Interview: HiFiMAN CEO discusses Sundara, Ananda, Arya headphone revisions, Shangri-La and more.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- HiFiMAN Shangri-La: www.headphones...
HiFiMAN Sundara: www.headphones...
HiFiMAN Ananda: www.headphones...
HiFiMAN Arya: www.headphones...
HiFiMAN Ananda-BT: www.headphones...
HiFiMAN HE1000se: www.headphones...
HiFiMAN Susvara: www.headphones...
Discuss HiFiMAN headphones on the HEADPHONE Community Forum: forum.headphon...
Become an expert on headphones: www.headphones...
Learn about headphone measurements and frequency response: www.headphones...
How frequency response impacts sound signature: www.headphones...
"It's easy to make a closed backs like Beats or a Sony, but it will be extremely difficult to make it... good."
Ouch...
he is so right about this part . it is extremely hard to make closed headphone sound good.
for me personally the only real good closed headphone are the dan clark aeon flow closed headphone i tried it once and it was really good for a closed headphone
Albeshr beats is trash but Sony... They don’t sound good when you are listening but they can give you chill or a good nap.
Sony makes good stuff chifiman. Imporive your build...
I'm chinese ah so it's not racist
@@brandonlim5709 he never wanted to improve on it, unless he is forced (by competition or something). His main concern is to ensure the fattest profit margin. Look at his headphones costing thousands of dollars but using the cheapest parts possible. For example, Susvara's cable probably cost him 50c to make.
@@davidmason8212 the best closed heahpones are probably the lcd-xc in the current market
I had the chance to speak with Fang a few years back when hifiman released the HE5LE. His vision was very different from now, but if there's one thing that remains unchanged, he was and still is a very avid concert goer. His motto back then was to always faithfully reproduce what's happening in a concert hall, and that still seems to be the case today.
Just curious, in what way was his vision (as a designer? as a businessman?) different from how it is now?
What an opportunity! He sounds like an enthusiastic audiophile
true2, natural accuracy sounds great on real sound, real instrument, real voice, real environment
but really this fiio only very inadequate for such quality
And then Audivina came out...
Wow what an interesting take on the future of wireless headphones and the music streaming platforms...
Absolutely brilliant interview.. Well done man👍🏾👍🏾
I've had my Sundara's for about a month now, and I love them! Everything I've read about them is true! Paid $350 Cdn. for them. Great deal for an incredible headphone.
Yep, I've had them for about a month too and they indeed do sound great, really incredible for the price.
How would you describe bass on them. I can’t go test planars at the shop by me because of covid. I’m used to very bassless dynamic headphones or muddy headphones like the Sony bass boost headphones. I like bass you can feel but have it super tight and controlled. I know planars are tight but I don’t want to be disappointed by the bass output overall. People say a lot they can feel it resonate to their chest on really low sub bass.
@@RED89P13 the bass is tight, it is quick.
the subbass disappears quite quickly however. (i think this makes the bass feels more snappy overall, but sub 25hz bass is virtually nonexistent)
If you listen to metal, you will miss some of the drum and the low guitar bass/low distortion, unless you EQ it.
all other genre that emphasize upper-bass, vocal and treble though, is performing exceptionally.
Edit: I came from a quite bass heavy dynamic IEM, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. But my IEM reproduce the subbass better than the sundara in bass sweeping synthetic test. So I gained bass-texture, but I lost some of the subbass.
Hi just wondering, a year later do you still love your Sundara's? thanks
@@RED89P13 If you have a good EQ and amp, then you can definitely get the sub back, these headphones can handle it but you will need more power
wish Hifiman had the same enthusiasm to build quality and QC. Its what keeps me from buying them.
It's definitely been a concern of mine as well. I'm hopeful that it improves, but if anything, this conversation has made me optimistic
Same here. They'd be on my shortlist to try but until that stuff is truly sorted, I'm staying away.
To be honest they did improved a lot. Not yet good but acceptable now.
@@sicebae4988 Maybe QC is improved, but build quality is still very "cheap" in their hi-end stuff. Whenever I go to my local HiFi showroom, it's noticeable how much worse Hifiman is compared to other brands in TOTL territory.
@@allydea The worst build quality ever. QC really depends on luck. I really suggest staying away from Chifimans. Just dont trust them.
