The planar that finally gets bass right, without the crutches
I first heard the Ananda Nano at an audio boutique in Barcelona while on holiday and spent the rest of the trip thinking about them. By the time I was home, the decision was made. I picked up a B-stock pair and, apart from a brief episode of dust-induced rattling that cleared on its own, they have been flawless.
What sets the Ananda Nano apart for me is how effortlessly it handles bass, both in quality and quantity, without the distortion that usually comes as the price of admission on planar designs. It is the only planar I have personally heard that delivers genuinely satisfying low-end weight while remaining composed and clean. Other headphones in my rotation benefit from a light multiband compressor on the bass shelf, but the Ananda Nano simply doesn't need one. Applying that kind of processing to something this resolving and transparent would only get in the way.
The nanometer-scale diaphragm does show elevated distortion figures in some measurement sets, and that has led to criticism in certain technical reviews. In extended listening, however, those numbers simply don't translate into anything audible under normal conditions. The measurement methodology involved, typically performed at high SPL with a static signal, doesn't reflect how the driver actually behaves in dynamic, real-world playback. What you hear instead is one of the most open, effortless presentations I have encountered at this price.
EQ needs are minimal. A small corrective adjustment here and there is more than sufficient, which itself speaks to how well-tuned the stock response is. If you are considering these and have been put off by the distortion discourse, set that aside and trust your ears.
Added a an image of my measurement with (brown) and without (green) eq.
