Hifiman Arya Stealth Review

Hifiman Arya Stealth

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Build Quality & Connection

The build quality of my unit is perfect, and I have had no issues with is during all these months of usage. The headband is sturdy and the 3.5mm connectors at the bottom of the cups will probably last decades. The earpads are also perfectly finished and there’s no difference in the shape, thickness or stitching anywhere. Even the cable is very sturdy (maybe a bit too much, but in the end after a bit of usage, you kind of forget about it).

I really can’t say anything bad about the build quality of my unit, Hifiman has seriously upped its BQ and QC over the last years. For the price the unit is going for, you expect it to be perfect and in my case this certainly is so.

Specs, Price & Accessories

As said, the Arya Stealth’s with its $1,599 USD price is in the higher part of Mid-Fi or the lower part of High-Fi. It’s not a cheap headphone by any means, but I have to say it delivers in design, comfort as well as sound. Keep reading.

There aren’t that many specs available, but this is what we know:

Impedance:                        32Ω

Sensitivity:                          94dB

Frequency Response:     8Hz-65kHz

Weight:                                404g (14.3oz)

Hifiman Arya Stealth

The Arya Stealth comes in a very simple box. As we have seen before, the box also is the storage case. The Arya doesn’t come with a carrying case, but then again, it’s not really a portable headphone.

On the inside of the box you will find:

  • 1 Arya Stealth headphone
  • 1 headphone cable (6.35mm termination)
  • 1 owner guide
  • 1 Warranty card
  • 1 Stealth Magnet technology leaflet

Sound – Intro

In the intro part we usually check how the producing company describes the sound & tuning of their new unit, but I haven’t really found any clear statement about that. Hifiman more describes the impact of the technologies used, then they describe the actual tuning.

Let’s find out for ourselves. For the part on sound we have used the Arya Stealth with many different sources and amplifiers. Both mobile and desktop and in balanced an single ended configuration.

Hifiman Arya Stealth

Sound – The important stuff

The tuning of the Arya stealth is more to the neutral side, but with a softer and very musical delivery. The key characteristics are control, speed, body, energy, and dynamics.

The Arya Stealth drivers have excellent PRaT, and they sound like they are always perfectly in control, no matter how difficult passages your throw at it. It’s a balanced sound with overall a good amount of body and presence from lows to highs. The presentation is energetic and very dynamical. The Arya Stealth is extremely easy and addictive to listen to because of the way it blends technical excellence with musical strength. It’s soft on the ears, yet the detail retrieval is very good and the delivery smoother. You can’t go wrong with that. The Arya Stealth is one those headphones that wants to make you listen to more songs all the time. You easily get lost in the music with this one.

Soundstage wise the Arya Stealth is really good in both wide and depth, especially when in balanced mode. You get impressive layering and the decay and note extension is remarkable. The Arya Stealth sounds spacious and airy but it always remains realistic and natural. By going balanced, you will even increase the sound stage both in width and depth and you will get an even better level of separation and spaciousness between the notes.

The bass presentation of the Arya Stealth is better than “just good”. You get impactful, vibrating, and fast bass. Bass has good impact, and the drivers are always in control delivering a tight, detailed and bass with a good amount of sub-presence. The better desktop amps improve the bass layering and depth even more, and the Arya Stealth nicely scales up in this regard.

The Arya Stealth’s mid delivery is smoothly musical, and the timbre is a pleasure to the ear. The amount of body and presence is in balance with that of the bass section and everything nicely connects. The mids are fast paced, natural and exciting. You get great dynamics, a high level of detail and a musical delivery with a high energy level. The vocals are maybe a tad more to the front, but not too much. It makes things exciting, and you never feel it’s unnatural. The layering and depth here could be a little better, but a good amp certainly helps here.

Hifiman Arya Stealth

The Arya Stealth’s treble section is fun, exciting and lively without ever going to the sharp or harsh side. Treble shares the same amount of body, making the Arya Stealth a fairly balanced headphone in this regard. To me anyway. The treble section’s tuning perfectly contrasts and complements the bass impact and mid timbre, keeping everything exciting and energetic without ever going overboard.

The Arya Stealth’s tuning shows a perfect mix of bass presence, mid naturalness and top end excitement. All-in-all it’s a very good and easy to like tuning. Call me impressed! Detail, technical and extension wise, the Arya Stealth is still playing below the HE-1K series and of course the Susvara, but it makes up for it with its musicality, energy, layering, addictive bass presentation, mid timbre and treble liveliness. It all just works perfectly together and that’s how you build award winning headphones. The Arya Stealth isn’t the cheapest, but you get so much in return that’s ridiculous. Sound-wise this is a hard to beat headphone in the segment. Highly addictive.