Wow I learned a ton. I have been holding off on the Sandra's but this answered all my questions. Great interview 👍👏 he has a ton of knowledge wow. it seems he could talk for another 3 hours and I'd definitely listen
@@metal571 And Sandra is my mother, also awesome.
As an owner of he1000v2 and he6se, I agree linear neutral sound is not boring
Agreed. I can't stand when things like mids are sucked out.
@@buster7618 same. I can't listen to headphones without mids
You should discuss with the CEO wtf is the quality control and built are so bad in general across all hifiman headphones.
Maybe it's to preserve that "Made in China" feel. :-)
@@allydea its authentic Made in China, dont feel good if it dont break
really nobody is this transparent about their products. I think they get too much undeserved crap.
Dude, i had an HEK V1 for a while and it didnt fit most of my music at all.. but then i threw on some classical opera recordings and i got transported straight back into the vienna opera i was in a month earlier... fantastic!
woah really
Did he say "Heavy Mental"?
I have a lot more respect for hifiman and the sundara now. This was great! Comments from the source.
What did he say
@@Tesseract9630 He said uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what the video said
Excellent Information,
but unfoprtunately poor amateur
Audio Quality..."
Thanks
I am dissecting my Ananda BTs as we speak! Removing the black grills that are creating path resistance on 5 stripes across the planar driver. It is going to sound sick afterwards or I will break them :)
So how was it? Lol
@@blaaaaaaaa2017 Guess they broke, rip.
Thanks so much for making the Ananda BT. It is absolutely incredible. Finally great wireless 24/192 for USB gaming and Bluetooth LDAC900
Awesome interview. Can I make one note: You're too close to the mic compared to the guest. I have to turn down the audio when you speak, and then turn it up when the guest speaks. Levelling that out would be great.
?
They should totally make a plug in Bluetooth module for both earcups that power the older wired models. Would be awesome if it was proprietary and had a perfect fit to the cups.
as well as the controls of ps3 or ps4 or ps5, right?
@@artox1500 Im saying if they did it would be nice. It doesn’t exist lol. So yes hypothetically any device but it would connect to the PlayStation direct not the controller
Amanda is the best bargain in this expensive hobby.
I also like the Ananda headphones but looking forward to meeting Amanda too
@@godtiermedic lol
Yes I'm old fashioned, but the idea of investing a significant sum in a wireless headphone and then having to throw it away when the battery inevitably dies isn't very appealing.
Third-party repairs and battery replacements are always an option, though it then becomes a matter of sourcing parts.
Wireless headphone usually still have aux connection. So, when the battery dead, at least it will become a wired headphone.
In case it helps even the Ananda BT's have perfect USB 3 connections for your phones and or PCs
Once you go Fang, you never go back.
That was awesome... Makes me wanna start a headphone company. Lol
This man is a genius... Thank you for the interview, both of you.
I love this guy. He's great.
That about listening to things from yonks ago, you only ever heard on dodgy shit, is a great point.
I've been going through something a little the same.
Great interview.
Superb interview. I agree wholeheartedly the future belongs to wireless even in the high end. The beauty these years is that mainstream and high end seems to gel much better than a few years ago. Just five years ago high end was defined by ever older men listening over speakers and discussing the presumed advantages of silver cables. Now the focus turns towards better and better headphones, binaural recordings, higher resolution streaming and higher resolution wireless technology. Day by day we see better and better products where earlier we saw the high end walking around in circles. The future looks bright!
well some still like to believe its all about cables witch is quite sad really.
Re: The Sundara mid-level price range. Have you checked out the Shure srh1540 and 1840?
Why does he’s associate streaming with wireless listening? Nice story, about staying up all night listening to cartoon soundtracks from his youth, but he didn’t need to be using wireless cans to enjoy the freedom that streaming was affording him.
Great interview!!! Opened my eyes to what he is pushing for wireless.
This man is a true legend!
Quarantine content, I'm okay with this. I'm really thinking about saving for a planar open headphone, I'd like to have something different.
I love my Hifiman He4xx a great affordable planar headphone
He spoke to the HIfi MAN himself...
I didn’t know that hifiman is a company from my home country, Tianjing, precisely. I love how they look, hope will own one when I return to China.
