The Package

HiFiMAN ships the ANANDA-BT in a sturdy cardboard box. Inside, you find a very nice, rugged traveling case that is sculpted to fit the headphones without adding too much bulk.


HiFiMAN stepped up their bundle game tremendously with the ANANDA-BT. The carrying case and the cable options, along with the microphone, really make it a complete package.


The headphones are charged through a USB-C port. The USB-C can also be used to plug the headphones into PCs, tablets, etc., if you run out of power, which is a great feature. Inside the box, you find both a USB-C to USB-C cable, along with a normal USB to USB-C cable.


Another new feature for the ANANDA-BT is the inclusion of a boom microphone. This means the headphones can double up as a high-end gaming headset if needed. As a headset for home use, the ANANDA-BT works flawlessly, but in a LAN scenario, I would prefer having something that gives a good amount of noise attenuation.

Closer Examination

The ANANDA-BT is a full-size headphone that features the same ear cup design as the Edition X and Arya headphones. The ear cups completely envelope your ears, and the plush ear pads mean you can listen for hours without really noticing the headphones.


Even though it is designed as a headphone, it doubles as a headset when you insert the boom microphone. The boom is definitely not the longest, but it does get the microphone about 5 cm closer to your mouth, which really helps pick up your voice compared to headsets that rely solely on a beam-forming microphone array on the ear cups. Compared to the Sony WH1000-XM 2, the quality of speech is on par, with perhaps a slightly higher noise floor, which might be due less processing in the microphone path on the ANANDA-BT.