Selected Comparisons
The following comparisons were completed using dCS’s Bartok Apex and Lina system, the Gustard H26, and the Ferrum OOR. All amplifiers were connected to a Holo Audio Spring 2 Wildism Edition DAC or the dCS Lina Network DAC.
Source files were a mix of digital PCM 16BIT/44.1k up to 32BIT/192k and native DSD128 as well as physical format CDs using a Cayin Mini-CD MK2 connected via I²S to the Holo Audio Spring 2 Wildism Edition DAC.
T+A Solitaire P
The T+A Solitaire P was launched in early 2020 with our review coming out a few weeks later. Of all the competing planar headphones in the office, this one comes closest to the Susvara Unveiled price-wise at $6900 MSRP.
Technical
Like the Susvara Unveiled, the Solitaire P uses an in-house 80mm (x 110mm) driver size codenamed TPM 3100.
However, it would be incorrect to call the driver a planar, rather it is a planar-magnetostatic driver vapor-coated with a conductive material and surrounded by a dual-sided array of neodymium magnets.
The magnet arrangement is matched in length to the oval diaphragm shape and with absolute precision in terms of positioning to deliver an even distribution of its pressure across the entire diaphragm and not just in specific or localized hotspots such as right above the coil.
There is no specific mention of the thickness of the Solitaire P’s diaphragm other than it is ultra-thin so I presume it’s a few µm or less and possibly a bit thicker than the Susvara Unveiled version.
Of course, the Solitaire P is a grilled driver enclosure so it lacks that same open nature to its driver and if you look closely you will see that save for the jack connector system the grill system is quite far from the driver inside a fairly deep cup enclosure.
The Solitaire P is rated at 80Ω and much higher than the 45Ω of the Susvara Unveiled. However, with a sensitivity rating of 101dB/V (92dB/mW) compared to 83 dB/mW it is far more sensitive giving it a few more amplification options.
Still, I would pair these two with the best you can find in terms of power and quality. Both scale beautifully and deserve to be heard at optimal levels of performance.
Design
The Solitaire P uses what I would consider higher-end materials combined with a more durable frame and cup design. However, the Susvara Unveiled is far more comfortable to wear and can articulate more for a wider range of head shapes and sizes.
This is 530g versus 430g but wearing the Solitaire P would make you feel the gap is wider between them. The Solitaire P’s wearing experience is quite comfortable. We are not talking about tight clamping, edged ear pads, or vertical hotspots.
Rather it feels a bit narrow for pressure and a bit wobblier on top compared to the wider dissipation of pressure from the Susvara Unveiled and the more comfortable positioning of the pads over my ears.
Stylistically, the Solitaire P’s aluminum cups and mix of Alcantara and leather headband and ear pad materials are premium, to say the least. Everything screams clean and streamlined but most importantly it feels quite robust.
There is no way you can class the Susvara Unveiled as equally robust quite simply due to those open driver designs. You need to handle it with a lot more care including using those plate covers.
The HIFIMAN frame and yoke articulation are quite good though and I am confident it can stand the test of time simply because my Susvara original from 2017 has the same frame and looks fine.
A final word on the packaging and accessories for the Solitaire P. It’s huge, boss-level sizing with a beautiful case, a lovely layout, and 2 good-quality cables.
The Susvara Unveiled packaging is good, you get 2 nice cables also, plenty of protection but it is a bit lower in the ‘wow factor’ compared to the Solitaire P equivalent.
Performance
The Solitaire P tuning has all the feel of a closer competitor to the original Susvara rather than the Susvara Unveiled. It has excellent dynamic range and resolution.
In some ways, I do not consider it an inferior proposition to the Susvara Unveiled but there are some areas that one headphone does better than the other and vice versa. It’s a case of ‘picking your favorite poison’.
The first real advantage of the Susvara Unveiled is the soundstage, not just in terms of size but also in terms of cohesion.
The Solitaire P has a slightly bloomier and fuller bass character sounding more planted. However, when ranging against its more u-shaped and darker midrange tuning it can struggle to sound as filled in and airy as the Susvara Unveiled’s equivalent range.
On top of that, the treble is technically a darker sound interrupted by a noticeable 7k peak that creates a faux treble presence. This sharpens some specific upper-mid percussion timbre but otherwise, it provides less headroom from 8k onwards.
The Susvara Unveiled is noticeably more extended providing a more consistent treble coloration in the lower treble. Combined with a stronger level of gain from 1-5k the HIFIMAN tuning sounds more open, incisive, and dynamic in its delivery.
What the Solitaire P has in its favor are tonal smoothness and slightly superior note density. Save for the 7k peak, it can sound more forgiving and smoother for vocal and lower-mid instrumental timbre.
It’s just a pity the vocal imaging on the T+A flagship lacks the same forwardness as the Susvara Unveiled for this vocal lover as the timbre is spot on.
