[ORIGINAL MSRP $399. Currently available from Hifiman (though don’t buy from them) for $379 (open box), and $399 new from Amazon in May 2026. Purchased lightly used from r/AVExchange for $300 in February 2026.]
[Tl;dr: The Hifiman Edition XV are a great new edition to the $400 open back headphone market, joining the Meze 105 AER and Sennheiser HD 490 Pro. Not a lot of headphones under $500 cleanly beat my beloved HD 6XX, and these do. It has all of the things I liked about the old Edition XS (bass extension, soundstage, build) and none of the things I did not (primarily the treble). It’s pretty rare for me to endorse a new headphone at their MSRP, but … $399 is a really reasonable price for what you get with the Edition XV. If you’re in the market for a planar magnetic (particularly if you’re a little treble sensitive) and don’t find the price tag daunting, I recommend them wholeheartedly to you.]
Cost-agnostic: 9 out of 10 Denalis
Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10 Denalis
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction
I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Hifiman. As I noted in my Arya Stealth review, my first few experiences with Hifiman headphones were … not great; Hifiman’s house sound is one that tends towards brightness, which doesn’t always work on my head, and frankly they have yet to produce a decent sounding closed back.3 Despite that, one of my first genuinely great headphones was that Hifiman Arya Stealth. I said at the time that it was my new favorite objectively tuned headphone, and while I’ve gotten a chance to spend time with some other really great, objectively-tuned headphones, I don’t think I’ve tried anything that really beats them for purely critical listening. After that, I tried the Edition XS, which I … liked fine, but didn’t love as much as the general audiophile population does, and then a number of other Hifimans (some of which I’ve reviewed already, some of which I will review soon, and a couple of which I probably won’t review). At this point, I think I own more Hifimans than any other brand except Sennheiser, and it’s pretty close.
When Hifiman announced last year that they were producing a quartet of new models, I (like basically everyone in this space) was intrigued. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the HE 600 (though I would really like to), the Ananda Unveiled (I’m pretty sure I would wreck any unveiled headphones in the first day by dropping something onto the magnets so I largely avoid them), or Audivina LE (meh, I’ll give them a try!), when a pair of lightly used Edition XV popped up on r/AVExchange for a decent price the day after I sold a few other pairs, I decided to give them a shot. And I’m glad I did.
Review notes
Testing rig
Here’s my basic testing protocol.
Based on my philosophy on the allocation of resources in headfi, except where otherwise noted I’m going to primarily be testing these with a Topping DX5 II,4 running single-ended via a 6.35 mm terminated Hart interconnect and connected via USB-C to a Mac Studio running the Roon client.
EQ
As noted in the Bathys review, I mostly prefer to test headphones with their default tuning, assuming that most people won’t take the time or make the effort necessary to use a third-party EQ. The Edition XV sound great to me out of the box; I have felt zero need to apply any EQ for any of my listening with them. There are some … oddities in the frequency response, but they’re both 1) not big enough to be worth a lot of time trying to balance out and 2) pretty narrow and specific enough that they’d be annoying to try to address.
EQ Update
[EQ Update: I’ve spent some time now with Oratory1990’s EQ preset available here, and I’ve only made two tweaks; I dropped both Band 1 (the low shelf) and Band 5 (the high shelf) by 1 dB and have been pretty pleased with the results.
The Edition XV sound really good out of the box, and unlike most of my Hifimans, they don’t need any EQ at all. I’m going to guess that I’m mostly not going to bother applying it for future listening, but if you want a place to start here it is.]
Volume
Here are the volume settings I use with the Hifiman Edition XV (unless otherwise noted, running via Roon with no headroom management, playing Daft Punk’s “Face to Face” from Tidal):
- Apos Druid/Gremlin: 12:15
- Chord Mojo: white, orange, orange, red
- Dongles:
- Apple: 60%
- Crinear Protocol Max (max internal volume): 70% (single-ended)
- Fiio KA11: 55%
- Fosi DS2: 55% (single-ended)
- JCALLY JM6 Pro: 75%
- Holoaudio Bliss (KTE): -31 dB (Low-Z, balanced 4.4 mm)
- Mytek Brooklyn Bridge: 67%
- Schiit:
- Mimir/Jotunheim 2 (Mimir has a -15 dB pregain applied via Forkbeard): low gain, 11:30 (balanced); low gain, 12:30 (single-ended)
- Modi/Magni: low gain, 9:00
- Modius/Magnius: low gain, 10:00 (balanced); low gain, 10:30 (single-ended)
- Topping DX5 II: -24.5 dB (single-ended), -30 dB (balanced)
My torture testing list
The Basics
The Hifiman Edition XV is a passive, open back, planar magnetic headphone from Chinese manufacturer Hifiman. Hifiman broadly has two lines; one for expensive, high-end headphones like the Unveiled series, HE1K, and Susvara et al., and a second much more affordable line, though their tendency to reduce the prices on their older headphones by 60-70% after a few years on the market means that those lines are definitely blurry. Despite that, the Edition XV definitely falls into the latter category; while $399 isn’t an inexpensive MSRP, it’s the cheapest of the new line by almost a factor of two and it is definitely aimed more at the value market.
