac V2 -unbalanced cable-> Edition XS.Please let me know if you think the audio is somehow getting compressed. I am not sure about this.

PS: I am using Apple Music(AM) on my Mac and the EQ that comes with it. And Apple Music suggestions suck! I feel anxiety juggling between AM, YTMusic, and Tidal.

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Gofa_Kirselph t1_iybptkt wrote

>couldn’t hear the good sound stage it is supposed to have.

>not much depth

>quickly fatigued

I’ll take a wild guess... Do you not have a proper amp/DAC? I don’t have the Edition XS but I do have other planars and they typically require a good amp with lots of current.

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pheonix10yson OP t1_iybtqor wrote

i'm using ifi hipdac v2. It's rated at 400mw at 32 ohm vs edition xs' 62mw requirement with 12 ohm and 92 db.
I don't know how HipDac v2 scale down to 18 ohm, but I guess it should be enough.

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Gofa_Kirselph t1_iyc87ng wrote

Yeah… it’s hard to say for sure since I don’t have the same exact gear. I do have the Aeon Open Flow which is rated at 13ohms with a sensitivity of 93db and a Creative Sound BlasterX G6. While it drives the Aeons more than loud enough, it sounds harsh and grainy compared to the Magni 3+ and the tube amp I have. It could be a similar scenario or the XS just aren’t to your liking. That’s the difficult part about this hobby.

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Stunning_Ad_7888 t1_iyc8ll2 wrote

The hipdac doesnt have enough current to drive the xs properly.

Should be ok as a dac tho.

A zen can in addition would get you closer, but it would still be limiting the xs.

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Impossible-Stop2243 t1_iydizvu wrote

dude , get topping E30II , L30II stack, life will never be same again. Or E50 if you into MQA , it will open up your XS. No question. Hip dac has audible distortion.

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dongas420 t1_iybx4rv wrote

>12 kHz can change a lot depending on how you wear headphones, and YouTube has a lower high-frequency cutoff that could reduce the impact that has on the sound. Try putting the XS on differently, maybe angling it forwards or backwards.

e: Wearing glasses or having long hair could also potentially roll off the low end and exacerbate any shoutiness, so watch for that. Also, make sure you turn off EQ before trying anything so it doesn't influence the sound.

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