Focal Utopia 2022
The classic refreshed, the Focal Utopia 2022 is the follow-up to the original Utopia from 2016. The 2022 model was reviewed by myself early last year and is one of our highest-rated headphones for 2023.
Technical
Two very different driver types here with the Utopia 2022 using a full-range 40mm dynamic driver with a pure Beryllium ‘M’-shaped dome diaphragm as opposed to the Susvara Unveiled’s 80mm planar driver.
The Utopia 2022 driver has a low mass and is designed to be very rigid to prevent distortion with a level of damping specifically to assist with its intended neutral tuning.
The voice coil has moved from the original Utopia’s pure aluminum construction to an alloy blend of both aluminum and copper. The copper is primarily intended to address any reliability issues that may have cropped up in the original Utopia, and the aluminum is to keep it as lightweight as possible.
That is quite a contrast to the Susvara Unveiled’s pure silver conductor material and you will hear that contrast quite heavily in their respective performance even accounting for the different driver types.
I will state the obvious, both are open-backs but the Utopia 2022 does have protective grills, adopting their recent M-shaped design that follows the curves of the speaker drivers. Focal claims this is for improved linearity and treble precision over the original 2016 Focal.
The Utopia 2022 has a higher 80Ω impedance rating compared to just 45Ω from the Susvara Unveiled. I find the Utopia 2022 pairs very nicely with OTL amplifiers as a result.
However, it’s their respective sensitivity ratings that are a stronger factor in amplifier pairings with the 86 dB rating of the Susvara Unveiled much lower compared to Utopia 2022’s 104 dB SPL / 1mW @ 1kHz rating.
Design
Aesthetically, the Utopia 2022 uses materials I would consider more premium such as Alcantara, genuine leather headband wrap, and perforated lambskin memory foam ear pads.
Visually, it is arguably a more striking-looking headphone with its forged recycled carbon fiber yokes and elaborated honeycomb grill design.
However, I did say arguably and there is no getting around the fact that the Susvara Unveiled’s full open-back driver design makes for one heck of a talking point no matter what side of the fence you sit on. It has a unique, one-of-a-kind appearance.
The Utopia weighs more than the Susvara Unveiled at 490g compared to 430g. Its single headband styling, reduced yoke articulation, and heavier materials reduce the comfort and potential fitting possibilities relative to how the Susvara Unveiled feels on my head.
It’s one of those areas where I always felt this style of headband, yoke articulation, and clamping levels worked so well with the original Susvara. That continues to be the case with the Susvara Unveiled.
Cables are a toss-up. Both are good though neither I would class as exotic. Both come with balanced 4-pin XLR and single-ended options. However, the Focal SE version is shorter at 1.5m and equipped with a 3.5mm plug as opposed to a 6.35mm plug on the Susvara Unveiled version.
The drawback of the Utopia 2022 cables is its LEMO connector system which, while great for connection durability, is more expensive to replace.
Performance
If you are in the market for the Susvara Unveiled then you should not be considering the Utopia 2022 as a backup option. Not that it’s not as good, it’s just a completely different proposition.
Fans of the warm, almost analog overtone of the more relaxed-sounding Utopia 2022 will not have the ‘feels’ for the hyper-articulate, open-sounding, and relatively more neutral or tonally accurate Susvara Unveiled performance.
Is it completely chalk and cheese? Mostly, I mean the level of resolution and dynamic range is excellent on the Utopia 2022 when paired with the dCS Lina. In some instances, the minute detail can match what the Susvara Unveiled can offer.
However, that is only in specific circumstances where staging expanse and headroom are less relevant factors and a warmer tonal coloration is required.
Recordings with intimate breathy vocal performances combined with sparse instrumental backgrounds sound beautiful on the Utopia 2022 and perhaps connect even more so than the more neutral positioning of the singer from the Susvara Unveiled.
Bass warmth is stronger on the Focal, stiffening the mid-bass punch and creating a richer lower midrange timbre. Beck’s organ intro from “Where It’s At”, (1996, Odelay), sounds wonderfully organic and fulsome as it should be. If that is your bag then Utopia 2022 is the right choice.
However, if you need more treble extension, greater tonal accuracy, and a much wider staging quality then the Susvara Unveiled beats the Utopia 2022 hands down.
When recordings sound expansive and busy the enhanced agility and speed deliver a much more complex and immersive performance. It makes the Utopia 2022 sound very narrow and even slightly congested by comparison.
Audeze LCD-5
It is hard to believe that it’s now almost 3 years since the launch of the Audeze LCD-5, time flies. These are still the company’s flagship planar magnetic headphones at the time of writing.
Technical
Both headphones are planar designs and in a way, they are fairly dramatic overhauls from what each company was producing beforehand.