Back in 2021, I got a Yamaha YH-E700A closed-back Bluetooth headset. Earlier this year, I remembered how much I loved my Pioneer SE-A1000 open-back headphones which I had from late 2010 to early 2018, but was no longer able to use once its permanent cable failed. Ever since early 2022, I decided to begin a journey with quality, open-back headphones. While some people prefer convenience over quality, what the Hifiman CEO said in this video about how an internal USB/Bluetooth audio interface compromises the headphones themselves confirms my decision to add a USB/Bluetooth interface I can put on my belt or in my pocket later on if I decide I want to add that capability at some other time. Since early 2022, I've been using my laptop's headphone output with a shorter cable when I plan on sitting with my laptop on my lap, and a longer cable when I need to be a little further away from it while I listen. Although I have a feeling a USB/Bluetooth audio interface I can put on my belt or in my pocket would be better than the Realtek Bang and Olufsen internal audio interface found on many of today's Windows laptops.
My sundara are almost too revealing, pick up static pops far too easily
wish sundaras were abit lighter and confortable
*when you watch this you will know that the guy is more of an enthusiast rather than just selling shit for profit, this is why i support this company and just bought a Sundara. Surely they had QA issues but you can tell they are trying hard to improve to compete with other big brands in quality and sell for lower price for us music lovers to enjoy*
exactly. I think all audiophile headphones are designed by enthusiasts, not by people trying to make big cash at Bose
Why is it so expensive? Because it sounds good.
But there are others are just as good but less expensive.
@@nicktan4530 i don't think so
hifiman is number one in my perspective
@@davidmason8212 no. If its nuetral to bright tonality perhaps. Quite similar to final audio
@@nicktan4530 never see or try final audio before did they make planar headphones???
@@davidmason8212 Yes and only planar. Why do you say Hifiman is the best ?
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PADS?!?
Come on man, Dr. Fang has a lot more interesting things to talk about. Just let him go.
Concern for symphony, Wagner and Metalica. Great. Real HIFI & real music. I'm sold on HIFIMAN, hoping to get the most from my Mahler.
This guys vision regarding sound is spot on. Hes trying to make things sound 'real'. If they can just tidy up their QC and lower the concern of the china market and drop prices a little, well, they would take over the headphone world. The first time I tried focals, senns, audysey etc. all over 2k. price point i picked up the edition x v2 and couldnt put them down. It sounded like I was actually at a show, these headphones absolutely shat on everything else at the 2k price point and were unbelieveably close to being their just minus the crowd and the live bass. They really are fantastic headphones that hifiman are doing. Insanely natural sound. LIstening to a live recording of something like Dave Matthews Band is actually insane and as close as it gets to being there.
You want them to tidy up QC and drop prices. Which business school did you graduate from again?
just QC would fix so much things, like, really....
@@ColocasiaCorm bro stop trying to be a smarty pants and look outside your box. It is possible to achieve this at the same price point. Hifiman headphones have great product margins as it is. Forming a top tier reputation actually leads to more sales and company value… forums stop many buyers for hifiman simply by reading all the disaster qc issues
Can anyone tell me how the Jr. stacks up against the Shangri-La SR.? Thanks
Anandaaaaaaa
I want the deva armband adjustments on the hybrid headband on the hifiman susvara please then that would be my new endgame headphone if that happens and it won't have failure points like it does now and hopefully hifiman susvara se will be a thing in the future with no wood just super strong metal all the way around and and 3.5 mm instead 2.5mm because I don't think they on that head phone as far as I know and with that deva headband with different colors to match the headphones then many people believe hifiman is a reliable with that new headband that headband is very pretty and if you sell that headband with different words on it like it will say susvara he1000se ect that would be perfect because it will also match the headphones hifiman get that idea in your brain please
Hehe, that question about a closed back HiFiMAN sure does have a different feel to it now that we know about the HE-R10....
Thanks this interview! It is very interesting to watch. But I wondering is it the end of plug in wire HiFiMan headphones? I had own a few of them. I guess if I buy another one will be the "SE" or some new names that is more refined and easier drive. It's fantastic you asked about why not make planar closed back. I was always thinking why he didn't make any. Thanks again for this video interview!
For listening to recorded music. If you're not hearing it on the same system the engineer is when he recorded it, you're not going to hear it as he recorded it. You're just not. Now, we can't buy a system based on each system an engineer used for each piece of recorded music we own. We just have to make due. If you like the way whatever system you have sounds, that's good enough.
Great interview. Thank you
No mention of quality control concerns???
i think they should make a bluetooth edition-s and make it below 100 USD, it will be unstoppable
go fix the 4xx please.