The Edition XV are a moderately challenging headphone to drive, with a nominal impedance of 12 Ohms and a sensitivity of 92 dB/mW, making them just slightly less demanding than the headphone they most closely resemble, the Edition XS (18 Ohms, 92 dB/mW). They’re definitely a headphone that rewards just a little more power than the cheapest dongles on the market, though in a pinch they’ll be fine from them (as well as most devices that still possess a 3.5 mm audio jack). They’re also a VERY solid feeling headphone, with a mostly-metal chassis and my pair weighing in at a beefy 453 grams without cables.5 Like most (all?) Hifimans, the Edition XV connect to your source gear using a pretty standard dual-entry, 3.5 mm cable making it very easy to source cables, including balanced cables.
Sound
I’m generally really pleased with the sound profile Edition XV; it keeps the things I liked about the Edition XS (bass extension, detail, soundstage, and at least on my head, reasonable comfort) and sands off most of the bits that I didn’t (treble. It’s the treble. It’s a treble-y boy). I understand why this headphone received such universal acclaim when it released, and I’m really curious some day to get my hands on a pair of HE 600s and see how they measure up. I have no idea if this represents a change in the tuning philosophy of Hifiman or is just a one-off (they’ve done a few of these in the past, like the original Edition X); my personal hope is that this is their new direction though that would infuriate Hifiman’s most rabid fans.
Here’s how my Edition XV measures on my rig:
[This is an interestingly rollercoaster-y response, particularly in the lower mids between 200 Hz and 1.5 kHz. I assumed at first that it was an issue with my measurements, but it appears on basically every measurement I’ve seen of the Edition XV. Fortunately, it’s pretty small and *I* don’t hear it; it makes me wonder if something they did in the tuning was designed to mellow out a larger spike by turning it into a series of little ones, or if this is somehow just a result of the drivers’ design.]
Technicalities
The soundstage on the Edition XV is pretty good; it’s reasonably wide from right to left (if not quite as wide as something like the Arya Stealth) without being distractingly so, and the imaging and layer/instrument separation within it is solid if not exceptional. The various guitar parts on “Chan Chan” are distinct and located appropriately, though some of them are a little closer together than they might be on something like the LCD-2. The Edition XV also seems to have pretty good front-to-back soundstaging, with the guitar at the beginning of “Love Can Damage Your Health (Laid Mix)” distinctly rotating around your head in space. [I’d quickly note that the hand drums on “Chan Chan” disappear a little into the background, but that may be more of a tuning choice rather than an artifact of soundstage design. The similarly mixed tom pattern in the chorus on “Thunder Lightning” are nicely reproduced.]
The dynamics are solid; setting the volume at the beginning of “It’s All So Incredibly Loud” had me reaching for the volume control around 3:00. The microdynamics are really excellent, particularly for a planar magnetic headphone. The bass bell tones at the beginning on “Angel (Blur Remix)” are weighty and have nice thump (with an appropriate warble), and the treble tones are well-controlled and precise as well. It’s not as punchy as a Focal, but it’s pretty damned good for a planar, especially a “budget” planar.
Overall, I certainly enjoy the detail and resolution on the Edition XV, even if they’re not quite as resolving as something like the Arya Stealth or Audeze LCD-2. You can hear the interference pattern throughout the last half of “It’s All So Incredibly Loud,” and you can hear the looming sense of presence6 around :40 on Kurt Vile’s “Bassackwards” quite clearly. Interestingly, you don’t get as much of the hiss at the beginning of “What Did I Do?” and the fingers sliding on the strings are aren’t nearly as audible as on some other things in similar price ranges. I did, however, hear static on “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” that I’ve never heard before, on a track that I’ve listened to at least 83 times so far in 20267 (and I have verified is present on other headphones). If I had to sum it up, I’d say that these are detailed headphones (good at extracting all of the information from the tracks) but less resolving (perhaps a little sloppy with some of that detail). Certainly head and shoulders above most of their competition at this price point.
It’s also worth noting that this is a headphone that, like the Edition XS, isn’t as good at quiet passages as something like the Arya Stealth or any of the 6X0 series; notes don’t end quite as crisply and the silent moments in a track like “What Did I Do?” aren’t as silent as I’d like them to be. But this is a pretty nit-picky observation.
