[Music] Harman has released this line of unveiled headphones that come with these little covers and an exposed driver and honestly I think a lot of people are going 'Is this a good idea?' What's crazy is I did a community poll asking if the

unveiled part of the headphone was a good idea and after over a thousand votes only 18% of people said it was a good idea, the rest thought it was a bad idea or kind of a meh idea. Now I want to know

a couple things here. One is, is this actually good for sound or is this all just marketing? Is there a reason to do this or is this just for appearances? I also want to know for your headphones, really, how dangerous is it? We're going to be actually physically testing this

we're going to be talking to a subject matter expert, DMS, and I'm going to have some advice at the end. Now, Harman sent this out, but this video quite literally would not have been possible without my sponsor Headphones.com. They're actually making it possible for me to literally

risk this headphone to find out if it's safe or not to be around certain objects. Um, and I wouldn't have done that without today's sponsor, so I want to send them a huge shout out. They are a high-quality online retailer that will sell these as

well as the non-unveiled versions. Um, and I would definitely recommend checking them out in the link down below. They have a great online store with payment options, uh, really good return policy and excellent customer service if you have any questions, so check them out down below. Thanks again, Headphones.com. So

each of these series comes with this cover with a little protective material on the back and they're supposed to sit on the back of the driver literally anytime you're not using it now when these covers are off I really want to know what your risk factors actually are

look like the only way to test that is unfortunately to just simply test it so we have this monstrosity but you never saw painters tape on an ARA before I put a little bit of painters tape on here just so that it was covered and it

wouldn't leave any marks when I take it off so my nightmare scenario is just like putting something you know this down on the desk and just having something on there that's going to flip up and hit it we actually have some uh magnetic material here um just kind of

screws nuts um and like a little tiny lightweight washer and I really just want to know exactly how close it can get without being a problem and so I guess we'll just test it um I think that this will actually be relatively okay I

think it's going to have to be like pretty close to actually attract anything so these are pretty light um this is there's seemingly some hot spots for magnets but actually not in the middle it feels like the strongest magnets areas are like right here and

here and uh I think this also has some metal pieces on the inside of this uh grill protection that kind of clips on like that uh but yeah not much of an attraction here maybe a tiny bit you see it's not completely sliding off but it's

definitely not enough to like pick pick stuff up really yeah so I don't know I'm kind of impressed by that actually I thought it was going to be worse and uh this tape shouldn't be impeding the magnets at all just kind of protecting the driver I thought this

would be worse honestly so I don't think it's going to be things like this that are the actual problem I think it's going to be um really really small fine pieces of metal that are magnetic that are like on your hands and I also worry

about things like physically just poking it because if something pokes it that even is non-magnetic it's going to be a problem also want to point out a couple things here um one the density of the magnets on the Arya is a little bit kind

of more uh like densely packed together and the surface area from side to side is also less than that of the Susar which is a little bit more open from side to side and the density of the magnets is wider apart so I feel like

your risk of actually poking the Susar driver is a bit higher than the risk of poking this driver an object just slightly bigger could fit in here so definitely something to think about something to consider and just for general maintenance I've been kind of

wiping this off before putting it on just to make sure there's like absolutely no debris on the inside of this and they kind of just clip on in like this real simple way uh but they're not on there super strong so even when you're putting this or storing it

somewhere you're going to want to be a little careful as to um moving this around because it does slip kind of easily all right now something that I think Hyman totally should have done is just included a similar structure to this that had an outside perimeter that

was like magnetically attached but was just maybe a piece of cloth over it so that way you could choose if you wanted to keep a somewhat protective layer on there when you're leaving it open back you can still play it it's not going to obstruct the sound too much but it would

protect it just a little bit from day-to-day use um that is something that I think they definitely should have included especially on the higher end things like Susvara I'm curious if they will end up selling something like that or if third-party manufacturers will end

up making it um cuz it's definitely something that I would consider making uh cuz it seems like something that would be probably wanted by the people who buy this and something that I would personally invest into now my buddy DMS actually has a bit of history with