Great interview and those were spme very interesting questions! Looking forward to see more interviews :))
He spoke to the HIfi MAN himself...
This is nice for the cheap affordable price
Great interview... I just got the HE-X4.. great entry level set..
I'm glad they replaced the dust cover on the Ananda.. but it wasn't for style. I was told by a retailer to stay away from it because almost every unit sold came back with a driver failure. They make great sounding headphones but they need to be rock solid for the prices they charge.
Listening to what Fang Bian says here, it sounds like they changed the dust cover so they didn't have to use black paint on the magnets, which in turn may improve reliability. I've never heard of the Ananda having problems to be honest, it's mostly been the older line like the HE400i series.
10:00 u mean my taste sucks if i am poor?
I bought the Ananda when it first came out and the earpad just started to unravel from the inner part after a couple months.
The product names are indian names, sundara, deva, arya
That's racist
They are Sanskrit. Beautiful words for all models
How do you position the ear cup on the Arya? it's so big that you can position it in many ways, but the manual doesn't say which. E.g., is the bottom of the earpad almost touching the bottom of your earlobe, or is your ear dead center in the earpad? is the back of your ear almost touching the back of the earpad, or right in the middle? or did you pull the headphone down so the top of your ears are touching the top of the earpad?
In case it helps if you take the pad off yiu will see that there is usually about a half inch of other non-driver material at the bottom part of the yolk. So I think dead center to higher up would work best for the oval-shaped Hifiman Models and dead dead center for all circular models
@@MakenaKai tyvm! after some testing, i agree with you. the sound is way too intimate if the ear is near the bottom. btw, do u think the oval cup should be straight or tilted? if it is tilted, the headband is right on top of the head. if it is straight, the headband's pressure is more toward the front of the head (seems to hurt more over time). but in terms of sound, which do u think is the proper way?
@@Viewer13128 I wish I was qualified to answer that one haha. I am thinking that straighter was their intention but I too have the same problem. I think they are essentially basing the sound and Harmon curve off of "making a seal" around the ear so the only real leakage is through the intended open back of the headphone? Totally guessing on everything above of course. I have to angle mine a bit for sure too after 30 mins
@@MakenaKai thanks. i'm thinking of playing spatial and soundstage audio tests on youtube to check which one is more accurate. it's sad that their support just tells me u can position it any way, when some ways are clearly bad.
Hmmm, I wonder what Tekken and hifi headphone company CEO interviews have in common :P howdy.
Thank you for the interview. Learned a lot.
This hifiman shangri-la or sennheiser he-1, who’s the best ?
Hard to say. You need them side by side in the best environment
The HEADPHONE Show in your experience, which one would you choose and why?
@@marcelodelgadillo7219 neither? They're so expensive haha. I'd probably do the Shangri-la junior, or even Susvara.
The HEADPHONE Show Forget the price, only in terms of audio which one do you prefer?
Shangri-La for me. I’ve heard both multiple times
How lucky you spoke with hifiman's CEO.
What did you think about the deva.
They said it borrows some technologies from the susvara.
Hope that you got an impression of it.
I wasn't a huge fan of the tuning. It was a bit bass heavy for me. But as Fang said, they might be trying to go after a different audience at that price.
@@TheHEADPHONEShow agreed.
He said if he wants to be a billionaire he would have to target certain prices with certain sound signature that appeal to that demographic.
Which headphone in their current lineup you think is the best regardless of value.
I think the thumbnail is a picture of the Shangri-La Jr., which are not US$50k.
It's the Sr. With the JR amp. The JR is behind it.
@@TheHEADPHONEShow which is not 50k.
Idk why i thought hifiman was an American company
Nope...it is 100% China. They just put a bunch of photos of America in the book you get
It was, they had office in america but then they finally went to China, from wiki: "Founded by Dr. Fang Bian in late 2005 while he was living in New York City, Bian started Head-Direct, both a web-store and Head-Fi sponsor. He began use of the HiFiMAN brand since 2007. In 2010, he started two small factories in China and moved the headquarters to Tianjin, China in 2011."
@@frostzxs China is the new land of opportunity, Make China great again!
@@loucipher7782 i do love cheap chinese labor. Lol
Roasting bassheads lol
i wish the ananda will cost 500 dollar to buy it .
it is gona be perfect for my music taste
Enjoy I think you got your wish in certain markets. Enjoy.