Bass
The bass response on the Edition XV is lovely; deep, rich, and linear. The bass bell tones on “Angel (Blur Remix)” are really well produced; resonant, clean, and with just a bit of warble as the tones go slightly past the correct pitch and then slide back up. They also do well with the … frankly, messes that are some sections of “Superpredators,” only splattering where the recording does and managing to balance and control all of the competing notes. The bass slides smoothly in around 2:48 on “Out of My Hands,” and the Edition XV does a great job with almost all of the notes on “Got ‘Til It’s Gone” (just losing the lowest couple from time to time). This is an exceptionally well-suited bass for busier tracks; the bassline on “Remain Nameless” and “Cold War” drive you through the song without feeling overblown relative to the treble. Ditto Coldplay’s “Magic.”
I noted above that this is a headphone that doesn’t necessarily excel at quieter passages and tracks, but even in those the bass feels nicely crisp and consistent, particularly where the bass is relatively isolated and not contrasted with a single higher-frequency instrument or voice.
This isn’t to say that the bass is without flaws; you occasionally get a weird artifact here and there. For example, on “Bassackwards,” occasionally the bass guitar picks up an odd, reedy, resonance and splatter. But this is pretty uncommon. I also think that if I was listening to to these a lot, I’d probably want a little bit of a bass shelf; they’re not lacking for bass at all, and what they have is great, I just think I might want a tiny bit more bass across the board.
Midrange
The midrange on the Edition XV is generally good, but is probably their weakest point. I commented that the Edition XS occasionally felt a little recessed in the midrange (particularly for vocals), and that’s also true of the Edition XV to a lesser extent. It’s particularly apparent with higher-pitched voices and on more crowded tracks. Hope Sandoval is well-balanced on “Paradise Circus” where it’s just her and the bass line, but I find myself wanting a little more of Florence Welch’s voice on “Remain Nameless” when the Machine really get thrumming in the middle of that track. On “Angel (Blur Remix),” Horace Andy’s voice occasionally sounds a little bit compressed, whereas Cautious Clay carries through nicely on “Cold War.” Similarly, you occasionally get a slightly metallic timbre on guitars on a track like “Thunder Lightning,” which is distracting there but maybe even a benefit on a track like “Fresh Tendrils.” It does surprisingly well on a track like “Garcia Counterpoint,” though, laying the various acoustic-ish guitar tones out neatly and clearly even where there are three or more competing countermelodies.
Overall, the midrange is perfectly fine but this is not a headphone you should buy if you care primarily about the midrange, particularly the human vocal range. There are better options out there for similar or less money for that specific use case. That said, it was rarely distracting during my testing.
I’ll be curious to do some EQ fiddling to see if I can boost the vocals just a bit to see if I can get a more pleasing (to my ears) overall balance.
Treble
The treble on the Edition XV is a big win for Hifiman, given their propensity towards (at least to my ears) overly spicy treble. I wouldn’t say it’s rolled-off, exactly, but it’s definitely more tamed than other Hifiman offerings. On a track like “Drawn” you still get clean, bright plucked violin accents through the first two thirds of the track, but they’re not sharp the way that they were on the Edition XS on my head.8
The treble on the Edition XV is really well-controlled without being tamped down; on “2021” the guitar riffs are crystal clear and clean without being harsh. Ditto the muted trumpet solos on “Will O’ the Wisp” and the bells throughout “Coffee”; this is one of the better examples I’ve encountered of a headphone giving you full, rich, and unveiled treble without breaking *my* brain or harming the leve4l of perceived detail, and I appreciate it for that.
Amplifier Compatibility
I’m pretty publicly a bit of a DAC/amp skeptic; in my experience, most headphones sound pretty indistinguishable from most source gear ranging from a $9 dongle to a $5,000 separates stack, and that’s basically true of the Edition XV. At least to my ears, you’ll get very little variation from them from most modern, competent DACs and amps. They do fine with something like the Modi/Magni stack, and they scale pretty well up to even the Holoaudio Cyan 2/Bliss (KTE) stack. I’ve done most of my casual listening on the Edition XV out of the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge, and it sounds great. Big fan of that combination.
The one exception was the Topping DX5 II, where at least in my initial listening they sounded a bit … thin? Hollow? Maybe a hair sibilant? But once I swapped to the F-5 filter it seemed to go away.9 I don’t get it either.
Overall Impressions
Overall, I’m a pretty big fan of the Edition XV and I’ve been using them pretty consistently the last week despite a wall of “better” options. For their price range, these are really exceptional, sound-wise. They can’t compete with some of the more expensive options out there in terms of detail and resolution, and they are definitely stronger with more complex, crowded tracks than with sparser, quieter ones, but overall I’ll happily listen to anything in my catalog with them anytime.10
Just for awareness, the Edition XV does seem to be relatively sensitive to position; when they are worn in extreme positions (as far forward, backward, up, and down as possible on my rig) they do measure up to five or six dB differently in some frequencies (while being essentially identical in others), and inducing a leak substantially spikes the bass under around 60 Hz (expected behavior for a Hifiman).
