Introduction

HIFIMAN has often impressed positively with its headphones and earphones I've reviewed, including the exciting and premium-class Arya with stealth magnets revision, novel TWS800 wireless IEMs, and excellent value-for-money HE400se that is a great example of tuning done right in the ~$120 price range. None of those reviews were necessarily of brand-new products since I am still catching up with the world of consumer stereo equipment, but that has not stopped the company from introducing more. In fact, there were two new releases in China late last year which caught the eye of many internationally. Among them, the Edition XS was easily the most discussed given its Edition X predecessor cost $1800 when we covered it six years ago. Certain unauthorized retailers then decided to cash in on this by taking the then-China-only item and selling it for $400 internationally before slowly increasing the rate as demand went past stock and HIFIMAN started clamping down.


As it turns out, the final rate those retailers settled upon was the international launch price for the HIFIMAN Edition XS when it did come out internationally earlier this year. I'll reveal that number on the final page, but suffice it to say that it makes the $1800 Edition X seem quite overpriced. In an excellent example of technology trickling down the product chain and being amortized over different designs, HIFIMAN has also included many of the features we saw in the $1600 HFIMAN Arya, and the design no doubt is reminiscent of that popular teardrop-shaped set of headphones, too. Let's take a closer look at the new HIFIMAN Edition XS as we begin this review with a look at the product specifications below and thank HIFIMAN for providing TechPowerUp a review sample!

Specifications