It’s also a headphone that is easy to use. This is one of those headphones like the Amiron Home that can do everything (but at a higher level). Movies, online meetings, gaming, audiophile listening, etc. You name it, the Arya Stealth has you covered. I do advise to use the Arya Stealth in balanced mode if possible. In balanced the technical performance increases making the headphone even more impressive.

Sound – Amplification

As Hifiman says – and you can see it from the specs – the Arya Stealth is fairly easy to drive. No matter the source used, it will sound good. Hook it up to a more powerful DAP or desktop am however, and you will be even more impressed with the technical level boost.

Hifiman Arya Stealth

Looking at solid state amps, I mostly use the Arya Stealth with the Ferrum Audio OOR, in combination with the Musician Pegasus DAC. The naturalness and imaging in this combo is impressive, as well as the bass control and decay. For me however, the Arya stealth sounds its absolute best in balanced mode with the 300B Envy tube amp from Feliks Audio. This combo simply is magical, like the 2 units were designed for each other. The sound stage, layering, detail retrieval and pace is incredible with this combo.

If you like a softer, slightly slower and more tube presentation, then the AudioValve Solaris is a great amplifier to look at. Again, the combo is not cheap, but impressive it is. My Technics SU-G700 speaker amp isn’t the best “source” for many different headphones, but the synergy with the Arya Stealth this time round is very good, especially of you like a more vocal forward presentation.

When switching to (trans)portable sources, just make sure they have enough oompf, so always use the balanced output if you can. The Astell&Kern SP2000T isn’t the most powerful DAP on the market but it perfectly manages to drive the Arya Stealth, you just must ignore the “high volume” warning. The delivery here perhaps is a bit lighter for what body is concerned, and the bass has a lighter impact (and less depth) but all-in-all still very good and technically a very strong combo.

Keep reading, just click here to go to the following part.

Page 1: Hifiman, Arya Stealth, Driver & Stealth Technology, Comfort & Design & Isolation

Page 2: Build quality & connection, Specifications & price & accessories, Sound, Amplification Pt. 1

Page 3: Amplification Pt. 2 & Comparisons & Conclusion

4.1/5 - (126 votes)
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Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

7 Comments

  • Reply May 10, 2022

    Michel I.

    Hello Lieven,
    Nice review, as usual!
    Little mistake in you comparison with the HE6SE: “Some would probably say the HE6SE sounds dull compared to the HE6SE”.
    Best regards

  • Reply May 11, 2022

    Vamp898

    I tested several Hifiman headphones from all price ranges multiple times.

    Maybe I have a very strange taste but to this date, I thought the every single of them were really bad.

    In terms of built quality but especially sound.

    I have not tested a single hifiman product that could reproduce an authentic sound of an double bass for example. How can so many headphones from one company fail at an simple instrument?

    When I tested the Susvara, my jar did drop but not because it is that good, because I was surprised how bad an headphone can sound that sells for over 1000$

    Seriously if they were the same price, I would have gotten the Sony MDR-1AM2 which sells for ~180€ in my country. The Susvara sells for 6999€

    The Final D8000, Sony MDR-Z1R or the Sennheiser HD820 are faaaaaar superior to the Susvara in every single aspect you could think of and cost a fraction.

    If you start playing an well recorded high quality acoustic live concert, everything turns into an weird and unauthentic sounding mess.

    I don’t know how and why this company can exist selling these… “headphones” for the prices they do. They are the Softears of the overear world, it’s insane.

    But apparently there are people who like these for whatever reasons I can not understand. Certainly not because they play instruments and/or know how they sound in real live.

    They are better then beats though.

    I have not heard the Arya Stealth yet but I’d be surprised if it remotely as good as this review makes it sound.

    • Reply May 11, 2022

      Lieven

      I think it’s more a matter of your personal taste 🙂

  • Reply June 18, 2022

    bob machlus

    always appreciate your reviews, with my Schiit jot 2 and Bifröst 2 which would you recommend the Arya stealth at $1200 or the He6se V2 at $600?

    • Reply June 19, 2022

      Lieven

      Thank you! I would go Stealth with that setup. HE6SE needs something more “up”

  • Reply December 21, 2023

    szore on head-fi

    I bought my Arya 3 new for $999, I have a Denefrips Ares2 DAC, and BIC500 transformer, The Jotunheim 2 amp, Odin2 power cables and USB cables, and balanced XLR cables, a grounding box, electrostic grounding mat, and element H usb card with external power supply. Everything, even the computer is using the power cables and are plugged into the transformer. the system sounds superb, nothing I heard at Canjam can beat it, even the uber expensive stuff.

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