[Editor’s note: looking back over my notes on the Edition XS, I’m struck by how many similar notes I’ve made about the XV/XS; makes me really wish I’d held on to the XS long enough to do a side-by-side, and I might need to track down another pair at some point to do a direct comparision.]
Build Quality & Appearance
I’m generally pretty pleased with the design, build, comfort, and appearance of the Edition XV; unlike a lot of Hifiman’s products, it doesn’t feel particularly cheap with a mostly-metal construction and seemingly tight tolerances. They’re a member of Hifiman’s egg-shaped headphone family (along with the Edition XS, Aryas, Anandas, etc.), and have most of the benefits and pitfalls of that family.
Connectivity
Like most (or all?) Hifimans, the Edition XV connect to source gear with a standard dual-entry 3.5 mm, balanced-capable cable, so there’s an array of good aftermarket cables out there to improve your quality of life (if not quality of sound). The jacks on the Edition XV are flat against the cup’s rim, making them compatible with most, if not all, 3.5 mm cables,11 but increases the potential of damage if dropped (compared to headphones like the Focal Elex or Meze 109 Pro, which slightly recess the jacks to provide a little impact protection and stability). I appreciate Hifiman’s commitment to 3.5 mm cables, and I wish more manufacturers would adopt them as standard.
The Edition XV ships by default with a 2.5-foot rubberized cable that terminates in a right-angle 3.5 mm connection with a non-threaded 6.35 mm adapter. I’m really not a fan of Hifiman’s cables for quality of life reasons, but this one seems … fine. I appreciate having a short cable as an option, and one with a right-angle jack with decent strain relief (particularly important for a right-angle jack that will mostly be connected to desktop amps!) is nice, but I’d definitely plan on spending twenty or thirty bucks on a nicer cable.
Construction
The Edition XV is primarily constructed with metal, part of why it weighs in at a hefty 452 grams (a solid 50 grams heavier than their predecessor the Edition XS). They use a different headband style than most of Hifiman’s older offerings, somewhere in between the Edition XS’ single padded headband and the Arya Stealth/Audivina’s spring metal band and suspension strap. While the Arya et. al. use a bare metal band to provide structure and clamp force, the Edition XV wraps that metal in plastic, with a bit of relatively stiff rubber across the middle of the band.
Instead of connecting to the adjustment mechanism on the yokes like the Arya, the Edition XV’s suspension strap attaches to the bottoms of the bands themselves above where they connect to the yokes. This means that adjustment on the Edition XV is made by adjusting the length of the yokes rather than the location of the suspension strap on the yokes, rendering it substantially less adjustable, though it can still accommodate a reasonable range of heads.
The yokes are much more similar to the Edition XS than the Arya line, with pretty limited swivel inside the ends of the headband (maybe 30 degrees at most), but pretty close to fully-spinning tilt (particularly if you take the pads off).
The cups are reasonably plush, with leather (pleather?) sides and a soft fabric on the face that touches your ears. They also have large openings, and should accommodate a wide variety of ears without any issue.
At least on my head, this design is a much more stable, and requires less adjustment each time I put the headphone on; with the Arya style headband I have to manually move the adjustment bands on both sides basically every time I put them on. By contrast, I haven’t had to adjust the Edition XV in weeks. The only downside to me is that the Edition XV only gets barely wider than my head at full extension, and sometimes when I’m putting them on I feel like I’m straining the band by holding them far enough out to slide on my head. For me, this is an easy trade; I find the Arya occasionally frustrating to wear, whereas the Edition XV just work for me.
As a result of these design choices, I haven’t had any issues getting a solid seal. They also end up feeling more solid than the Arya-style headbands; those always feel wiggly both in my hands and on my head, while these mostly stay in place no matter how I’m using them.
Comfort
I’m on record as generally preferring the fit of the round Hifimans (Sundara, HE6se v2) over the egg-shaped ones (Edition XS, Arya Stealth, etc.), but this design is going a long way to changing my mind. The ear cups have always been nicer on the egg-shapes (ears aren’t, after all, generally round in shape) but the headband systems have generally worked better for me with the round cups.
Despite being heavier than most of Hifiman’s options, I would put the Edition XV among the most comfortable. The band design does spread the weight pretty evenly across the top of my head, avoiding hot spots, and the clamp force is light enough to be comfortable while being strong enough to transfer some of the weight to the cups. They’re also clampy enough that they don’t swing on my head as I move my head around (though they slide slightly if I look straight down or up), which is my primarily comfort complaint with Arya specifically; they’re loose enough and heavy enough that they end up shifting a lot during wear.