Arguably, the driver inside the LCD-5 is more of a departure from the LCD-4 than the Susvara Unveiled’s switch to a silver conductor material from gold. The major reset for HIFIMAN is that fully open acoustical design whereas the LCD-5 still adopts a classic grill cover structure.
Everything from the LCD-5 driver, (coil and trace), and magnet implementation, to the external design materials and pads, have gone through a collective R&D reset.
The driver size has been reduced from 106mm to 90mm, (a different shape from the 80mm driver inside the Susvara Unveiled). It was also updated with Audeze’s latest Fazor waveguide, a nano-scale diaphragm with a 0.5μm thickness that might be even thinner than the Susvara Unveiled version.
Note, that the LCD-5 uses a single-sided 14 Neodymium N50 Fluxor magnet array whereas the Susvara Unveiled is a dual-sided Stealth magnet. Some will argue that a dual array is tighter and more controlled sounding but that can often be driver-specific and not a general rule these days.
The LCD-5 is more efficient with that single-sided array combined with a new varying width trace pattern on the driver called Nano-Scale Parallel Uniforce™. At 14Ω and 90 dB/1mW the LCD-5 is the easier of the two headphones to drive to optimal levels.
Design
The LCD-5 has a smaller form factor, is slightly lighter by 10g, and is built better using higher-quality materials. The fusion of carbon fiber, magnesium, leather, and Tortoiseshell’ dyed and polished acetate enclosures with no visible screws present a very sleek and modern look.
However, I have to be honest here the comfort levels of the LCD-5 are nowhere near the level of the Susvara Unveiled.
The main issue here is the strong lateral clamping combined with the fluted pads which press uncomfortably on the side of your head. There is almost no vertical downward pressure on the LCD-5 creating an uneven feel to its pressure balance.
I will say, however, that over time, the LCD-5 pads soften up a bit and the most pointed edges of the fluted leather pads lose a degree of their sharpness and enhance the overall comfort. However, depending on your head size I would demo them for around 1 hour to see how you feel after.
There are no issues with the Susvara Unveiled which is supremely comfortable for long listening sessions compared to the LCD-5. It might feel comparatively looser and I would not want to bounce around too much but for home listening the pressure balance is perfect.
Grills. The LCD-5 has them, and the Susvara Unveiled does not. Stylistically that creates a very different visual but it does mean you do not need to be as careful when handling the LCD-5. There is less risk of accidental driver damage.
Performance
I went with the Bartok Apex balanced output here and had no issues driving either. Its smooth and natural tonal quality works well with both headphones.
From an FR perspective, the mids and highs vary the most. However, subjectively it’s the soundstage differences that leaps out at you.
The Susvara Unveiled sounds massive compared to the more intimate LCD-5. We are talking about arena-like qualities versus studio-room differences.
The Susvara Unveiled lower 800Hz-2k presence pushes back vocal imaging, further strengthening distance perception. The LCD-5 is a rounded soundstage with everything upfront and personal in its delivery.
The mids gain from the LCD-5 is more noticeable. Vocal lovers might connect more with certain vocalists. The Susvara Unveiled creates more space around the vocals encouraging you to take a more observational stance for vocal monitoring.
It’s a similar effect with bass where these two headphones do not differ hugely in amplitude. The Susvara Unveiled creates more distance between you and the bass delivery so despite having a similar weight and linear tuning, it might not seem as immediate as the LCD-5 presentation.
The Susvara Unveiled stretches everything out beautifully, creating a more intricate layering and imaging experience. Each instrument has tons of space to be heard doing its own thing.
You get less of that with the LCD-5. At times, I heard the instrumental imaging as narrower, pushing up against each other and not as distinct.
The dominant staging height from the Susvara Unveiled towers over the darker LCD-5. Treble has more energy and extension increasing timbral contrast and creating a more accurate tonal quality.
The LCD-5 sounded more even-harmonic biased and rounded in its timbre with the emphasis shifting down to the forward upper mids and warmer lower mids.
My Verdict
The HIFIMAN Susvara Unveiled is for many, an end-game experience. At $8000 this is where the audiophile train will stop for many hard-core audiophiles.
Its supremely detailed and spacious-sounding presentation has very few if any competitors which might go some way to justifying the investment. The only friendly shadow on its shoulder is from the original Susvara. Its lower price tag, tuning, and safer grill finish still make it a viable alternative.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the understandable caution from handling headphones with drivers as exposed as this. The inclusion of the magnetic veil back panels alleviates some of the concerns when not in use but during use please handle them with extreme care.
If you can, then you have a killer set of planar headphones, one of the best in the business. I ranked the original no 1 since 2017 and so have our readers. Honestly, I see no reason to change that perspective with the new Susvara Unveiled.
HIFIMAN Susvara Unveiled Technical Specifications
- Frequency Response: 6Hz-75kHz
- Sensitivity: 86 dB
- Impedance: 45Ω
- Weight: 430 grams/16.16 ounces
