HIFIMAN Edition XS Over-Ear Planar Magnetic Wired Headphones (Refurbished)

The Hifiman Edition XS are widely considered in the audiophile community to be one of the best value midrange headphones available, and are definitely worth considering at $279. The lowest price the non-refurbished edition xs has been (in western markets) for the past couple of years is $379, with refurbished being around $339. According to hifiman, the refurbished edition xs are: "Only available in the US, Canada, UK and EU countries. Back-ordered in EU countries. Will ship from Feb. 5th."

Rtings review: https://www.rtings.com/headphones...edition-xs

A few basics to get out of the way first, since I know people wander onto these headphone deals not realizing these are audiophile cans for critical listening: these headphones are wired only (no bluetooth or wireless connections of any kind), have no form of active noise cancelling, have extremely poor sound isolation (you can hear whats going on around you, and everyone around you can hear what you're listening too), and are extremely heavy and bulky. They are designed to be used at home with a dedicated audio setup.

With a weight of 0.93 lbs (421.8 grams) they are somewhat heavier than average headphones, and may be uncomfortable for extended use depending on fit. They use the standard hifiman headband, which while not bad isn't anything amazing (at least in my experience), though this is obviously a matter of personal preference. The earcups are absolutely enormous, and the overall fit of this headphone is best for larger heads.

The edition xs has an impedance of 18 ohms and a sensitivity of 92db. The combination of quite low impedance along with fairly low sensitivity means these headphones are moderately difficult to drive, but as long as you're not planning on using eq (equalization) you can probably get away with not using an amp if you have a high quality integrated audio solution on your motherboard. To be clear, sound will likely be improved with a dedicated audio setup, but these headphones aren't hard enough to drive that an amp is entirely necessary to get good sound. These headphones are not designed for portable use, and most phones and cheap usb-c to 3.5mm dongles probably won't do a very good job of driving them. If you'd be eqing these headphones to any meaningful degree (negative preamp of more than 3db or so), you'd probably want an amp. As planar magnetic headphones with low distortion they take rather well to eq, so eq is highly recommended if you have an amp.

The largest issue with these headphones is hifiman's quality control, unfortunately hifiman is infamous for poor quality control and poor product longevity. Poor driver matching, driver failure after months (or less) of use, crackling or rattling sounds when moving your head, and more are all relatively common complaints with hifiman headphones including the edition xs. This is not by any means guaranteed, the majority of purchasers receive headphones without glaring issues or premature failures, but hifimans quality control and product longevity still stands out as being distinctly worse than that of other major brands. As these headphones are refurbished the chances of issues are likely even higher. According to hifiman: "The refurbished products have been thoroughly inspected and are all tested in good working condition but may have parts replaced by the factory (as needed) and cosmetic defects.
All refurbished products also come with accessories and are securely packaged. If the original packaging is missing, we will ensure they are packaged in a brand-new brown box."

The refurbished edition xs come with 30 day returns and a 1 year standard warranty, from what I've heard hifiman's customer service tends to be decent (at least in the US), but obviously ymmv.
Warranty policy can be found here: https://store.hifiman.com/index.p...nty-policy

Overall, if these headphones would fit your use cases and you're willing to take a chance on refurbished hifiman headphones, this is a good deal.

I own both the Sundara and these Edition XS. The Sundara is one of the best valued headphones esp around the 200 dollar pricepoint and sounds great unamped (I think most people would be completely happy if Sundaras were their only only headphones).

That said, the Edition XS is clearly in a different league sound quality wise, but will require a fairly beefy amp and dac to reach its full potential. Im running the edition XS out of a balanced dac/amp setup and its pretty amazing, but I would say Sundaras will probably take you about 80-85% of the way there sound quality wise.