Ananda is already $500 and if i stack vouchers and cashback it will be way under that like 473$ but i ended up with Sundara for $265 because i dont believe headphone above $300 is worth paying for
@@loucipher7782
Can you please tell me how to get the ananda for 500 usd ?
@@davidmason8212 if you live in Asia you can get it now on Shopee/Lazada 11-11 sales, otherwise im sure it will be on sale for $500 again on Xmas/Black Friday at your fav online stores because i saw several comments of people buying them at $500 as well because thats the price the Ananda had dropped to.
@@loucipher7782
Actually I live in US
Would you recommend any wasy to buy except amazon ?
Because on Amazon it's still 699
most hate wireless headphones ..
uhhh sennheiser orphious
imagine listening to a man about quality headphones who has such tiny ears.
I have a weird love-hate relationship with hifiman. It is evident that their engineers know what they are doing, I genuinely loved my hifiman edition x. But they seem to have this problem of catering to Chinese market which believes that the more expensive the product is - the better it must be, - which in a way makes perfect sense all things considered. Plus the manufacturing and quality control problems; way back I thought they will do what Audeze eventually would do and outsource some elements of production but I guess Dr Fang wants to control every process or something. In any case when it comes to Hifiman it is what a classic once said: “We will watch your career with great interest”.
Yes. As much as I think they're trying to change the "made in China" stigma, it's clear that so far there have still been some well-documented QC issues. I think that's one of the inspirations behind the design of something like the Sundara (and to a certain extent the Ananda) - fewer potential failure points. We'll see how that works out. With regards to cost, they also go to both ends of the spectrum. Some are crazily over-priced, while products like the Sundara (and potentially the Ananda and Arya) outperform their price points. When it comes to the crazy high price tags like the Shangri-La, I imagine a lot of that is just to gain notoriety within the industry, and it's not unique either. Many brands do this, and in other areas as well.
@@TheHEADPHONEShow We at work deal a lot with China and dont really have the "made in China" stigma. If you are ready to pay, they will produce high quality products, but most people expect the cheapest alternative, hence the ongoing stigma to this day. I was mostly referring to well discussed cultural phenomena on the hifiman related forums, where in China nowadays the majority of the country is busy littering money, with a genuine belief that the more expensive version of the product - the better it must be. We in Russia had the same new money problem in 2000s, hence all the stereotypes and all these property in London and Football clubs. But yes, headphone industry is similar to car industry in that case, with all these prototypes and concept cars to show off engineering. My Edition X, btw, came without cables, hence my relationship to this brand)))
Hi, I've been eyeing Ananda for quite some time. Do you think it's and upgrade over the Sundara?
Btw.. great content as always! Thanks!
I got the chance to try them. They sound amazing and fun and easy to drive! Tried every other headphone in the room in that price range and the ananda is king!
You know audio is full hype, right? Ananda's strength is that it sounds agreeable and doesn't have glaring sound weakness. It is a safe sound. But it not amazing by any standard. Build quality is well below established brands. It feels cheap like typical hifiman.
@@omni6409 few years later when the Ananda price dropped to 167$ everyone will call it entry level and mediocre voice lol
What's with the wireless fetish?
Convenience
I own the Arya, and used to own the 400i and the Ananda, and I have only one complaint about all three - not near enough bass, and I'm not a basshead. The frequency response on the low end is flat, or even recessed, and that is not ideal. The bass on a pair of speakers with a flat frequency response, in a normal room, has enhanced bass because of the room acoustics. For headphones to sound right, they needs three or four extra decibels of bass below about 150 hertz or so, and a boost in treble to keep the sound balanced. Think "Harman curve". HiFiMan needs to tune their headphones closer to the Harman curve. The Arya headphones sounds fine for acoustic and classical music, but they sound a little thin on the low end with pop and rock music. I've resorted to boosting the bass a little on the Aryas, to make them sound right with pop and rock. I shouldn't have to do that on headphones that cost me a month's take home pay.
EVERY Headphones. Expensive or cheap, need to be equalized to compensate engineering and physical limitations.
All pro recordings use EQ.
Sound reproduction is millions times more complex so it absolutely need it a millions times more.
What DAC and amp were you using with your Arya?