That said, if you have a truly prodigious noggin, there is a hard limit to how big the headband can expand without aftermarket modifications, and this may not be the headband for you.
Appearance
Appearance is, as always, in the eye of the beholder, but I personally like the look of the Edition XV. The silver metal chassis is striking, and I prefer the hexagonal cutouts to the window-shade look of most egg-shaped Hifimans. The new headband style is also a little less Cyberman-y than the Arya style, though the XS style single headband is probably the least visually distracting of the many Hifiman options over the year.
Your mileage may vary, but I’d be pretty comfortable wearing these in a public place (as long as it’s a quiet one!). It is very shiny, though; so shiny that it’s difficult to photograph with darker colored headphones!
Value & Comparisons
This is an unusual Hifiman review for me because this is a headphone that’s actually currently selling at it’s MSRP ($399). And … it’s a damned good deal at that price. The weird thing about Hifiman reviews for me has always been the value; for the most part, they weren’t crazy at their original MSRP, and were then marked down 50% or more. Arya Stealth was a decent headphone at $1,599, and the $599 I paid seemed ridiculously cheap. Same with the Edition XS, which was a pretty good value pick at $499 and then was marked down to $269 by the time I bought it (and is now down to $210 new at Amazon). My sense is that Hifiman may have decided to price this round of headphones at their long term prices rather than charging a premium up front (since almost everything on their store page is substantially discounted now), but only time will tell. If they mark this down to $250 or $300, they arguably become the new value king.
The long and short of it is this: this is a very competitive headphone at $399, and if I needed a good all-arounder and didn’t might the substantial weight, I would feel pretty good about that price. As it is, I feel pretty good about buying this one at $300. But how does it measure up against some of the other options?
Hifiman Edition XS
The most natural comparison is to the headphone the Edition XV was supposed to be a replacement for, the Edition XS. And … I can’t really do a direct comparison here, as I sold the Edition XS just before I got the Edition XV and humans generally suck at auditory memory, even over short periods of time. I can’t even show you the frequency response comparing them, as I sold the Edition XS a week before I got my measurement rig.
What I can do is point you to my Edition XS review and point out that there’s a reason I sold the Edition XS, and a reason why I’m going to keep the Edition XV.
In a lot of ways the Editions XS and XV are pretty similar headphones, but for me the Edition XV is substantially more comfortable, and has a treble profile I can not only tolerate for long periods of time, but actually like. The Edition XS was just okay, comfort-wise, and they were treble-y enough that though I had owned them since March of ’25, I really only listened to them as part of doing an A/B for a review; the rest of the time they were either on my wall or loaned out to local newbie audiophiles. So at least to my ears, the XV is a better headphone, though I can’t do specific comparisons for bass, mids, treble, soundstage, etc. Because I don’t have my own measurements, here’s what Unheard Labs measured:
This broadly comports with my (admittedly sucky) auditory memory; the Edition XV is VERY similar throughout most of the response, but with the treble tamped down in ways that work much better on my head. I don’t think I’d ever worn the Edition XS for more than a few hours at a time because it was fatiguing; I wore the Edition XV for 5+ hours a day at least four days this week with zero problems.
So, to me, the the XV is better. Is it $180 better? To me, the answer has to be yes. A headphone that I can’t comfortably wear for extended periods isn’t worth a whole lot to me. While you can EQ away a lot of the XS’ problems, because they’re basically all clustered in the treble it’s really challenging to clean up without affecting the headphone’s character, and I’d always rather start with a headphone that’s 1) pleasant enough out of the box to listen to and 2) needs more work in the bass than in the treble.
Verdict: Edition XV all day. If it’s in your budget, it’s a no-brainer of an upgrade. (I really ought to have re-reviewed the XS before I sold them … anyone want to lend me a pair?)
Fiio FT1 Pro/Hifiman Sundara
My usual comparison points for the Edition XS are the Fiio FT1 Pro and the venerable Hifiman Sundara; they’re open-backed planar magnetic headphones sitting around the $200 mark (though the Sundara are currently marked down to $180 on Amazon). For me, though I thought most people would prefer the Edition XS, I preferred the Sundara for most uses outside of particularly complex/busy music; the tuning is just more to my preference. I came down in roughly the same place on the Fiio FT1; while the Edition XS is arguably an objectively better headphone, between the tuning being closer to my preference and the FT1 Pro being, for lack of a better term, just more fun, I slightly preferred the FT1 Pro for everything except critical listening.
Interestingly, I think the Edition XV’s much better treble tuning flips those conclusions for me.