things like this one he used to work for Abyss which is a planar magnetic company and he also owns his own headphone manufacturer that has an exposed driver though it's a dynamic so as of right now I'm not aware of a better person suited

to actually analyze the benefits and drawbacks of a design like this I want to thank them for coming on and here's that bit of the interview so um you have a bit of history with uh building your own headphone company and that's true also a bit of history with a planar

magnetic company being Abyss yep what are the pros and cons of this design is it all marketing is there a reason to do it are there like if you're using it properly is there a danger to owning something like this what's the uh what's

the vibe you get from this okay so there's two sides of the coin side one is this is is literally the thing that I I've been doing with a dynamic driver it's just a completely opened dynamic driver with no protective back on it so I'm kind of guilty of

something similar the flip side is is that I think that the likelihood of dynamic drivers getting damage from the back is a lot lower I think the likelihood of a larger thin exposed membrane getting damaged is potentially higher me personally I have screws and metal bits

and snips all kinds of things all over my desk all the time um I would worry about that there depending on the driver there can be acoustic benefits I would think that a very low acoustic impedance grill kind of like the grill for the Arya say minus the mesh

would be still low enough acoustic resistance that it wouldn't change the frequency response but would still offer some of protection at least against large things like this but not against like little screws and stuff like that the big thing that this has a benefit of is acoustic

impedance like there's basically no acoustic impedance at all behind it it's just the resistance of the air which can be huge like acoustic impedance is one of the biggest challenges with headphones period on both sides of the diaphragm and planar headphones are already on

the lower acoustic Z side of that so this does make them even lower which is realistically a very good thing it's just a risky one I'm I'm kind of curious how these are going to age I'm you yeah me as well I know how

people use their headphones and uh it's not how I use my headphones and it it makes me a little bit nervous so we'll see what the long term shows this is why I like closed backs they just survive longer in my environments it's kind of

an interesting move from a company that already I feel like battles um so some issues with like known for being reliable yes the crux of it is just going to come down to like just be conscious about what you're buying and conscious while you're owning

it and you're probably going to be okay it's going to be a question of how easily breakable the uh the headphones are because of this maybe it's not that much maybe it's just like you know very specific niche uh circumstances that

lead to it being breakable um or maybe it's going to be real bad and I's going to regret this who knows I do think that um you are inherently incurring a little bit more risk it's just I don't know exactly how much I have a high degree of

confidence that a regular Arya is probably going to last a lot longer than an Arya unveiled however there are lots of acoustic benefits which is something people care a lot about and honestly it's kind of a ballsy move like I I kind of have a little bit of respect for

Hyman for doing that cuz it's like you guys know the risks but you're doing it so like you clearly there's benefits here to be had that you're interested in in in um manifesting yeah that I mean I do think it's a ballsy move it seems a

bit like an obsessive move actually like somebody in their you know in their engineering team is like no like we have to we have to remove but is that not what we chase in this hobby no exactly exactly you have to be a little bit

obsessive to spend you know ,000 plus I remember when I worked at Abyss there you know they would get in returns or not not necessarily returns they would get in repairs every now and then of like old units and stuff and I remember every now and then they would get one

that had a you know some metal shaving or something like that and I don't think they had much trouble with um diaphragms getting penetrated by metal but they did have a couple cases where metal fragments had got in and had pinned a diaphragm to a magnet and it just

wouldn't move uh and I remember they opened up a 1266 once and Eric said sheesh what was this guy doing working in a a lawnmower blade sharpening factory it was just you know it was like when you hold a magnet against like a uh

one of those Ferris paper things and you see like the outline yeah so some guy had somehow just like dumped metal shavings into it which is pretty wild but it does happen personal hot take I don't think the benefits are going to be worth it

but you know it's not my risk mitigation to take, it's not my, my uh, my problem, so I hope that it works out cuz they sound pretty good. I appreciate the call, Buddy. Sure thing. You want me to just cut it there? Yeah, I think we're good. Okay, so

