Edition XS (refurbished)

ok , I'll start with the bad, which you need to know. The build quality is ok. Not great at all. Not terrible, but don't throw it around.
The good: I am a cheap-ish audiophile. I have 17 headphones so far, because I'm also obsessive. Planar, magnetic, open back, closed back, professional IEMs, balanced etc.

These are, so far, the best headphones I have used for the price. Got them refurbished at 140 euro, and my god, it puts all my other similarly priced headphones to shame to such a degree it feels like listening to music for the first time.
Use a good dac, good sources, and the seperation , soundstage and detail is just wow.
Incredible value.

I am very satisfied with Edition XS headphones. They sound great.

HIFIMAN Edition XS Review (Refurbished – €148)

I have mixed feelings about the Edition XS.

First, the build quality didn't impress me. The hinge connecting the ear cups makes a slight ticking noise when I move my head to the music, which can be a bit annoying. It doesn't feel as premium as some of the competition.

Sound-wise, I also had an issue that I haven't seen many people mention. I don't know if it's my ears or my particular unit, but I had a massive dip around 8 kHz that made female vocals sound very muffled and recessed, especially coming from the Truthear Hexa and the Arya Organic, both of which sound much clearer in that region to me.

However, after spending quite a bit of time EQing the Edition XS and fine-tuning the treble dips and peaks, I was honestly blown away by how good it became. Once properly EQed, I would even say that, to my ears, it sounded as good as my non-EQed Arya Organic in many respects.

And that's the crazy part: I paid only €148 for a refurbished pair.

At that price, the performance is absolutely insane. It offers one of the best price-to-performance ratios I've ever experienced in audio. Even though it's refurbished, I still get a two-year warranty, so honestly, even if it died after those two years, I wouldn't mind spending another €150 to get this level of sound again.

Not perfect, and certainly not the most premium headphone out there, but for €148, the Edition XS is an absolute bargain and one of the best audio purchases I've made.

Great headphones, absolutely love them. Just keep in mind that they need a fairly powerful amp. On my FiiO JM21, they only started to shine with a balanced cable. But once they did, they sounded amazing!

Refurbished was an excellent choice — I got a fantastic pair of headphones at an unbelievably low price.

Great headphones, but they need a balanced cable.