Hifiman Sundara
While I do still really enjoy Sundara (and its midrange is substantially better than the Edition XV’s, particularly for guitar tones), the Edition XV has substantially better bass, similar treble, and better detail resolution and comfort on my head. I’m going to keep the Sundara around (they cost me $80, after all) for guitar heavy listening, but I’m going to guess that the vast majority of the time I’m going to grab the Edition XV for most kinds of listening. A quick glance at the graph:
Yeah, that’s about what I hear. The Sundara definitely have a substantial roll off in the sub bass, which mostly doesn’t bother me based on the kinds of listening I tend to do, and the midrange is definitely better on the Sundara. I don’t hear the Sundara’s treble as quite that spikey, but it definitely has more treble energy across a lot of the 4+ kHz range.
Verdict: Edition XV is a better headphone. It’s also a lot more expensive; if you have less than $200 to spend the Sundara is a great option and you don’t NEED to wait and save up for the Edition XV if you want a headphone now. That said, if you can afford the difference, the Edition XV is a worthy upgrade.
Fiio FT1 Pro
As I noted in my Sennheiser HD 550 review, every time I put the Fiio FT1 Pro back on my head I’m struck by how much I like them. They’re just fun.12
I think what it comes down to me is that while the Edition XS edged into sounding clinical at times based on the treble response, the Edition XV doesn’t; it’s just a really pleasant pair of headphones to listen to. It doesn’t have quite the energy that the FT1 Pro bring to the table, but what you get for a little less “fun” factor is a better resolving, more detailed presentation and in a much better-built headphone. I have some long-term durability concerns about the FT1 Pro (particularly regarding the way the yokes attach to the headband), but I’m confident that the Edition XV are going to perform like a tank for years to come. You’re not going wrong either way, and the tuning is probably more similar than different, but for all of the non-sound related things I’m going to gravitate to the Edition XV. Unless you need a light headphone, I think you probably should too.
That said, the Edition XV is almost twice the the price of the Fiio FT1 Pro, and they’re not AMAZINGLY better headphones. If you don’t care about that last ten percent of performance, or you really want a lighter headphone (the FT1 Pro is almost 20% lighter), the FT1 Pro is for you.
A quick glance at the graphs:
I expected the FT1 Pro to have a little more roll off in the sub bass, but I am a little surprised by the slight bump in the mid bass. I don’t think I hear it, but it’s a pretty minor difference. I definitely hear the stronger midrange on the FT1 Pro, though, but it comes at the cost of a slightly metallic timbre at times and on some tracks.
Verdict: again, the Edition XV is a better headphone overall, but there are people for whom the Fiio FT1 Pro will still be the better choice. No shame in picking it; it’s also a great headphone with a surprisingly similar tuning and at half the price.
Sennheiser x Drop HD 6XX
The Sennheiser x Drop HD 6XX is the headphone by which I measure all other open backs, so I had to throw this in here. The list of headphones that I would choose over them is small … but I’m adding the Edition XV to that list.
The usual take on the 6X0 family is that their bass performance leaves much to be desired, but that they’re the kings of the midrange (particularly for human voices). There’s some variation in the tuning among the different models, but that’s the general consensus and it’s a fair one. The 6XX/650 were a step towards better bass performance and a more relaxed treble presentation while preserving the Sennheiser midrange magic, but they still have pretty substantial roll off especially in the sub bass.
I definitely prefer the bass and soundstage on the Edition XV (unsurprisingly), and the midrange (and maybe layer separation?) on the 6XX. After a lot of listening … I think I might actually prefer the treble on the Edition XV, and I do find the Edition XV overall slightly more comfortable.13 This is another one of those “you’re not going wrong either way” choice, but if you can afford the extra $180 I do think the Edition XV is worth it. Which is … very surprising to me. A quick glance at the graphs:
Yup. Probably not surprising, but the HD 6XX sounds more or less exactly how it measures, minus that peak around 5.8 kHz (which doesn’t really show up on my head). I do really enjoy the bass on the 6XX a lot; while they definitely lack on the sub bass that mid bass is perfectly tuned and it flows naturally into the midrange and you end up with an incredibly cohesive whole. The Edition XV certainly isn’t disjointed, but very little competes with the 6XX for overall balance in the transitions.
Verdict: To my surprise, I’m taking the Edition XV for everything except vocal and mids-focused music. If you want something that’s light or more breathable then the 6XX is still a great option, but … yeah, the Edition XV is just a better listen for most things.
The rest of the 6X0s: the 6XX is my favorite of the 6X0s except maybe the 660S2, and the 660S2 is wildly overpriced at MSRP. If you want all vocals all the time, the HD 600 will be your jam. Otherwise, go with the Edition XV.
