Hifiman Arya Stealth: My New Favorite Objective Open-Back
[MSRP $1,599, marked down pretty much everywhere to $599. Purchased for $599 + tax on Amazon in January 2025.]
[Tl;dr: I wouldn’t pay the original MSRP, but these are awesome for $599 and that seems to be the new defacto price across the internet. These are hands-down the best objective-tuned headphones I’ve ever listened to. They can be a tiny bit treble-heavy, so it’s convenient to have EQ as an option, but I basically don’t use it 99% of the time so far. In my opinion, you have to pay substantially more to compete with it in an objective headphone, though I personally prefer something like the Meze 109 Pro for $200 more.]
Cost-agnostic: 9 out of 10 Denalis
Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis
Intro. I’ve never particularly liked Hifimans. The Sundaras are one of the most recommended intro headphones in the audiophile community (behind only the Sennheiser 6XX), but for me they are really, really unpleasantly strident in the treble. Between that, their middling pricing, and the inconsistent build quality of Hifimans in general, I’d mostly left the brand alone in my audio journey. That changed in December when Hifiman put most of their headphones on pretty massive sale (or just readjusted their pricing? It’s not clear yet if this is a permanent change or just dumping inventory before trade wars kick off). These came down $1,000, and some of their lower-price headphones have seen similar discounts which has really changed the math on some kinds of recommendations (with some reviewers referring to the Edition XS at $270, down from $500, as the best new deal in audio). It was enough to get me to pick up a pair of Arya Stealth just after Christmas.
The Aryas are my first foray into the world of planar magnetic headphones. Color me impressed.
[Review note: I’ve mostly been listening to these balanced via a Modius/Jotunheim 2 Schiit stack. I bought a $30 NewFantasia XLR-terminated cable for this and a pair of Meze 109 Pros. Except where noted otherwise, testing notes are based off of that setup.]
Sound. These are simply the best objective headphones I’ve heard. This is mostly a good thing, though like all highly-resolving headphones, they really punish poorly mastered records.
I commented in my long-delayed 6XX review a few weeks ago that one of the 6XX’s surprising strengths is the ability to reproduce silence, and these take that up to 11. The sound on these is impressively crisp and clear. The bell tones on Blur’s remix of Massive Attack’s “Angel” (one of the best transformational remixes I’ve ever heard) are clear and linger just the right amount before fading out. The complex interplay between the guitars and the bass on “Garcia Counterpoint” from Day of the Dead are gorgeous and lush. The pauses between the throbbing bass notes at the beginning of Meshell Ndegeocello’s “What Did I Do” are clear and distinct, and let the organ carry through. They’re just really, really precise and clear headphones. Ditto Sampha’s “Like the Piano”; these are really excellent and quiet, subtle pieces of music.
The soundstage/stereo separation is good but not particularly remarkable. The soundstage is clear and well done, but the phantom center feels like it’s inside your head rather than in front of it. This is a stylistic preference, but for me I prefer feeling like I’m sitting in front of the musical source. It is, however, good enough to be really distracting on Beyonce’s cover of “Blackbird”, with the guitar entirely in the right channel, the click track in the left, and the singers in the middle. [This is a mixing engineer’s choice, but it’s one of a handful of songs where I find that separation really distracting. Makes it great for testing though.] It’s much less noticeable on Dave Matthew Band’s “So Much To Say”, where the early guitar riffs are definitely on the left but not as far separated out with the Aryas than with some other headphones. On “Love Can Damage Your Health (Laid Mix)”, it sounds more like the opening rhythm guitar is walking back and forth rather than circling you.
The dynamics are well-implemented, though I might prefer a tiny bit more dynamic variation on a track like Glass Animals “It’s All So Incredibly Loud”; in the best reproduction of that track, it starts almost inaudibly and becomes almost overwhelmingly loud by the last minute or so. On these, it starts … quiet-ish and becomes loud-ish. That said, microdynamics are great and you get clear but not overwhelming accents on individual notes, and you can hear fingers sliding over guitar strings on some tracks in ways that add to the composition.
The bass is clean, crisp, and nimble. The Arya can reproduce the entire range of the ever-evolving bass line in Janet Jackson’s “Got ‘Til It’s Gone”. Ditto the basement-level bass hits in James Blake’s “Limit to Your Love”, a challenge for most headphones and speakers. I had an interesting discussion with someone on Reddit the other day about whether these were bass-heavy headphones, and in the end I don’t think they are: they don’t elevate or emphasize bass, but they easily and clearly replicate even challenging bass lines well. I’ve never heard them get splattery at volumes I would normally listen at, except where the splatter is part of the recording (Robert Glasper’s “Treal,” Massive Attack’s “Superpredators,” etc.).
Mid-range is really good, but not exceptional. I don’t think I’ve done enough testing to know this for sure, but my general sense is that they’re slightly better at replicating and setting out male vocals than female vocals (Justin Hicks on “What Did I Do?” vs. Jill Scott on “Calls”), but both are well done compared to most non-Sennheiser headphones.
