Table of Contents
Introduction
Now, I’ve not been particularly engaged with the headphone community until rather recently given my specialisation in IEMs. But even I have heard of Sivga and their sister company Sendy, who are your typical OEM-turned-frontman brands that have gotten their fame through various YouTube personalities.
The Phoenix is the more recent of Sivga’s releases coming in mid-late last year, and have since gotten a cult following that’s not unexpected given its target audience. It’s a headphone that sports a 50mm dynamic driver and Sivga themselves claim that they were designed to compete with popular mid-fi headphones like the Sennhesier HD6X0 and the… Meze 99 Classics. Their words, not mine.
As with everything else that comes through my offices, now IEF is here to answer the burning question you all undoubtedly will be asking. How good is the Phoenix actually?
Product page: http://www.sivgaaudio.com/product_d?id=5
MSRP: $255
Driver type: Dynamic
This Phoenix was kindly provided by Sivga.
Non-audio opinions
My unboxing posts are pretty much the only times I’ll ever talk about build quality, accessories and the like. I’m not really the person to ask about these things as I don’t really care about them that much.
Accessories: hard case.
Cable: single-wire cloth sheath. Somewhat expected for the price, if a little cheap-feeling.
Connection: detachable 2.5mm TRS (per channel).
Build: metal headband and yokes, seems fairly sturdy at first glance with not outward weak points.
Fit: no complaints in terms of headband weight distribution and general pad comfort, though some extra extension would be appreciated.
Isolation: open-backed, self explanatory.
Initial impressions
- Just a touch on the warmer side. Tonality is generally pleasant and well-balanced with no real offensive characteristics.
- Sounds like a good alternative to another chifi headphone, the HarmonicDyne Zeus, if one wants a warm-sounding headphone but not one to the level of warmth that the Zeus possesses.
- Somewhat flat sounding (in terms of dynamics).
- Not the most resolving but there are definitely worse headphones out there in this regard. Certainly expected more given the tuning.
- Directly competes with the Sennheiser HD6X0 in terms of pricing and somewhat in terms of tuning. It won’t convince existing fans and ultimately loses the sonic comparison especially on the technical front, but it does put up a far more decent fight than I expected.
Measurements
All data has been uploaded to the Graph Comparison Tool.
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9 thoughts on “Sivga Phoenix: Unboxing”
Would you be able to expand on what “dynamics” means? I did a google search but found nothing conclusive. Thanks!
Dynamics in audio terms describe how loud and how quiet a song (depending on compression, mixing, mastering) or a headphone (depending on certain characteristics of the driver) can be. If a headphone is lacking in dynamics, it can’t properly reproduce the differences in loudness in different parts of a song. A headphone with poor dynamics would make distant ambeint noises sound louder, and nearby explosions sound quieter than they’re supposed to.
Thank you, that’s the kind of explanation I was looking for.
Just want to say I went to school for sound design and this is as perfect an explanation as possible. The example about ambient noises/explosions really illustrates the point. Well said.
Upgraded cable on Phoenix to Audiiquest balanced cable that came with the Nightowl playing Tidal through Tone 2 Dac amp gave me about 200 percent improvement in resolution dynamics and sounds amazing.
Like a headphone rising from the ashes! Totally involving and engaging!
Very analogue like sound…
I have a rather low tolerance for bollocks, so that’s my fill for today. Only thing i’m glad about is you spelled the snake oil wrong😄
Could you link the cable you purchased? I just got the Phoenix’s.
Subbass extension looks really nice for an open back?
I noticed the same thing. The warmish tilt probably helps a bit, because it puts the slight rolloff closer to neutral, but it’s still quite good on paper.