Unveiled

Déshabillé. It's a posh way of saying scantily clad. Nearly nekkid is more prosaic. Given HE1000 Unveiled's posh headphone tariff, let's go with the sexier French. Unveiled refers to what happens when we remove its magnetically attached solid-plate protectors called veils; a must for listening. Without normal grills beneath, going unveiled exposes the thin-film membranes to the unflinching light of day and any magnetically attractive object. If we pay no heed, this inevitable striptease comes at a risk. Don't park your denuded costly cans next to loose paper clips only to hoover them up and possibly tear a membrane. HifiMan have applied this less-is-more scheme of unveiling the derrières of planars to already numerous models. They openly admit that rear grills across dipole diaphragms create airflow and reflection issues. That the same remains true for window-shutter magnets running across such diaphragms like prison bars goes without saying. Hence it's not spelled out but glossed over with 'stealth' propaganda as though solid magnets could truly be acoustically invisible¹. That they are not is implicit to thinking folks hence intrinsic to dual-sided planarmagnetic drive. Like safe sex, using HifiMan's unveiled models wants thinking folks. End of small print. In bold come specs of 95dB, 28Ω, 8Hz-65kHz, three different cables (angled 3.5mm/1.5m, 6.35mm/3m, XLR4/3m) and 450g without cable. When the brand inquired which model I wanted to review, I stayed clear of their top spread to pick the HE1000 Unveiled.
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¹ Like HifiMan's Stealth magnets, Fazor tech by competitor Audeze applies a round-nosed profile to their magnets to improve airflow. What such drawings don't show is what happens in all the areas which duplicate what I circled in red: those parts of the membrane which fire directly at magnets rather than through the gaps between them.

OG HE1000 upper right.

Why pick HE1000? I spotted trickle-down promise which just might net those of slimmer savings a Susvara Lite. Having an actual 2017 Susvara with notoriously inefficient gold traces in inventory—and premium amps to properly drive it—I'd be able to compare wishful thinking to reality. HifiMan's webshop lists current Susvara at €6.7K, Susvara Unveiled with lighter less resistive silver traces at €8.8K. At €2.4K, the HE1000 Unveiled doesn't quite demand a king's or kaiser's ransom; just a noblewoman's. To prep, I'd go on a brief mono diet of blueberries to tint my blood the correct hue. Kidding aside, with this model we still play an elevated game. HeadFi must be very important to us to justify a selfish indulgence which won't share unless we get two. Even then we stay in our own bubbles. That's the whole asocial appeal of headphones. They can be our on-call private day spa, at the ready to whisk us away into an inner world of sounds, rhythms, deep emotions and day-dream visions. Eyes shut, we become oblivious to our surroundings and escape to elsewhere. Some find it very hard to place a mundane monetary value on it. Going into today's gig, let's assume you share that priceless sentiment.

HeadFi assessments start with wear comfort. It breaks out into weight, clamping force, pad size/plushness; the headband's contact patch with our dome; how well height adjustments and swivels adapt to our biological topography. Next comes material luxury, finish quality and industrial styling. None of it can be judged from specs or photos. What even photos spell out is that the latest HE1000's general shape hasn't fundamentally changed from HifiMan's signature ovoid models. Whatever improvements in manufacturing and finishing HifiMan made over the last decade must unveil in details which photos don't transmit. Also, the lead which HifiMan and Audeze enjoyed as early champions of the planarmagnetic headphone renaissance now meets far fiercer far more numerous competition from FiiO to Sendy, Abyss to Nur, Meze to T+A. Popularity breeds challengers. The competitiveness of capitalism is a cruel mistress, Darwin's maxim of survival of the fittest no joke. If it weren't, we'd all be entrepreneurs turning down job-for-life security to chance self-employment. On building out their sphere of influence, did you know that HifiMan worked with Asus to design their Rog Kithara gaming headphone? Asus could have pursued any other headphone designer. Going with Fang Bian of HifiMan suggests that after all these years he is still very much central to the scene.

Susvara's nine magnets vs. HE1000's eleven mean that the former's larger gaps make it even more "open". Fang Bian in insert.

So, is HE1000 Unveiled the quintessential current HifiMan planar which packs all of their key tech and refinements without chasing the last few cost-no-issue percentage points of the range toppers? That question was about to get more complicated. But first, if you're hazy on planarmagnetic headphones but heard of Magnepan or Diptyque speakers, same thing. An edge-clamped thin film with conductive traces on one side or both faces a stave magnet array on one or both sides. Dual-sided voice coils tend to duplicate in shape not necessarily makeup—FiiO's FT7 runs silver on one side, gold on the other—but Diptyque even exploit cross-oriented traces to cover more surface for extra control. With planarmagnetics, dual-sided magnets are called balanced drive. Unlike dynamic drivers, planarmagnetics are driven across their entire surface. Without separate suspension, their excursion limits to central stretch like a drum skin. Hence sheer surface area compensates. Pistonic motion reserves for dynamic transducers whose moving mass is higher. That's good for bass not treble. A planar's limited stretch potential gets challenged at LF whilst barely-there mass is excellent for higher freqs. Checks and balances. Each tech has its own. Hence the dominance of dynamic headphones in the high end from the days of Sennheiser's original HD800 is long passé. In today's landscape, planars enjoy at least an equal footprint. Here HifiMan remain a deeply entrenched occupier of that real estate. Taking a look at the brand again after a long absence in my pages felt overdue to stay abreast and current. Here's what regular Warsaw contributor Dawid Grzyb had to say about Susvara Unveiled late last year. Just as I was getting cozy with the promise of HE1000 Revisited—I'd heard the original way back when—my factory contact Mark upped the ante. "If you don't mind, I'll add a few more Unveileds to let you see what they can do at different prices. I find the Ananda and Arya Unveiled to be most impressive at the prices Fang set them at."