Sus goes Is? – Not exactly. HifiMan's new Isvarna [$2'899] rather diverges from Susvara. It's a hybrid which combines an elliptical 3x5cm dynamic bass driver facing inward with a planar membrane at ~300Hz. The specs reflect 6Hz-60kHz bandwidth, 16Ω impedance and 93dB sensitivity. Whilst the extra-thick aluminium-alloy ear cups seal at the ends as shown, a very sizable perforated area presumably to vent the woofer chamber faces down. Weight is 454g. With IEM, hybrids of dynamic and balanced-armature drivers are quite common but combining a thin film with dynamic drivers in full-sized models is rather less so. It will be interesting to see whether commentators give a hearty thumbs-up to HifiMan's seamless blending of two driver types when until now, they haven't mixed technologies. EnigmAcoustics did with their Dharma D1000 which mated a 52mm dynamic driver to a small self-biased electrostatic element. So did AKG. But those all date back. Now Isvarna joins a dynamic driver with a planarmagnetic. It's not Miller but Hybrid Time. Cheers or clunk?