Sennheiser HD 490 Pro
To me, this and the 105 AER are the most interesting comparisons. The HD 490 Pro is a GREAT headphone; in fact, it’s my favorite Sennheiser headphone at this point. It’s MSRP is also $450, so in the same general ballpark, and it’s currently retailing around $425 (and has been as low as $350 in the last few months).
With the velour (“producer”) pads, the 490 Pro is distinctly more v-shaped than the Edition XV, though I also think the transitions from bass to midrange to treble are better balanced and overall a little better designed. I prefer the bass and midrange (timbre, if not entirely the tuning) on the 490 Pro, though interestingly I think the Edition XV’s treble is slightly better shaped and certainly a little better controlled. Subjectively, the 490 Pro has better imaging and more detail/better resolution as well. The 490 Pro is also just plain more comfortable, both in terms of clamp and weight (more than 40% lighter!). And then you can throw on the tweed (“mixer”) pads and get a pretty comparable tuning to the Edition XV, albeit one where you lose a bit of sub bass.
For what it’s worth, when I did my 490 Pro review I was pretty sure I was going to mostly stick with the tweed pads, and I’ve been as surprised as anyone to discover how much more I enjoy the velour pad’s more fun tuning. And for that reason, I do think I prefer the 490 Pro by a pretty narrow margin over the Edition XV. But then, I always picked the 6XX over the Edition XS, and this is basically the next evolution of both of those so maybe it’s not that surprising that I’m gravitating towards another Sennheiser. A quick glance at the graphs:
I genuinely expected the tweed pads to give up more bass to the Edition XV; a good reminder that we don’t hear relative levels in a vacuum, but only in relation to the rest of the tuning.
Verdict: For me, the 490 Pro is a slightly more fun listen, and also brings a better industrial design and some additional versatility in terms of both pad exchange and the ability to pick which cup to connect a source to. You’re not going wrong with either, but I’m guessing that over the next few months I’m going to be grabbing the 490 Pro more.
Meze 105 AER
I am an unabashed fan of the Meze 105 AER; I understand why there are people out there who don’t particularly like it, but it works really well on my head. My usual line is that they give you 90% of the performance of the Meze 109 Pro at half the price, and I stand by that. And, for what it’s worth, the 109 Pro is still my favorite headphone under $1,000.
I say this to make it clear what I mean when I say that the Edition XV is competitive with the 105 AER, and might even surpass it. Very few headphones in a similar price range have; I think the 490 Pro might be the only headphone that I prefer over the HD 490 until you start spending $800-900 at retail. The 105 AER is definitely more comfortable and I think I slightly prefer the mids on them, but the bass on the Edition XV is stronger and I think a bit cleaner. I’d say the treble is a bit of a toss up; the XV is a little more reserved and less likely to cross the line into harshness or sharpness, but also lacks a little bit of sparkle and energy that I really enjoy on the 105 AER. I’m a fanboy for Meze’s design aesthetic, and the 105 AER are lighter, easier to drive and I think slightly more detailed (albeit with occasionally slightly funky timbre on a track like “The Night Does Not Belong to God”). Overall, I’d say the 105 AER are a bit more immersive and engaging; I describe them as warm buttery magic and while the Edition XV is many things, it’s not that.
At the end of the day, I think I have talked myself into preferring the 105 AER slightly, but it’s very close. And the reality is that I’m just not going to use the 105 AER very often; I have the 109 Pro sitting on a rack behind me and it’s just a better headphone in pretty much every way. As a result, the 105 AER sit on my shelf most of the time when I’m not using them for a review. By comparison, the Edition XV fill a niche that doesn’t have a really direct competitor in my collection other than maybe the Arya Stealth (more on that shortly!). A quick glance at my graphs:
This is really interesting to me; I don’t hear them as being that different. Maybe the slightly higher energy in the mid bass and transition to midrange counters the perception of bass roll off on my head? Either way, I consistently perceive both the 105 AER and the 109 Pro as being more bassy than they measure. Perhaps it’s just a function of the balance, but it’s a great example as to why measurements aren’t enough to evaluate headphones (at least the kind of measurements *I* can make).
Verdict: this is a close one. I think most people are going to probably prefer the Edition XV, but for a lot of my music I’m going to slightly prefer the 105 AER. I’m going to end up using the Edition XV more, though, just based on what I have around my house.
Hifiman Arya Stealth
On paper, this seems like an unfair matchup: a $1,599 offering up against a new, pretty low-tier one from the same company. Which makes it surprising that I think the Edition XV compares pretty favorably to the Arya.
I really, really liked the Arya Stealth when I first listened to them. They were my first foray into the world of planar magnetics, and the first really objectively tuned headphone I spent a lot of time with. I gave them a 9 out of 10 Denalis; one of my highest scores at the time. In the interim, I’ve … cooled a bit on the Arya.14 They’re still an exceptional headphone, and represent a pretty great value at $499, but they’re very much a critical listening headphone to me, clinical and slightly distant, and that’s just not what I want from a headphone most of the time.
