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Tired of pretending that your earbuds are doing a great job of reproducing your favorite music? Then you'll love the HIFIMAN Edition XS Over-Ear Audiophile Headphones with their amazing 8-50kHz audio reproduction and extraordinary comfort. Audio fan Dave Taylor checks out the latest from HiFiMan and finds the Edition XS pretty darn sweet.
Check it out at: https://amzn.to/3r9MJc8
Check out Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
#audiophile #headphones #hifiman #overear #audio #askdavetaylor
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0:00
Audio file over ear headphones. Let's check these out
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Dave Taylor here, and I'm checking out these these are the hi-fi man edition Xs
0:16
over ear audio file headphones and They come in this box, which I am now going to get rid of just so we have some space
0:23
These are really cool headphones. They are designed to be audiophile So the first thing you notice no Bluetooth no active noise cancelling nothing
0:33
The company has completely focused on getting the best possible sound reproduction
0:39
And they do that by using their neo super nano diaphragm and what they call their stealth magnet design
0:45
Which makes the magnets acoustically invisible, so there's no like standing waves bouncing into each other and stuff
0:52
It produces a clean crisp gorgeous sound now They are wired headphones and they come with an interesting wire because it's three point five millimeter on both
1:04
Ends that plug into the headphones and then there's a three point five millimeter with a quarter inch adapter
1:12
So you can just put that on if you have old-school gear But more modern gear is using that three point five millimeter, and you have to match left and right obviously
1:21
So, let's see. This is left and this says left so I plug this one in
1:27
Therefore we can conclude the other one is right and it's over ear. So the headphones are big
1:33
They go over your ears, which makes them ridiculously comfortable In fact, the unit only weighs 14 ounces or 400 grams
1:42
It's really light you could easily wear these for hours on end now in terms of the actual acoustic signature
1:51
They can reproduce eight to fifty thousand Hertz, which is way better than my hearing
1:56
and they have a surprisingly low impedance of only 18 ohms and
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92 decibels of sensitivity Now they are an upgrade to the edition X if you have those from the hi-fi man
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All the drivers and diaphragms and everything are different and it's a lot thinner
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For what kind of a headphone these are and for the kind of sound reproduction they offer
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They are remarkably thin in this section because you can see most of that is actually just to create a space for your ears
2:28
So, let's see what I was going to tell you. It's a memory foam headband. It is adjustable to some extent and
2:36
The earpieces are using the three point five millimeter connections Which means you can find third-party cables if you don't like theirs
2:43
I don't know why you wouldn't like theirs, but if you need to get a replacement you have options
2:48
So here's how I auditioned them is I didn't want to just plug these into a device because they really need an amp
2:55
So I took my MacBook and I'm running some software called Cobras, which is actually spelled q o B UZ and it is basically
3:08
High quality master quality audio source that you can use so it's like title
3:15
But there's a lot I really like about it separate conversation And so I have that running on my computer and then I'm using this. This is awesome
3:23
This is the IFI hip deck and I've reviewed this separately on my youtube channel
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And this just is really great because it basically lets you plug into the USB C
3:34
And you can plug it into a USB a if you got that So you plug it into your computer and then this routes the output to here
3:43
And then this circuitry is considerably more sophisticated than what's built into the computer
3:49
so you get much better audio quality and the volume goes way higher because it also acts as an amp and then
3:58
It's complicated, right? So then I finally plug the headphones into the DAC and amp and so that's my setup
4:06
So here's what I listen to is I went back in time and I went to the Alan's Parsons project album
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I robot and oh my gosh putting these on and listening to that with that sort of early synth music
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And if you don't know Alan Parsons is also well known for being an engineer on albums
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for example dark side of the mood by Pink Floyd so Parsons really really knows how to just like capture really big beautiful audio and it sounded
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amazing on these It gets insanely loud because I have an amp here
4:43
So I had to dial that down but boy completely immersive experience now having said that I will say
4:51
Also that when I have these on I don't really have any acoustic
4:56
Buffer that's stopping all of the ambient noise around me So if you want to use these in a loud environment, then you're gonna end up cranking them up fairly high
5:05
So in that sort of a situation I would probably recommend something with ANC to sort of lower some of that background ambient noise
5:13
but if you're in a relatively quiet environment, these are just Beautiful. So let's talk about the sound now. One of the big things is soundstage, right
5:23
So the soundstage is how big does the sound appear for you sort of as a mental image and these are
5:31
Just amazing where if I close my eyes, I feel like I have this whole
5:36
Band or orchestra or group spread out in the recording studio So there's a big soundstage but just as important is that it's clean and crisp and precise
5:48
So you can just sort of mentally tune into a specific instrument like let me just listen to the hi-hat from the
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Drummer and you can just really hear that because it's just there's such a precision to how they reproduce the sound
6:04
Now some people have said that the addiction addition excess is a little bass heavy
6:09
I did not find that I tried in addition to Alan Parsons. I listened to some Kate Bush
6:15
I listened to some later sting all of those are beautifully engineered sound and none of them came across bass heavy
6:22
But boy, they just have a big rich sound Eminently listenable. This is the level of listenable where you just close your eyes and forget what else you're doing and just
6:33
Remember how much you enjoy the music so really really big fan now
6:40
Design wise and they're not gonna win any design awards. These are definitely not gamer headphones
6:45
They don't have any neon or fluorescent lights that pop up or anything. In fact, they barely even have the company logo present
6:52
It's right there if you're curious But that's all good right now. It doesn't come with a case. It doesn't come with a carrying bag
6:59
It's literally the headphones the cable and this little tiny adapter and some instruction booklet. That's it
7:06
So they will work you can plug them straight into your phone or your iPad or your computer or your TV or whatever you want
7:13
As long as it is a 3.5 millimeter jack, it will work better with a better audio source
7:19
So that's something to consider But they have put all their engineering effort and all their enthusiasm into making these sound
7:29
Beautiful and they succeeded. These are wonderful headphones They really easily could be a thousand dollars and I would be like, yeah
7:37
Look, that's a reasonable price for something that has this sort of sound reproduction, but they're not so
7:43
Let's talk about the price however Before we get to the price I'm gonna ask if you could subscribe to my channel a click or a tap on that subscribe button and we're connected
7:52
Excellent. Now in addition, give me some feedback. Leave me a comment. Give me a thumbs up
7:57
Always appreciate what you wish I would have covered or what you are really appreciative that I did cover
8:02
Okay, these are the hi-fi man edition XS over ear audiophile headphones and they are
8:12
$499 at amazon.com and you should go there and read the reviews people love these and there's a good reason for it if you're
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Tired of thinking that your earbuds are giving you great audio reproduction
8:24
They're not then it might be time for you to upgrade to something at the audiophile level like these
8:30
So as for me, I think I'm gonna go back to my Alan Parsons
8:35
Which means I'll have to catch you in my next video
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