@@MayTheSchwartzBeWithYou I've used the JDS Element, JDS Atom, and the Topping E30/L30 stack. Currently, I'm using the Topping setup. Any solid state amp with a low output impedance and enough power will run the Arya just fine, and all will sound exactly the same. Same goes for DACs. There is more snake oil is audio than in used cars. All this talk about differences in "layering", "sound stage", "instrument separation", etc. is anecdotal nonsense. All modern solid state amps and DACs are neutral from well below to well above the frequency range of human hearing, and all have noise floors, channel separation, harmonic and intermodulation distortion levels, etc. well below the range of human hearing, unless deliberately designed otherwise. They are all going to sound the same. You don't need a $1,000 amp for the Arya.
@@ExSkyCyclePilot So you haven't actually used a high-end DAC or amp, and yet are convinced that they're all the same? If someone reports that going from one DAC or amp to another made a noticeable difference, that might be an "anecdote", but by what basis do you totally disregard all anecdotes as "nonsense"?
I've heard many people attest to great bass response on the Arya. The difference is that they were generally using higher-end DACs and amps than you've used.
@@MayTheSchwartzBeWithYou On what basis? Science... My education and decades of experience are in electronics engineering and design. The Aryas do have great bass response, down to well below 20 Hz, and excellent transient response, but the Aryas are dead flat on the low end, and no amount of money thrown at them will make them anything else, unless you have a DAC or amp with shelved-up bass below about 100 Hz.
That was so interesting. Thank you for doing that interview.
Let's be honest...there are a lot of hype over Hifiman products.
They look cheap, ugly and experimental. They still have manufacturing and control quality issues, and carry the indisputable trademark of "made in china".
Clearly is a bunch of technicians who stumbled upon an interesting technology (planar magnetics) and are still experimenting and learning while charging their customers. It's just a startup, not an established brand, even after all those years.
Their success comes from bringing that technology to a popular level...something that I respect, actually.
I've heard AKGs lasting 20 years...I really doubt a Sundara can last 5 years.
You're pretty skeptical. They're not perfect, but many of their products are well reviewed and they are pushing their tech forward unlike companies with more history like Sennheiser. Many technologies were lucky inventions, but as you said it takes time and tons of effort to bring products to market.
My dilemma right now for my Stax 009 is either the Hifiman SHANGRI-LA jr amp, Blue Hawaii SE or the iESL combined with the McIntosh MHA-150.
Which configuration to choose?
Blue Hawaii. 18ma with almost 2000 volts peak to peak is rather unmatched. For me, only the KGSSHV carbon and the T2 beat it. I have a KGST and that is quite close to a BHSE and has the tube magic I love and crave. I would only upgrade to a T2.
I love Hifiman products. Thinking about the Shangri-La Jr. lately. I just missed a great opportunity, damn. Did you like the junior?
I didn't try the Junior, just the Sr off the Junior amp.
*his vision for the future is wrong, its not wireless, its fkin VR! Soundstage and positioning that move with your head to replicate real life!*
I'm not interested in that. Maybe YOU are wrong.
Dust cover is to cover the imperfections of the driver that you keep getting complaints on.
what imperfections? and for which models?
@@Viewer13128 On the magnets. You can search around. A lot of people complained abt it.
Yes my drivers had a few imperfections but they sound amazing regardless
Where are my 2 comments from earlier, about the Shangri-La? Deleted.......Really..............................
There was no need for name-calling. The rest of the comments/opinions expressed were fine.
@@TheHEADPHONEShow Don't understand the term 'name-calling'. I only mentioned a headphone product's name and commented on its price and performance. But OK, it's your channel, you run it however you wish to run it.
@@petrolhead007 oh, it wasn't your comment that was name-calling, it was the chain you replied to. Your concerns were totally valid.
@@petrolhead007 Can you repost the comment, please? I am curios to know which product you commented on. Thanks.
@@MegaFabioRocks I said that the price of the Hifiman Shangri-La was not remotely justifiable, especially when we have headphones like the Stax SR-009 and Abyss AB-1266 which are amongst the best in terms of detail retrieval, and available at a much lower prices. Also, the Shangri-La's aesthetics are not in line with the price tag.
The prices of the Shangri-La and Sennheiser HE-1 are not far from each other. And I have never believed that the price of the HE-1 is justifiable at all. Having said that, I believe that there is no comparison between the HE-1 and Shangri-La in terms of performance and aesthetic.
I've heard many headphones and nothing has come close to the HE-1.
I'd say the 2nd best (in my opinion) are the Sonoma Model One.