The saturation of the instruments is considerable, and the stage is not cramped, although it is wider, the depth can also delight. The stealth magnet sticker points to the revised driver design of this model—more on the driver redesign later in the Sound section. The other consideration for the Deva is that it’s an open-back headphone, meaning the use case for wireless functionality is also a bit different from typical wireless headphones.

Their strengths are the naturalness and realism of the sound, along with the incredible freedom and purity of the sound. The strings and details are at an impressive and very high level, and the whole thing has a lot of freedom and air. The HiFiMAN Deva uses a planar magnetic transducer, that I’m told isn’t actually based on any of HiFiMAN’s previous designs. This means that vocals are not quite as forward as on other models and added to the slight reduction in the low mids, and that peak at 5kHz, can mean that they lose a little of their richness, along with a bit of an extra sizzle that can be a little piercing depending on the track in question. It also differs in that the Bluetooth module is inside the cup for the Mobius, while it attaches to the outside of the Deva.The vocals are easily projected in front of you, the imaging of every single instrument is spot-on, they don’t get lost or compressed.

The Himalaya sound quality is very good under Bluetooth mode and much better when it is used with the cable as a USB DAC connected to a PC. It’s the 3rd headphone to receive the stealth magnet array after the HE-1000SE’s original inheritance from the Susvara. The sub-bass is rumbly but the mid-bass is lacking some punch and the overall bass region is levelled and close to neutral. It sounds colorful, natural, airy, and accurate, without a sign of harshness or anything that could bother me.For obvious reasons, I used bluemini as a source for my assessment, but also the xduoo mu602 stationary amplifier with the MT602 DAC and the iBasso DX170 file player. As many long-time readers know, I have a particular keen attraction with Hifiman and their line of planar magnetic headphones. In BT mode there is more emphasis near the sub-bass it seems, though the bass sounds rolled-off after 35Hz in all three modes (Bluetooth, USB, and wired).