It’s funny; after listening to the Arya for a bit the bass on the Edition XV feels muddy and slow, particularly on a track like “Paradise Circus;” the Edition XV feels like it has more bass energy and particularly the ever-elusive punch, but it comes at the cost of quality, particularly precision and crispness. The mids are also better on the Arya Stealth, though not by a ton. Treble is the place where the Edition XV really shines; the Arya occasionally slips into harshness or sharpness on the top end at even reasonable volumes, and for my preference the relaxed treble of the XV is much less fatiguing.
Overall, the Arya Stealth feels like clearly the better headphone, BUT based on comfort, ease of use, and convenience (I’m often swapping headphones throughout the day for meetings), I’m really curious to see if I find myself using the Edition XV more than the Arya. My sense is that I will; most of my listening is more on the casual side of hobby, and the Edition XV is really built for that. With that out of the way, to the graphs:
Lol. Yup. That’s about right. I don’t think the Arya Stealth reads QUITE that spikey on my head, but it’s definitely a spicy boy.
Verdict: The Arya Stealth is a better headphone by most measures. It just is. But I’m still going to be grabbing the Edition XV for most of my use cases.
Overall
I’m largely in the same boat as the other people who have reviewed the Edition XV; genuinely pleased by what you get and impressed with the value proposition. I am glad that Hifiman decided to price these at a reasonable place, breaking their history of high initial prices followed by substantial discounts, and I hope it bodes well for their future releases. Unlike a lot of my recent reviews, I’m going to go ahead and endorse these at MSRP. If you can get them lightly used around $300, they’re a screaming deal. But even if you get them at $399, they’re a really good value proposition in the current audiophile market. Not a lot of headphones under $500 cleanly beat out the 6X0 family to my ears, making this the newest member of a very elite group including only the Meze 105 AER (9 out of 10 Denalis) and the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro (9 out of 10 Denalis).
The Edition XV are a great headphone for casual listening and a decent foray into the world of reasonably highly resolving planars if you’re looking to dip your toes in; they can’t really compete with something like the Arya Stealth or the Audeze LCD-2, but you wouldn’t really expect them to. They’re a distinct step up from their predecessor the Edition XS, and these have almost certainly earned a place in my collection long term.
After this experience, I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on a pair of HE600s.
#reviews #headphones #sennheiser #6XX #anc #spatialaudio #meh #2025 #99noir #meze #sunglasses #overear #cans #hifiman #arya #stealth #editionxs #budget #hahahaha
- I score bass, mids, and treble on a two part scale: 1-5 for quantity (5 being the highest), and A-E for quality (A being best in class, E being laughably bad). For soundstage it’s also a two part scale, with the number representing the width and the letter the separation within it. ↩︎
- For comfort/fit, my scale is A-E with A being disappear entirely into the background and E being I want to tear my ears off to stop feeling these headphones on my head. I’ve had one E: the Koss PortaPro. ↩︎
- I personally like the Audivina with a LOT of EQ, but I am under no illusions that it’s actually a well-tuned headphone. ↩︎
- What can I say? I’m a 90s kid and a member of the WinAmp generation, and I’m a sucker for a nice visualizer. ↩︎
- Making them the seventh heaviest headphones I’ve owned. ↩︎
- Genuinely don’t know how else to describe it. It sounds a little like an airplane flying low enough that you feel the engines without hearing them? Or like you’re driving a big diesel engine with good enough passenger compartment damping that you feel rather than hear the engine? ↩︎
- It’s on my Transducer Torture Testing List. Don’t come at me. ↩︎
- And of course the build up to the end of that track in particular is just lovely with the Edition XV’s bass tuning! ↩︎
- Yeah, I’m deeply skeptical of all of this stuff too, but … at least today, it at least seemed to make a difference. Adding this to my list of things to figure out how to blind test. ↩︎
- I started to type that I probably wouldn’t use them for a lot of jazz, and then I played “Only Here and Nowhere Else” with them and it’s … lovely. Ditto some French electro-jazz like Zero 7 and Thievery Corporation. ↩︎
- Unlike, say, a Meze 109 Pro and their need for long, skinny jacks. ↩︎
- I realize that this is a very unhelpful descriptor … but it’s also just true. ↩︎
- The 6XX is fine, but after spending a lot of time with other headphones like the HD 490 Pro and the Mezes, I’m increasingly aware of how clampy they are on my head … and my particular pair are like eight years old and still feel clampy. ↩︎
- These are on my list of things to update my review. Though I’ll say this; every time I take them off the wall to do some A/B listening against something else, the experience seems to validate their high score. ↩︎
Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm 
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