Treble is really, really good. Almost painfully good on the wrong tracks, but to me that’s a hallmark of objectivity and it’s easily addressed via EQ. The muted trumpets on Miles Davis’ “Will O’ the Wisp” and the synths/guitars on Vampire Weekend’s “2021” are on the edge of being harsh at high volumes, but are ultimately just really well-reproduced sounds present in the original recordings. This is why I’m going to likely leave EQ turned on for these headphones most of the time when running via Roon.
Gaming. I haven’t been judging headphones based on their compatibility for gaming, but I think it’s worth throwing out there that these are phenomenal for gaming. They produce the full range of sounds, consistently, and give you good but not overwhelming directional information. I think they’re going to live plugged into my gaming PC most of the time.
Amplifier compatibility. The Aryas seem to be largely amp-agnostic, in that I don’t hear much difference between the Jotunheim stack (balanced and single-ended) vs. a Dawn Pro dongle DAC (balanced and single-ended) vs. Bifrost/Asgard 2 (single-ended), though I feel like I’m hearing a tiny bit more splatter in the bass and harshness in the treble running single-ended via the cheaper Modi/Magni Schiit stack. I’ve played with a bunch of different cables as well (cables for the Arya and Meze 99 Noir/109 Pro are, conveniently, interchangeable), with no noticeable effect. You won’t get the best performance out of a phone or a similar device without a lot of power, but they’re still pretty good even coming from that kind of consumer-grade source. They’re just not super demanding, which is great.
Noise canceling. Lol. These are the most open of open-backs, other than maybe something like the 6XX. You will hear EVERYTHING in your space (like naughty golden retriever noises/starving noises), and anyone nearby will hear whatever you’re listening to. They’re not for loud spaces, or quiet spaces in close proximity to other people.
Spatial audio. Nope!
Controls. None. These are passive open-backed headphones.
Connectivity. The Aryas ship with a standard, single-ended 6.35 mm (aka ¼”) audio jack connected to the ear cups with separate 3.5 mm jacks. This means that they’re easy to swap cables out on, and because Hifiman, Meze, and a few other major manufacturers use the same internal connectors in this general range of headphones, it’s pretty easy to get aftermarket cables, standard or custom. The OEM cable is fine (not particularly tangly, not particularly microphonic, etc.), but I really enjoy the cheap NewFantasia aftermarket XLR cable I’ve been doing most of my testing with. It hangs easily and loosely and has zero microphonics. I do have a custom-made Hart Audio cable arriving this week, and I’ll update this once I’ve had a chance to play with it a little more.
Comfort. They’re pretty comfortable, once I figured out how the adjustments work (which took me WAAAAY too long). The adjustment system holds tight when the headband is under tension, but slide maybe a little too easily when it’s not, leading to my having to readjust the settings most of the time when I take them off or put them on. A system that held them in place against gentle bumps would be an improvement. That said, they’re really comfortable cans. Initially they sat too low on my head and put pressure on the top of my ears, but now that they’re properly adjusted the weight is nicely distributed across my head and I can wear them for hours comfortably.
Construction. Hifiman isn’t exactly known for build quality, and at $1,600 I would probably have expected more. At $600? They’re pretty fair. I think the build quality is better on some of the other headphones in this general price category, but these are perfectly acceptable. The metal hanger isn’t microphonic the way that some others are (*cough* 99 Noir *cough*), and the cables are easy to attach even when wearing them. One of the things I do love about these headphones is that the ears rotate independently, so they can lay flat when packed in a case or a bag. It’s a little thing, but it’s surprisingly helpful with transport.
In terms of sound, I think the Arya beat the Elex pretty handily. At $1,600, I think I’d rather have the $600 Elex, but with the Aryas down to $599 it’s not much of a contest anymore. I will say the Elex feel more like a luxury product, in terms of build, comfort, and accessories (the Elex ship with braided single-ended and XLR-terminated balanced cables, in a nice storage box), but as good as the Elex feel and sound (they’re sometimes referred to as a super-6XX), the Aryas are better for everything except maybe midrange and soundstage.
If you can afford the extra $200, the 109s are better headphones for my money. But you will not be disappointed by the Arya Stealth.
[I’ll just throw this out there in case anyone asks: as much as I love the 6XX, it really can’t compete with the Arya Stealth outside of maybe midrange response and soundstaging. The Aryas are just better headphones, which you would hope would be the case at 3x (or originally 8x) the price.]
Overall. The Arya Stealths are a great deal at the new price point. Genuinely really impressed and pleased by the sound quality you can get for $600. They’re so clean and precise that I can overlook a small tendency towards harshness on some tracks, and they’re going to be my new reference point for objective, open-back headphones.
#reviews #headphones #sennheiser #6XX #anc #spatialaudio #meh #2025 #99noir #meze #sunglasses #overear #cans #hifiman #arya #stealth
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