I have some words of wisdom regarding the resale market.  Suarzs have always been a headphone that uh has a, a very high resale value, um and they seem to turn over a lot as far as the ultra high-end headphones go, um they really do seem to

be sold often from user to user. Now, this one I don't think is going to be any different, however, I do think that the um market is going to be more particular about which ones that they purchase and I also think that the difference between a good version and a bad version will be

the difference in not just hundreds of dollars, but thousands of dollars. I think people are going to be very sensitive to the potential dangers of um an open headphone like this that doesn't have a grill on the outside. So I think that one of the things that people should look

for and are going to look for is that your accessories, the extra parts and the actual physical build of it are in really good condition. Making sure you have all of your accessories like these little protective cases that come with it, um making sure your box is in

excellent condition. Small things like your bag and the book that comes with this thing. Yeah, it comes with a book, all these things go into making reselling a headphone um easier and you're able to ask a higher price if you're missing things like the covers, like I don't

I think anybody should buy it if you're missing the covers. Also, if these things are just scuffed or scratched, I think people are going to be a little nervous about buying your particular Susvara unveiled. And I think that they should be. Now, unlike most headphones, you

can lose some accessories and you'll probably have relatively similar resale value to somebody with all the accessories, maybe a couple hundred difference. I think that working versions of this that are just in sort of rough condition are probably going to be in the $3,000 range, maybe even less

depending on how bad the actual physical build is. Um, but I think that good condition ones that are perfect and look like absolutely pristine and well taken care of could be upwards of $5,000 to $6,000 after the market settles a little bit. Obviously, the resale value in the short

term is going to be higher because it's a newer headphone, um, and people want a couple thousand dollars off. But as the years go on, I think that, you know, if you want to maintain that high value, you are going to really want to take care of it.

So, a couple pieces of advice for any high-end headphone, but also specifically the unveiled, these covers are there for you to use. Um, you want to put this on literally anytime you are not using it. That will protect the driver. Um, it's going to be less susceptible to problems

while you're wearing it because you're wearing it and it's playing and it's going to be harder for dust to settle on a moving driver. But once it's sitting, that could be a problem over time. I don't know for sure, but it could be. So I

would use the covers obviously the rest of the accessories put them in a box don't touch it just put it in a corner somewhere don't mess with it don't take it out often just let it sit there and look you know perfect and pristine that

way if you do go to resell this you'll get yourself back back a few more thousand potentially you may think this is uh common sense but surprisingly it's not all right now my honest advice for the market of buying and selling these used I think that the room for user error

and the way that some people treat their headphones if I see any red flags on these I'm probably not going to buy it used simple fact even if it feels like a good deal um I just feel like the damage potential with an open driver is high

enough and as a buyer myself from the used market this headphone would make me quite nervous to buy and for potential buyers of this on the used market I would get a a closeup picture of the driver as a requirement I would not buy it without a physical picture of the

outside of both ear cups um to make sure that it's not punctured and there's nothing weird sitting in there that's going to rattle or anything like that um and I would be pretty particular about it as you should be for the asking price my conclusion is pretty simple I

don't think that this is going to to just pull things from across the room to smash against the driver I think you want to be in a clean environment you want to be aware of your surroundings and that is going to turn some users off and maybe that's totally fair you're

definitely incurring more risk obviously but I think that for a responsible adult I would personally have no problem owning this myself just because I am meticulous in my care for the things that I own if you're somebody who's a little bit more haphazard I would

probably stay away from this now this is going to be sort of the introduction video to the series of reviews let me know what your thoughts are in the comment section down below was this worse or better than you thought just let me know what you're thinking I'll

get to these reviews shortly but I won't see you guys until after Thanksgiving so if you celebrate have a Happy Thanksgiving I want to thank headphones again for sponsoring today's video and I want to thank you for watching see you

Are Hifiman Unveiled Headphones Safe? W/ DMS!

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